Facts:
Alvin M. de Leon began employment with
Philippine Transmarine Carriers, Inc. (PTC) on January 31, 2005 as a Hotel Personnel Planner and was later promoted to Hotel Personnel Officer before being seconded in December 2010 to First Maritime Shared Services, Inc. (FMSSI) as a Scheduler. During his tenure he received multiple company awards, but he was served two written memoranda in 2010 for an alleged violation of PTC’s Code of Discipline concerning acceptance of gifts; he replied and received only a verbal reprimand. PTC revised its Code of Discipline in 2012 to provide expressly in Section O.5 that no employee shall offer or accept directly or indirectly any gift with a collective value of Php 500.00 and above and that any employee who accepts any gift from a crew member, ex‑crew member, or their representative shall be dismissed even on first offense; de Leon received a copy of the revised code on September 7, 2012. On October 9, 2013 de Leon and co‑employee Aaron T. Brillante were caught on CCTV accepting a brown bag containing two bottles of Jack Daniel’s worth USD 36 from a shipboard acquaintance, Mustafa Acar, delivered through a waiter, Fred Rikko B. Adefuin; de Leon admitted that he instructed Adefuin to give the gift to Brillante in a far section of the office because of the CCTV and later admitted acceptance when confronted. PTC served de Leon a memorandum to explain and a thirty‑day suspension notice on October 25, 2013, held an administrative hearing on November 6, 2013, and received an explanatory email from Acar on November 12, 2013. PTC terminated de Leon’s employment by written resolution dated November 22, 2013. De Leon filed a complaint for illegal dismissal with the Labor Arbiter on January 30, 2014, which was dismissed on July 30, 2014. The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) initially partially granted his appeal on October 21, 2014 but, upon motion for reconsideration by PTC, reversed itself and found the dismissal valid on November 28, 2014. De Leon filed a Petition for Certiorari under Rule 65 with the Court of Appeals (CA), which dismissed it on July 19, 2016 as filed out of time but nevertheless found no grave abuse of discretion in the NLRC’s Resolution; the CA denied reconsideration on May 23, 2017. The Supreme Court Second Division rendered the present Decision dated June 19, 2019 hearing de Leon’s petition for review on certiorari.
Issues:
Was the Petition for Certiorari filed by
Alvin M. de Leon with the Court of Appeals filed out of time? Was
Alvin M. de Leon validly dismissed by
PTC for violating its Code of Discipline?
Ruling:
Ratio:
Doctrine: