Note: The Custom-Files booster attributes the monthly-conversion formula — "P60 + P90 + P60 + (P2.00 x 262) divided by 12 = P 253.70" — to Section 3(a)(3) of the Rules Implementing Wage Orders Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6. The lawphil full text attributes it instead to the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4, issued 21 May 1984. This digest follows the full text, because the date on which that formula first appeared is the load-bearing fact of the holding.
Facts
- Globe Mackay Cable and Radio Corporation is an international telecommunications company; FFW-Globe Mackay Employees Union is the bargaining representative of its monthly-paid employees, and Eda Concepcion a member who joined as complainant.
- From Wage Order No. 1 (March 26, 1981) through Wage Order No. 5 (June 11, 1984) the company paid the mandated cost-of-living allowance, computing the monthly COLA on a thirty (30)-day multiplier — in full for every day of the calendar month. This is the payment the union later said had ripened into protected practice; the company's answer was that it simply did not know any better.
- In 1982 the parties executed a CBA fixing "[e]ight net working hours … for five days" and "[f]orty net hours of work, 5 working days" as the regular work week. The five-day week meant the monthly basic pay was built on twenty-two paid days a month — the fact that decided the case.
- On May 21, 1984, the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 laid down, for the first time in any issuance, a formula for converting a daily allowance into its monthly equivalent — daily allowance × 262 ÷ 12, which the Labor Arbiter computed as "the equivalent of 21.8 days in a month." Before that date there was a "lack of administrative guidelines" — the vacuum on which the error defense rests.
- On October 30, 1984, Wage Order No. 6 raised the COLA by P3.00 per day. Globe Mackay complied, but computed the monthly equivalent by multiplying P3.00 × 22 working days — P66.00 instead of the P90.00 a thirty-day multiplier would give.
- The union insisted on thirty days: a monthly-paid employee receives a fixed salary covering all days of the month, so under Section 5 of the implementing rules he is entitled to the allowance on all thirty "even if unworked." It added that the pre-Wage-Order-6 thirty-day payment had ripened into a voluntary employer practice that could not be withdrawn without violating Article 100.
- Grievance proceedings failed, and in January 1985 the union and Concepcion sued for illegal deduction, underpayment and violation of Wage Order No. 6, impleading President Frederick White and Vice-President Jesus Santiago personally.
- On May 9, 1985, Labor Arbiter Adelaido F. Martinez ruled for the company on every point. His rationale was internal consistency: "To compel the respondent company to use 30 days in a month to compute the allowance and retain 22 days for vacation and sick leave, overtime pay and other benefits is inconsistent and palpably unjust." The payroll proof was decisive: Jesus L. Santos, who worked a Saturday and a Sunday, "was paid base pay plus 50% premium" — impossible if those days were already inside the monthly salary — and the payrolls of Dennis Dungon and Rene Sanvictores showed the company "consistently used twenty-two (22) days" for vacation and sick leave.
- On March 10, 1986 a divided NLRC reversed on all three points and declared petitioners guilty of illegal deductions. The company brought certiorari; the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on May 19, 1986 and decided the case on June 29, 1988.
Issue
Whether the company's pre-Wage-Order-6 practice of paying full monthly COLA was a voluntary employer practice under Article 100 barring later computation on a twenty-two-day basis, or was instead attributable to an error in construing a doubtful question of law, correctable without violating Article 100.
Secondary issues. Whether COLA under Wage Order No. 6 is computed on a thirty-day or twenty-two-day basis for monthly-paid employees under a five-day-work-week CBA; and whether the corporate officers were properly impleaded.
Ruling
Main issue. NOT a protected practice — it was inadequately proven as long, consistent and deliberate, and was in any event attributable to a genuine error in construing a doubtful question of law given the absence of conversion guidelines before May 21, 1984. Its correction gave rise to no vested right and no Article 100 diminution.
Secondary issues. COLA is computed on a twenty-two-day basis, consistent with the CBA and the payroll evidence. The Court accepted that a thirty-day rule would apply if the monthly salary in fact covered all days of the month — it did not here. With the principal liability resolved for petitioners, there was "no further need to discuss the liability of the officers."
"WHEREFORE, certiorari is granted, the Decision of the National Labor Relations Commission, dated 10 March 1986, is SET ASIDE, and the Decision of the Labor Arbiter, dated 9 May 1985, is hereby REINSTATED. The Temporary Restraining Order heretofore issued is hereby made permanent. SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The organising principle comes from the implementing rule itself: "The primordial consideration … for entitlement to COLA is that basic wage is being paid… So that, on the days that employees are not paid their basic wage, the payment of COLA is not mandated." University of Pangasinan Faculty Union states it as "the principle of 'No Pay, No ECOLA.'"
- The Court conceded the union's rule and denied its application: if the monthly salary covers all the days in a month, employees "should be entitled to their COLA on those days 'even if unworked,' as the NLRC had opined" — but "[p]eculiar to this case … the monthly basic pay is computed on the basis of five (5) days a week, or twenty two (22) days a month."
- That rested on payroll proof, not the CBA's words alone: Santos's Saturday and Sunday base pay plus 50% premium, and the consistent use of twenty-two days for leave computations. "[T]he CBA is the law between the parties and, if not acceptable, can be the subject of future re-negotiation."
- On non-diminution, the earlier full payments "should not be construed as constitutive of voluntary employer practice… To be considered as such, it should have been practiced over a long period of time, and must be shown to have been consistent and deliberate. Adequate proof is wanting in this respect."
- Oceanic Pharmacal Employees Union (FFW) v. Inciong supplies the mental element: the employer there "agreed to continue giving holiday pay knowing fully well that said employees are not covered by the law requiring payment of holiday pay." Deliberateness therefore means knowledge that one is not obliged.
- The deeper explanation for the over-payment: "before Wage Order No. 4, there was lack of administrative guidelines for the implementation of the Wage Orders. It was only when the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 were issued on 21 May 1984 that a formula for the conversion of the daily allowance to its monthly equivalent was laid down."
- Hence, under Articles 2154 and 2155 of the Civil Code: "Absent clear administrative guidelines, Petitioner Corporation cannot be faulted for erroneous application of the law. Payment may be said to have been made by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a 'doubtful or difficult question of law.' … Since it is a past error that is being corrected, no vested right may be said to have arisen nor any diminution of benefit under Article 100 of the Labor Code may be said to have resulted by virtue of the correction."
Doctrine
A benefit becomes protected voluntary employer practice under Article 100 only if "practiced over a long period of time" and "shown to have been consistent and deliberate," deliberateness requiring under Oceanic Pharmacal that the employer acted "knowing fully well" it was under no obligation; the burden lies on the party asserting the practice. Correlatively, a payment made "by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a doubtful or difficult question of law," within Articles 2154 and 2155, gives rise to no vested right, and its correction is no diminution under Article 100. On the wage side, COLA follows the basic wage — "No Pay, No ECOLA" — so the multiplier is the number of days the employer actually pays basic wage, which the CBA and the payrolls, not the calendar, determine.
Limits. The error exception requires a genuine absence of clear guidance, not inconvenience or afterthought: what qualified was the total lack of any conversion formula until the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 appeared, and once guidelines exist an employer who keeps deviating is no longer mistaken. The two grounds here are cumulative, not alternative — the record failed to establish a practice and independently qualified for the error exception. Nor is twenty-two days a general divisor: the Court expressly accepted that where the monthly salary covers all days of the month, COLA is due for all of them. Finally, no restitution of the earlier over-payments was ordered; solutio indebiti was used only to negate a vested right, not to claw money back.
Full Digest — Recitation Format
Gist
Globe Mackay computed the monthly cost-of-living allowance (COLA) mandated by Wage Order No. 6 on the basis of twenty-two working days per month, consistent with its CBA's five-day work week, rather than the union's preferred thirty-day basis; the union further claimed that the company's pre-Wage-Order-6 practice of paying full monthly COLA was a voluntary employer practice under Article 100 that could not be unilaterally altered. The NLRC ruled for the union on both points, but the Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the Labor Arbiter's decision upholding the twenty-two-day computation. Central to the Topic/Subtopic, the Court held the company's prior payment practice was not only insufficiently proven as long, consistent, and deliberate, but was in any event attributable to the absence of clear administrative guidelines for converting the daily COLA into its monthly equivalent — a genuine error in construing a doubtful question of law under Articles 2154 and 2155 of the Civil Code that, once corrected, gave rise to no vested right and no diminution of benefits under Article 100.
Facts
- Globe Mackay Cable and Radio Corporation is a domestic corporation engaged in international telecommunications. Frederick White was its President and Jesus Santiago its Vice-President; both were later sued in their own names for the money claims.
- FFW-Globe Mackay Employees Union is a legitimate labor organization and the sole and exclusive bargaining representative of the company's monthly-paid employees; Eda Concepcion, a monthly-paid employee and union member, joined as a complainant below.
- On March 26, 1981, the Ministry of Labor and Employment issued Wage Order No. 1, mandating a cost-of-living allowance increase for private-sector workers. Globe Mackay complied.
- Through 1981 to mid-1984, Wage Orders Nos. 2, 3 and 5 followed — the last taking effect June 11, 1984 — and Globe Mackay paid the mandated COLA under each. Throughout this period it computed and paid the monthly COLA by using a thirty (30)-day multiplier, that is, in full for every day of the calendar month. This is the payment the Union would later say had ripened into a protected company practice; the company's position was that it simply did not know any better.
- In 1982, Globe Mackay and the Union executed a Collective Bargaining Agreement covering the monthly-paid employees. Article XV(a) provided that "[e]ight net working hours shall constitute the regular work day for five days"; Article XV(b) fixed "[f]orty net hours of work, 5 working days" as the regular work week; and Article XVI, Section 1(b) provided that overtime "in excess of eight net hours daily or in excess of 5 days weekly" be paid hourly at time and one-half. The five-day work week meant the monthly basic pay was built on twenty-two paid days a month — the fact that ultimately decided the case, and the reason the Court called this dispute "peculiar."
- On May 21, 1984, the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 were issued, laying down — for the first time in any issuance — a formula for converting a daily allowance into its monthly equivalent. For workers not paid on Saturdays and Sundays the formula multiplies the daily allowance by 262 and divides by 12, which the Labor Arbiter computed as "the equivalent of 21.8 days in a month." Before this date there was, in the Court's phrase, a "lack of administrative guidelines" — the vacuum on which the whole error defense rests.
- On October 30, 1984, Wage Order No. 6 took effect, increasing the COLA of non-agricultural private-sector workers by P3.00 per day. Globe Mackay complied and paid the mandated P3.00 daily COLA.
- In computing the monthly equivalent of that COLA, however, Globe Mackay multiplied P3.00 by twenty-two (22) days — the number of working days in the company — rather than by thirty as before, giving P66.00 a month instead of P90.00.
- The Union disagreed, insisting on a thirty (30)-day multiplier. Its reasoning was that a monthly-paid employee receives a fixed monthly salary covering all days of the month, including unworked Saturdays, Sundays and holidays; since he is therefore "paid his basic wage" on all thirty days, Section 5 of the Rules Implementing Wage Orders Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6 entitled him to the allowance on all thirty, "even if unworked."
- The Union further asserted that the company's pre-Wage-Order-6 payment of COLA on a thirty-day basis had ripened into an established voluntary employer practice that could not be unilaterally withdrawn or diminished without violating Article 100. This is the alternative ground that survives even if the arithmetic goes against the Union — and the reason this case is studied under non-diminution rather than under wage computation.
- Several grievance proceedings were held under the CBA's grievance machinery. They proved futile.
- In January 1985, the Union and Eda Concepcion filed a complaint before the Arbitration Branch of the NLRC, docketed as NCR Case No. 1-168-85, charging illegal deduction, underpayment, unpaid allowances, and violation of Wage Order No. 6, and expressly seeking to hold White and Santiago personally liable for the money claims.
- On May 9, 1985, Labor Arbiter Adelaido F. Martinez ruled for the company on every point. He held that White and Santiago, having acted in their corporate capacities, should not have been impleaded; and that the monthly COLA was properly computed on twenty-two (22) days because the evidence showed there are only twenty-two paid days in a month for the company's monthly-paid employees.
- The Labor Arbiter's rationale was one of internal consistency: "To compel the respondent company to use 30 days in a month to compute the allowance and retain 22 days for vacation and sick leave, overtime pay and other benefits is inconsistent and palpably unjust. If 30 days is used as divisor, then it must be used for the computation of all benefits, not just the allowance. But this is not fair to complainants, not to mention that it will contravene the provision of the parties' CBA." The Union was asking for a thirty-day divisor for the one item that favoured it while keeping twenty-two for everything else.
- On the payroll evidence, the Labor Arbiter found that employee Jesus L. Santos, who worked on a Saturday and a Sunday, "was paid base pay plus 50% premium" — reasoning that if those days were already deemed paid and included in the monthly salary, Santos "should not have been paid his base pay for Saturday and Sunday but should have received only the 50% overtime premium." The payrolls of Dennis Dungon and Rene Sanvictores further showed that the company "consistently used twenty-two (22) days" in computing vacation and sick leave. This is the evidence that destroyed the Union's premise that the monthly salary covered all thirty days.
- The Union appealed to the NLRC.
- On March 10, 1986, the NLRC reversed. It held (1) that the P3.00 daily COLA should be computed on thirty days because monthly-paid workers are entitled to COLA on Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays "even if unworked"; (2) that the full allowance enjoyed before the 1982 CBA "constituted voluntary employer practice, which cannot be unilaterally withdrawn"; and (3) that White and Santiago were properly impleaded. It declared petitioners guilty of illegal deductions, ordered payment of back allowances reckoned from the time of illegal deduction, and enjoined further deductions.
- The NLRC was itself divided: Presiding Commissioner Diego P. Atienza concurred only in the result, while Commissioner Cleto T. Villaltuya dissented and voted to affirm the Labor Arbiter in toto.
- Petitioners then filed a special civil action for certiorari with a prayer for a temporary restraining order before the Supreme Court, G.R. No. L-74156, anchored on the charge of grave abuse of discretion by the NLRC.
- On May 19, 1986, the Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order enjoining respondents from enforcing the assailed NLRC Decision.
- On September 2, 1987, the Supreme Court gave due course to the petition and required the parties to submit memoranda, which they did. The case was decided June 29, 1988.
Arguments of the Parties
A. Petitioners Globe Mackay, White, and Santiago. The company's position moved in two independent lines. On the arithmetic, it read Section 5 of the Rules Implementing Wage Orders Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6 as a ceiling rather than a floor: COLA is payable only "during the days that they are paid their basic wage," and under the CBA its monthly-paid employees are paid basic wage for twenty-two days, not thirty. Its rationale was consistency and self-protection — the same twenty-two-day divisor governs vacation leave, sick leave and overtime, so a thirty-day divisor for the allowance alone would let the Union take the benefit of both figures at once and, as the Labor Arbiter put it, "contravene the provision of the parties' CBA." On the non-diminution ground, it argued that its earlier thirty-day payments were an erroneous application of the law flowing from the absence of any administrative guideline until the conversion formula appeared on 21 May 1984; that under Articles 2154 and 2155 of the Civil Code a payment made through a mistake in construing a doubtful or difficult question of law creates no vested right; and therefore that correcting a past error is not a diminution of benefits under Article 100. What it was trying to avoid was the characterisation of those payments as voluntary: a practice, on its own account, must be consistent and deliberate, and one cannot deliberately give away what one believes one already owes. Finally, it maintained that White and Santiago, having acted only as corporate officers, should never have been impleaded.
B. Respondents NLRC, the Union, and Eda Concepcion. The Union's premise was the nature of monthly pay itself: a monthly-paid employee draws a fixed salary that compensates every day of the month, unworked Saturdays, Sundays and holidays included, so he is "paid his basic wage" on all thirty days and Section 5 gives him the allowance on all thirty. Its rationale for the second ground was reliance and stability — the company had paid full monthly COLA for years before the 1982 CBA, that payment was voluntary, consistent and deliberate, and having become an established company practice it could not be unilaterally withdrawn, discontinued or diminished without violating Article 100. Where the implementing rule was ambiguous, it argued, Article 4 of the Labor Code and Article 1702 of the Civil Code required that the doubt be resolved in labor's favor. It also pressed the personal liability of White and Santiago, on the theory that they had authorised and implemented the unlawful deductions.
C. Common Ground. Neither side disputed that the CBA established a five-day work week, that Wage Order No. 6 set the daily COLA at P3.00, that the company had in fact paid the monthly COLA in full on a thirty-day basis before Wage Order No. 6, or that the company switched to a twenty-two-day multiplier only when computing the Wage Order No. 6 increase. The dispute was over what that earlier payment meant — a benefit granted, or a mistake made.
Issue
A. Main Issue (Topic/Subtopic-Centered). Did the company's pre-Wage-Order-6 practice of paying full monthly COLA constitute a voluntary employer practice under Article 100 barring later computation on a twenty-two-day basis, or was that prior practice instead attributable to an error in construing a doubtful question of law, correctable without violating Article 100?
B. Secondary Issues. Whether COLA under Wage Order No. 6 should be computed on a thirty-day or twenty-two-day basis for monthly-paid employees under a five-day-work-week CBA, given that Section 5 of the implementing rules grants the allowance for the days on which basic wage is paid "even if unworked."
C. Ancillary/Incidental Issues. Whether the individual corporate officers, Frederick White and Jesus Santiago, were properly impleaded as respondents and may be held personally liable.
Ruling
Main Issue: the prior practice was NOT a protected voluntary employer practice — it was inadequately proven as long, consistent, and deliberate, and was in any event attributable to a genuine error in construing a doubtful question of law given the absence of clear conversion guidelines before the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 issued on May 21, 1984, so its correction gave rise to no vested right and no Article 100 diminution. Secondary Issue: COLA should be computed on a twenty-two-day basis, consistent with the CBA's five-day work week and the payroll evidence showing that the company's monthly pay covered only twenty-two days; the Court accepted that the thirty-day rule would apply if the monthly salary in fact covered all days of the month, but held that it did not here. Ancillary Issue: with the principal liability resolved in petitioners' favour, the Court held there was "no further need to discuss the liability of the officers of Petitioner Corporation."
Dispositive portion (verbatim):
"WHEREFORE, certiorari is granted, the Decision of the National Labor Relations Commission, dated 10 March 1986, is SET ASIDE, and the Decision of the Labor Arbiter, dated 9 May 1985, is hereby REINSTATED. The Temporary Restraining Order heretofore issued is hereby made permanent.SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The Court began with the text of the implementing rule and drew from it a single organising principle: "The primordial consideration, therefore, for entitlement to COLA is that basic wage is being paid. In other words, the payment of COLA is mandated only for the days that the employees are paid their basic wage, even if said days are unworked. So that, on the days that employees are not paid their basic wage, the payment of COLA is not mandated."
- It anchored that principle in University of Pangasinan Faculty Union v. University of Pangasinan: "it is evident that the intention of the law is to grant ECOLA upon the payment of basic wages. Hence, we have the principle of 'No Pay, No ECOLA.'"
- The Court then conceded the Union's rule while denying its application — "Applied to monthly-paid employees if their monthly salary covers all the days in a month, they are deemed paid their basic wages for all those days and they should be entitled to their COLA on those days 'even if unworked,' as the NLRC had opined" — before turning on the facts: "Peculiar to this case, however, is the circumstance that pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between Petitioner Corporation and Respondent Union, the monthly basic pay is computed on the basis of five (5) days a week, or twenty two (22) days a month."
- That conclusion rested on payroll proof, not on the CBA's words alone: the employee Jesus L. Santos, who worked a Saturday and a Sunday, "was paid base pay plus 50% premium," which the Labor Arbiter reasoned would have been impossible if those days were already inside the monthly salary; and the payrolls of two other employees showed the company "consistently used twenty-two (22) days" for vacation and sick leave. The Court therefore held that "the COLA should be computed on the basis of twenty two (22) days, which is the period during which the monthly-paid employees of Petitioner Corporation receive their basic wage," adding that "[t]he CBA is the law between the parties and, if not acceptable, can be the subject of future re-negotiation."
- On the non-diminution ground the Court held that the earlier full payments — those made "before the execution of the CBA in 1982 and in compliance with Wage Orders Nos. 1 (26 March 1981) to 5 (11 June 1984)" — "should not be construed as constitutive of voluntary employer practice, which cannot now be unilaterally withdrawn by petitioner. To be considered as such, it should have been practiced over a long period of time, and must be shown to have been consistent and deliberate. Adequate proof is wanting in this respect."
- For the content of that test the Court invoked Oceanic Pharmacal Employees Union (FFW) v. Inciong, whose operative words supply the mental element: the employer there "agreed to continue giving holiday pay knowing fully well that said employees are not covered by the law requiring payment of holiday pay." Deliberateness therefore means knowledge that one is not obliged.
- The Court then supplied the deeper explanation for the earlier over-payment: "before Wage Order No. 4, there was lack of administrative guidelines for the implementation of the Wage Orders. It was only when the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 were issued on 21 May 1984 that a formula for the conversion of the daily allowance to its monthly equivalent was laid down" — a formula which, as the Labor Arbiter analysed it, was "issued for the first time" and, applied to a five-day-week employer, "results in the equivalent of 21.8 days in a month."
- From that vacuum the Court drew its conclusion under Articles 2154 and 2155 of the Civil Code: "Absent clear administrative guidelines, Petitioner Corporation cannot be faulted for erroneous application of the law. Payment may be said to have been made by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a 'doubtful or difficult question of law.' … Since it is a past error that is being corrected, no vested right may be said to have arisen nor any diminution of benefit under Article 100 of the Labor Code may be said to have resulted by virtue of the correction."
- Having resolved the corporation's liability, the Court disposed of the ancillary question in one line — "With the conclusions thus reached, there is no further need to discuss the liability of the officers of Petitioner Corporation" — leaving the Labor Arbiter's holding that the officers were improperly impleaded reinstated along with the rest of his decision.
Doctrine
B. Doctrines/Rules/Principles. A benefit becomes a protected voluntary employer practice under Article 100 only if it was "practiced over a long period of time" and is "shown to have been consistent and deliberate," deliberateness requiring under Oceanic Pharmacal that the employer acted "knowing fully well" it was under no legal obligation to grant the benefit; the burden of that proof lies on the party asserting the practice, and here "[a]dequate proof is wanting." Correlatively, a payment made "by reason of a mistake in the construction or application of a doubtful or difficult question of law," within Articles 2154 and 2155 of the Civil Code, gives rise to no vested right, and its correction is not a diminution of benefits under Article 100 — quoted in the decision as forbidding any construction that would "eliminate or in any way diminish supplements, or other employee benefits being enjoyed at the time of promulgation of this Code." On the wage side, entitlement to COLA follows the payment of the basic wage — "No Pay, No ECOLA" — so the correct multiplier is the number of days for which the employer actually pays basic wage, which the CBA and the payrolls, not the calendar, determine.
C. Distinctions/Limitations/Qualifications. The error exception requires a genuine absence of clear guidance, not mere inconvenience or afterthought: what qualified here was the total lack of any official conversion formula until the Rules Implementing Wage Order No. 4 appeared on 21 May 1984, and once guidelines exist an employer who keeps deviating is no longer mistaken. The ruling does not disturb the rule that long, consistent, deliberate and unconditional payments ripen into protected practice; it holds only that this record failed to establish such a practice and independently qualified for the error exception, so the two grounds are cumulative rather than alternative. Nor does the twenty-two-day holding announce a general divisor: the Court expressly accepted that where the monthly salary covers all days of the month, COLA is due for all of them "even if unworked" — the outcome turned on a five-day-work-week CBA and payroll proof of Saturday and Sunday premium pay. Finally, the Court did not order restitution of the earlier over-payments; solutio indebiti was used only to negate a vested right, not to claw money back.
D. Topic/Subtopic Integration (Mandatory). As classified in Section I, this case is DIRECT: it is the leading illustration of the "benefit granted by error" limb of the non-diminution doctrine, applying Article 100 through the Civil Code's solutio indebiti articles and finding the exception satisfied by the genuine absence of administrative guidelines at the time. Read against the rest of the Week 2 batch, it supplies the negative case that the affirmative ones presuppose: where Davao Fruits and Standard Chartered Bank ask whether payments were long, consistent and deliberate enough to ripen, Globe Mackay explains why payments made in honest ignorance never start the clock at all, and Central Azucarera de Tarlac marks the boundary from the other side, requiring that "the correction is done soon after discovery of the error" and refusing the excuse altogether where, as there, "[n]o doubtful or difficult question of law is involved" because the guidelines "are not difficult to decipher."
Separate Opinions
None at the Supreme Court level (the split noted in Section II occurred at the NLRC below, where Presiding Commissioner Diego P. Atienza concurred only in the result and Commissioner Cleto T. Villaltuya dissented in favour of affirming the Labor Arbiter in toto). The Decision, penned by Justice Melencio-Herrera, was concurred in by Chief Justice Yap and Justices Paras and Sarmiento; Justice Padilla took no part.