Note: This decision predates R.A. No. 6715 (21 March 1989), so its article numbers do not match a current Labor Code: the article it quotes as Art. 256 is now Article 267, and its references to Arts. 257, 258 and 259 follow the pre-1989 scheme. Several published-text defects are reproduced rather than corrected. The four factors are quoted with "Glove Doctrine" for the Globe Doctrine. Executive Order No. 111 is dated "December 24, 1980"; it was issued 24 December 1986 — as ICMC v. Calleja and Arizala v. Court of Appeals both confirm. The number of signatories is given as 138 in the union's position paper and as 124 in the Court's own findings, without the discrepancy being explained. And the sentence about the Alhambra departments reads "justifies the format or existence as a separate appropriate collective bargaining unit," apparently for "formation." Note finally that this case supplies the fullest version of the Rothenberg definition of a bargaining unit, including the clause "which the collective interests of all the employees" that later decisions drop.
Facts
- Belyca Corporation (Livestock and Agro-Division) was engaged in "poultry raising, piggery and planting of agricultural crops such as corn, coffee and various vegetables," employing about 205 rank and file in that division. It also ran supermarts and cinemas, which it called part of its "integrated business concerns." That description is the foundation of its unit argument and, in the end, the reason it loses it.
- On June 3, 1986, Associated Labor Union (ALU)-TUCP filed with Regional Office No. 10, Cagayan de Oro City a petition for direct certification for the Livestock and Agro-Division rank and file, or alternatively a certification election.
- It alleged no existing CBA, no certification election in the preceding twelve months, no contending union, and that 138 employees had signed membership and consented in writing. The Court's own findings later put the figure at 124; the discrepancy is unexplained in the published text.
- It further alleged that after it wrote requesting recognition on April 21 and May 8, 1986, Belyca "has locked out 119 of its rank-and-file employees" and "had dismissed earlier the local union president, vice-president and three other active members" — union president Warrencio Maputi, vice-president Gilbert Redoblado, and members Carmen Saguing, Roberto Romolo and Iluminada Bonio.
- Belyca's position paper asserted "that due to the nature of its business, very few of its employees are permanent, the overwhelming majority of which are seasonal and casual," and that of the 138 signatories 4 resigned, 6 withdrew, 5 were retrenched, 12 dismissed and 100 "simply abandoned their work." Its own characterisation of the workforce is the fact the Court later uses against it.
- On August 18, 1986 the Labor Arbiter granted the certification election, the 30% requirement being met.
- The abandonment claim was "belied by the Memorandum of its personnel officer to the 119 employees dated July 28, 1986 showing that the employees were on strike," which the Bureau of Labor Relations confirmed had begun July 24, 1986.
- The BLR affirmed on November 24, 1986 and on January 13, 1987 dismissed reconsideration with the direction that "No further motion shall hereafter be entertained." Belyca brought certiorari; a TRO issued March 4, 1987. Decided November 29, 1988.
Issue
Is the livestock and agro division alone an appropriate bargaining unit, or must the unit take in all workers of Belyca's integrated business concerns including its supermarts and cinemas — and what weight attaches to the fourth factor, employment status, where the division's workforce is overwhelmingly seasonal and casual?
Secondary issue. Whether the 30% (now 20%) consent requirement was met, given the post-filing resignations, withdrawals, retrenchments, dismissals and alleged abandonment.
Ancillary issues. Whether striking and dismissed employees may vote before any final ruling on the strike's legality or the dismissals' validity; and the propriety of the employer's participation as an adversary throughout.
Ruling
The livestock and agro division alone is the appropriate unit. Its employees "perform work entirely different from those performed by employees in the supermarts and cinema," differing in "their working conditions, hours of work, rates of pay, including the categories of their positions and employment status"; they "have very little in common with the employees of the supermarts and cinemas," and "[t]o lump all the employees … in its integrated business concerns cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit comprised of constituents enjoying a community or mutuality of interest."
Secondary issue. The requirement was met. "124 employees out of the 205 … have expressed their written consent … much more than the required 30% and over and above the present requirement of 20%," and "once the required percentage requirement has been reached, the employees' withdrawal from union membership taking place after the filing of the petition … will not affect said petition."
Ancillary issues. Strikers vote, and the employer is a bystander. "[U]ntil a decision, final in character, has been issued declaring the strike illegal and the mass dismissal or retrenchment valid, the strikers cannot be denied participation in the certification election," and "there appears to be no reason for the employer's objection to the formation of subject union."
"PREMISES CONSIDERED, (a) the petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit (b) resolution of the Bureau of Labor Relations dated Nov. 24, 1986 is AFFIRMED; and the temporary restraining order issued by the Court on March 4, 1987 is LIFTED permanently. SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The Court began from the statutory gap: "The Labor Code does not specifically define what constitutes an appropriate collective bargaining unit," Article 256 merely conferring exclusivity on the union chosen "by the majority of the employees in an appropriate collective bargaining unit."
- It filled the gap with the Rothenberg definition — "a group of employees of a given employer, comprised of all or less than all of the entire body of employees, which the collective interests of all the employees, consistent with equity to the employer, indicate to be best suited to serve reciprocal rights and duties of the parties." This is the fullest version in the week's cases; later decisions drop the middle clause.
- It then traced the four factors through the case law. Democratic Labor Association v. Cebu Stevedoring "stressed the importance of the fourth factor" and produced two units — "[o]therwise stated, temporary employees should be treated separately from permanent employees" — and "laid down the test of proper grouping, which is community and mutuality of interest." Alhambra Cigar applied the second factor; PLASLU combined both; LVN Pictures found "a substantial difference between the work performed by musicians and that of other persons."
- Whichever factor predominates, the basic test is constant: "the basic test of an asserted bargaining unit's acceptability is whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights."
- Applied, the two workforces were plainly distinct, and the Court quoted Belyca's own position paper back at it — "very few of its employees in the division are permanent, the overwhelming majority of which are seasonal and casual." The division's rank and file "fully constitute a bargaining unit that satisfies both requirements of classification according to employment status and of the substantial similarity of work and duties."
- On the numbers, once the threshold is met the Director "has no choice but to call a certification election," it being "'[m]andatory for the Bureau to conduct a certification election,'" "more so when there is no existing collective bargaining agreement."
- Belyca's attrition arithmetic failed at every point. Doubts about signatures "cannot be a bar," and "[e]ven doubts as to the required 30% being met warrant holding of the certification election." Post-filing withdrawals do not count and raise the presumption "that the withdrawal was not free but was procured through duress, coercion or for a valuable consideration." The claimed abandonment was a strike.
- Strikers and dismissed employees keep their votes "notwithstanding the vigorous condemnation of the strike and the fact that the picketing w[as] attended by violence" — and motive matters, since "the duty of the employer to bargain collectively is nullified if the purpose of the dismissal of the union members is to defeat the union in the consent requirement."
- Finally the Court characterised Belyca's whole posture. "[A]s a general rule, a certification election is the sole concern of the workers," yet the corporation "from the outset has actively participated and consistently taken the position of adversary … to the extent of filing this petition for certiorari" — although such a petition "is not a litigation but a mere investigation of a non-adversary character."
Doctrine
No statutory definition; four factors. "(1) will of employees (Globe Doctrine); (2) affinity and unity of employee's interest …; (3) prior collective bargaining history; and (4) employment status, such as temporary, seasonal and probationary employees." "[T]emporary employees should be treated separately from permanent employees," the test of proper grouping being community and mutuality of interest — but whichever factor predominates, "the basic test … is whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights." Lumping all of an employer's "integrated business concerns" together "cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit." On procedure: once the percentage is met at filing, later withdrawals do not affect the petition and are presumed "procured through duress, coercion or for a valuable consideration"; doubts "warrant holding of the certification election"; strikers and dismissed employees may vote until a final decision says otherwise; dismissals aimed at defeating the consent requirement nullify the duty to bargain; and "a certification election is the sole concern of the workers," the employer being "merely a bystander."
Limits. The holding is not that a division is always its own unit — it is that these employees, seasonal and casual and doing farm work, share nothing operative with supermart and cinema staff. An employer whose divisions genuinely mesh faces the San Miguel Foods analysis instead, where "live" and "dressed" chicken operations were one unit because "the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated." Note the direction of travel: the anti-fragmentation policy of Filoil and San Miguel Corporation v. Laguesma is not contradicted, because Belyca was arguing for a larger unit — the principle is coherence, not size. The procedural rulings are bounded too: withdrawals before filing would count; strikers vote only until a final ruling; and the bystander rule has its own exception, an employer requested to bargain may itself petition. The percentages are of historical interest only — 30% had already become 20% under E.O. No. 111, and the modern rule under Article 269 dispenses with any consent requirement in unorganized establishments. Dating caveat: the decision gives E.O. No. 111 as "December 24, 1980"; it issued 24 December 1986.
Full Digest — Recitation Format
Gist
Associated Labor Union (ALU-TUCP) petitioned for direct certification among the roughly 205 rank and file workers of Belyca Corporation's Livestock and Agro-Division — a business of "poultry raising, piggery and planting of agricultural crops such as corn, coffee and various vegetables." Belyca resisted on two fronts. On the unit, it argued that the grouping "must include all the workers in its integrated business concerns ranging from piggery, poultry, to supermarts and cinemas so as not to split an otherwise single bargaining unit into fragmented bargaining units." On the numbers, it argued that of the signatories, four had resigned, six withdrawn, five been retrenched, twelve dismissed, and a hundred had "simply abandoned their work." The Supreme Court dismissed the petition. Applying the four factors with the weight on employment status, farm workers who are "seasonal and casual" have "very little in common with the employees of the supermarts and cinemas," and lumping them together "cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit." On the numbers, withdrawals after filing do not count and raise a presumption of duress, the "abandonment" was in fact a strike — belied by Belyca's own personnel officer's memorandum — and strikers vote until a final decision says otherwise. The Court closed by noting that the employer is a mere bystander in a certification election.
Facts
- Petitioner Belyca Corporation (Livestock and Agro-Division) is "a duly organized, registered and existing corporation engaged in the business of poultry raising, piggery and planting of agricultural crops such as corn, coffee and various vegetables," employing approximately 205 rank and file employees in that division.
- Belyca also operates other lines of business — supermarts and cinemas — which it described as part of its "integrated business concerns." That description is the foundation of its unit argument and, in the end, the reason it loses it.
- On June 3, 1986, private respondent Associated Labor Union (ALU)-TUCP, "a legitimate labor organization duly registered... under Registration Certificate No. 783-IP," filed with Regional Office No. 10 at Cagayan de Oro City a petition for direct certification as sole and exclusive bargaining agent of all the rank and file of the Livestock and Agro-Division, or in the alternative for a certification election.
- The union alleged that there was no existing CBA with any legitimate labor union; that no certification election had been conducted in the proposed unit within the preceding twelve months and no contending union sought certification; and that more than a majority of the rank and file — "one hundred thirty-eight (138) as of the date of the filing of the petition" — had signed membership and consented in writing to the petition. The Court's own findings later put the figure at 124; the discrepancy is unexplained in the published text.
- The union further alleged that after it wrote the proprietor and General Manager on April 21 and May 8, 1986 requesting direct recognition, Belyca "has locked out 119 of its rank-and-file employees" and "had dismissed earlier the local union president, vice-president and three other active members," for which an unfair labor practice case was filed on July 2, 1986 before the NLRC in Cagayan de Oro City.
- The case was set for hearing at least three times without settlement; at the hearing of July 31, 1986 the parties agreed to file simultaneous position papers on or before August 11, 1986.
- Belyca's position paper asserted "that due to the nature of its business, very few of its employees are permanent, the overwhelming majority of which are seasonal and casual"; that of the 138 signatories, 14 were no longer working as of June 3, 1986, 4 resigned after June 1986, 6 withdrew their membership, 5 were retrenched on June 23, 1986, 12 were dismissed "due to malicious insubordination and destruction of property," and 100 "simply abandoned their work or stopped working"; and that the 128 incumbent workers of the livestock section "were merely transferred from the agricultural section as replacement." The corporation's own characterisation of its workforce as overwhelmingly seasonal and casual is the fact the Court later uses against it on the unit question.
- On August 18, 1986, the Labor Arbiter granted the certification election, finding that the 30% statutory requirement had been met.
- Belyca's claim that a hundred employees had abandoned work "was however belied by the Memorandum of its personnel officer to the 119 employees dated July 28, 1986 showing that the employees were on strike," which the Bureau of Labor Relations confirmed had begun July 24, 1986.
- The dismissed officers were named in the record: union president Warrencio Maputi, vice-president Gilbert Redoblado, and members Carmen Saguing, Roberto Romolo and Iluminada Bonio. The complaint filed July 2, 1986 was amended on August 20, 1986 so that the union would represent "Warrencio Maputi and 137 others" against the corporation and its President and General Manager Bello Casanova for unfair labor practice, illegal dismissal and illegal lockout.
- On February 4, 1987, Belyca appealed to the Bureau of Labor Relations, which on November 24, 1986 had already affirmed the order and denied the appeal, and on January 13, 1987 dismissed the motion for reconsideration with the direction that "No further motion shall hereafter be entertained."
- Belyca brought this petition for certiorari and prohibition, received by mail February 20, 1987. On March 4, 1987 the Court issued a temporary restraining order; the petition was given due course May 4, 1987 and decided November 29, 1988.
Arguments of the Parties
A. Petitioner Belyca Corporation. On the unit, the corporation's position was that a division-level unit fragments what is properly one workforce: the bargaining unit "must include all the workers in its integrated business concerns ranging from piggery, poultry, to supermarts and cinemas so as not to split an otherwise single bargaining unit into fragmented bargaining units." On the numbers, it argued that "the statutory requirement for holding a certification election has not been complied with," because the signatories had since dwindled through resignation, withdrawal, retrenchment, dismissal for "malicious insubordination and destruction of property," and abandonment — and that in any event "very few of its employees are permanent, the overwhelming majority of which are seasonal and casual," with the 128 incumbent livestock workers "merely transferred from the agricultural section as replacement" for those who had gone.
B. Private respondent ALU-TUCP and the public respondents. The union sought certification for the Livestock and Agro-Division alone, and met the statutory conditions on the face of its petition: no existing CBA, no election in the preceding twelve months, no contending union, and written consent from more than a majority of the unit. Its answer to the attrition argument was that the losses were the employer's own doing — a lockout of 119 employees and the dismissal of the union's president, vice-president and three active members after it had twice written asking for recognition, all of it the subject of a pending unfair labor practice case. The Bureau of Labor Relations found that the employees said to have abandoned work were in fact on strike from July 24, 1986.
C. Common Ground. It was undisputed that the Livestock and Agro-Division employs "more or less two hundred five (205) rank-and-file employees and workers"; that the corporation "has no existing duly certified collective bargaining agreement with any legitimate labor organization"; that no certification election had been held in the proposed unit in the preceding twelve months; and that no contending union sought certification. It was also common ground — Belyca having said so itself — that the division's workforce is overwhelmingly seasonal and casual.
Issue
A. Main Issue (Topic/Subtopic-Centered). Is the livestock and agro division alone an appropriate bargaining unit, or must the unit take in all the workers of Belyca's integrated business concerns including its supermarts and cinemas — and what weight attaches to the fourth factor, employment status, where the division's workforce is overwhelmingly seasonal and casual?
B. Secondary Issues. Whether "the statutory requirement of 30% (now 20%) of the employees in the proposed bargaining unit, asking for a certification election[,] had been strictly complied with," given the post-filing resignations, withdrawals, retrenchments, dismissals and the alleged abandonment of work by a hundred employees.
C. Ancillary/Incidental Issues. Whether striking and dismissed employees may participate in the certification election before any final ruling on the legality of the strike or the validity of the dismissals; and the propriety of the employer's active participation as an adversary throughout the proceedings.
Ruling
Main Issue: The livestock and agro division alone is the appropriate unit. "[I]t is beyond question that the employees of the livestock and agro division of petitioner corporation perform work entirely different from those performed by employees in the supermarts and cinema," differing in "their working conditions, hours of work, rates of pay, including the categories of their positions and employment status"; they "have very little in common with the employees of the supermarts and cinemas," and "[t]o lump all the employees of petitioner in its integrated business concerns cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit comprised of constituents enjoying a community or mutuality of interest." Secondary Issue: The requirement was met. "124 employees out of the 205 employees of the Belyca Corporation have expressed their written consent to the certification election... much more than the required 30% and over and above the present requirement of 20%," and "once the required percentage requirement has been reached, the employees' withdrawal from union membership taking place after the filing of the petition... will not affect said petition." Ancillary Issue: Strikers vote, and the employer is a bystander — "until a decision, final in character, has been issued declaring the strike illegal and the mass dismissal or retrenchment valid, the strikers cannot be denied participation in the certification election," and "there appears to be no reason for the employer's objection to the formation of subject union."
Dispositive portion (verbatim):
"PREMISES CONSIDERED, (a) the petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit (b) resolution of the Bureau of Labor Relations dated Nov. 24, 1986 is AFFIRMED; and the temporary restraining order issued by the Court on March 4, 1987 is LIFTED permanently.SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The Court began by identifying the statutory gap: "The Labor Code does not specifically define what constitutes an appropriate collective bargaining unit," Article 256 merely conferring exclusivity on the union chosen "by the majority of the employees in an appropriate collective bargaining unit."
- It filled the gap with the Rothenberg definition — "a group of employees of a given employer, comprised of all or less than all of the entire body of employees, which the collective interests of all the employees, consistent with equity to the employer, indicate to be best suited to serve reciprocal rights and duties of the parties."
- It then traced the four factors through the case law. Democratic Labor Association v. Cebu Stevedoring "stressed the importance of the fourth factor" and produced "two separate bargaining units..., one consisting of regular and permanent employees and another consisting of casual laborers or stevedores" — "[o]therwise stated, temporary employees should be treated separately from permanent employees" — and "laid down the test of proper grouping, which is community and mutuality of interest."
- Alhambra Cigar applied the second factor where "the employment status was not at issue but the nature of work of the employees concerned," finding that administrative, sales and dispensary staff "perform work which has nothing to do with production and maintenance" and so form a separate unit. PLASLU v. CIR combined both, listing "employment status of the employees to be affected, that is the positions and categories of work to which they belong, and the unity of employees' interest such as substantial similarity of work and duties." LVN Pictures found "a substantial difference between the work performed by musicians and that of other persons who participate in the production of a film."
- Whichever factor predominates, the basic test is constant: "whether importance is focused on the employment status or the mutuality of interest of the employees concerned[,] 'the basic test of an asserted bargaining unit's acceptability is whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights.'"
- Applying that to Belyca, the Court found the two workforces plainly distinct: "the noted difference are: their working conditions, hours of work, rates of pay, including the categories of their positions and employment status." It then quoted the corporation's own position paper — "due to the nature of the business in which its livestock-agro division is engaged very few of its employees in the division are permanent, the overwhelming majority of which are seasonal and casual and not regular employees."
- The conclusion followed: "Definitely, they have very little in common with the employees of the supermarts and cinemas. To lump all the employees of petitioner in its integrated business concerns cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit comprised of constituents enjoying a community or mutuality of interest," while the division's rank and file "fully constitute a bargaining unit that satisfies both requirements of classification according to employment status and of the substantial similarity of work and duties."
- On the numerical requirement, the Court found 124 of 205 had consented in writing, "much more than the required 30% and over and above the present requirement of 20% by Executive Order No. 111... applicable only to unorganized establishments," and held that once the threshold is met the Director "has no choice but to call a certification election" — it being "'[m]andatory for the Bureau to conduct a certification election,'" "more so when there is no existing collective bargaining agreement" and none has been held "for the past three years."
- Belyca's attrition arithmetic failed at every point. "[A]ny doubt cast on the authenticity of signatures to the petition... cannot be a bar to its being granted," and "[e]ven doubts as to the required 30% being met warrant holding of the certification election." Post-filing withdrawals do not count, and raise the presumption "that the withdrawal was not free but was procured through duress, coercion or for a valuable consideration." The claimed abandonment was "belied by the Memorandum of its personnel officer to the 119 employees dated July 28, 1986 showing that the employees were on strike."
- Strikers and dismissed employees keep their votes: "until a decision, final in character, has been issued declaring the strike illegal and the mass dismissal or retrenchment valid, the strikers cannot be denied participation in the certification election notwithstanding the vigorous condemnation of the strike and the fact that the picketing w[as] attended by violence." And the employer's motive is relevant — "the duty of the employer to bargain collectively is nullified if the purpose of the dismissal of the union members is to defeat the union in the consent requirement for certification election" — because "the holding of a certification election is a statutory policy that should not be circumvented."
- Finally, the Court characterised Belyca's whole posture. "[A]s a general rule, a certification election is the sole concern of the workers," the only exception being an employer petition after a request to bargain, and "[t]here is no showing that the instant case falls under the above mentioned exception." Yet the corporation "from the outset has actively participated and consistently taken the position of adversary... to the extent of filing this petition for certiorari in this Court" — although "a petition for certification election is not a litigation but a mere investigation of a non-adversary character... and its only purpose is to give the employees true representation in their collective bargaining with an employer." Hence "there appears to be no reason for the employer's objection to the formation of subject union."
Doctrine
B. Doctrines/Rules/Principles. "The Labor Code does not specifically define what constitutes an appropriate collective bargaining unit." The factors are "(1) will of employees (Globe Doctrine); (2) affinity and unity of employee's interest, such as substantial similarity of work and duties or similarity of compensation and working conditions; (3) prior collective bargaining history; and (4) employment status, such as temporary, seasonal and probationary employees." "[T]emporary employees should be treated separately from permanent employees," and the test of proper grouping is community and mutuality of interest; but whichever factor predominates, "the basic test of an asserted bargaining unit's acceptability is whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights." A unit drawn around a division whose workers differ in "working conditions, hours of work, rates of pay, including the categories of their positions and employment status" from the employer's other lines of business is appropriate; lumping all of an employer's "integrated business concerns" together "cannot result in an efficacious bargaining unit." On procedure: once the statutory percentage is met at filing, later withdrawals do not affect the petition and are presumed "procured through duress, coercion or for a valuable consideration"; doubts about signatures or about the percentage "warrant holding of the certification election"; strikers and dismissed employees may vote until a final decision declares the strike illegal or the dismissals valid; dismissals aimed at defeating the consent requirement nullify the duty to bargain; and "a certification election is the sole concern of the workers," the employer being "merely a bystander."
C. Distinctions/Limitations/Qualifications. The holding is not that a division is always its own unit — it is that these employees, seasonal and casual and doing farm work, share nothing operative with supermart and cinema staff. An employer whose divisions genuinely mesh would face the San Miguel Foods analysis instead, where "live" and "dressed" chicken operations were held to be one unit precisely because "the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated." Note also the direction of travel: the anti-fragmentation policy of Filoil and San Miguel Corporation v. Laguesma is not contradicted here, because Belyca was arguing for a larger unit — the principle is coherence, not size. The procedural rulings are likewise bounded. Withdrawals before filing would count; the presumption of duress attaches only to withdrawals afterwards. Strikers vote only until a final ruling; a final decision declaring the strike illegal and the dismissals valid would change their status. And the bystander rule has its own exception — an employer requested to bargain may itself petition — which simply did not arise here. Finally, the percentage figures are of historical interest only: the 30% requirement had already become 20% by E.O. No. 111, and the modern rule under Article 269 dispenses with any consent requirement in unorganized establishments.
D. Topic/Subtopic Integration (Mandatory). Classified DIRECT. The syllabus assigns this case to the employment status doctrine, the fourth of the four factors, and the Court applies it expressly — resting on "classification according to employment status" alongside "the substantial similarity of work and duties," and drawing its authority from Democratic Labor Association v. Cebu Stevedoring, where casual stevedores were separated from regular employees. It completes the set that item 5.c assembles: San Miguel Corporation v. Laguesma for the framework and the commonality test, St. James School of Quezon City for what turns on drawing the unit correctly, and International School Alliance of Educators v. Quisumbing for the Globe doctrine and bargaining history factors. It is also the earliest and most complete of the four — the case the later ones cite for the definition of a bargaining unit and for the "basic test" — and its second half belongs with the certification-election group later in the week, supplying the rules on post-filing withdrawals, on the voting rights of strikers and dismissed employees, and on the employer as bystander.
Separate Opinions
None. The Decision, penned by Justice Paras, was concurred in by Justices Melencio-Herrera (Chairperson), Padilla, Sarmiento, and Regalado.