ST. MARTIN FUNERAL HOME, petitioner, vs.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION and

BIENVENIDO ARICAYOS, respondents.
G.R. No. 130866
September 16, 1998
REGALADO, J.:
FACTS:
Private respondent alleges that he started working as Operations Manager of petitioner St. Martin
Funeral Home on February 6, 1995. However, there was no contract of employment executed
between him and petitioner nor was his name included in the semi-monthly payroll. On January 22,
1996, he was dismissed from his employment for allegedly misappropriating P38,000.00. Petitioner on
the other hand claims that private respondent was not its employee but only the uncle of Amelita
Malabed, the owner of petitioner St.Martins Funeral Home and in January 1996, the mother of
Amelita passed away, so the latter took over the management of the business.

Amelita made some changes in the business operation and private respondent and his wife were no
longer allowed to participate in the management thereof. As a consequence, the latter filed a
complaint charging that petitioner had illegally terminated his employment. The labor arbiter rendered
a decision in favor of petitioner declaring that no employer-employee relationship existed between the
parties and therefore his office had no jurisdiction over the case.
ISSUE: WON the decision of the NLRC are appealable to the Court of Appeals.
RULING:
The Court is of the considered opinion that ever since appeals from the NLRC to the SC were
eliminated, the legislative intendment was that the special civil action for certiorari was and still is the
proper vehicle for judicial review of decisions of the NLRC. The use of the word appeal in relation
thereto and in the instances we have noted could have been a lapsus plumae because appeals by
certiorari and the original action for certiorari are both modes of judicial review addressed to the
appellate courts. The important distinction between them, however, and with which the Court is
particularly concerned here is that the special civil action for certiorari is within the concurrent original
jurisdiction of this Court and the Court of Appeals; whereas to indulge in the assumption that appeals
by certiorari to the SC are allowed would not subserve, but would subvert, the intention of the
Congress as expressed in the sponsorship speech on Senate Bill No. 1495.

Therefore, all references in the amended Section 9 of B.P No. 129 to supposed appeals from the
NLRC to the Supreme Court are interpreted and hereby declared to mean and refer to petitions for
certiorari under Rule65. Consequently, all such petitions should henceforth be initially filed in the
Court of Appeals in strict observance of the doctrine on the hierarchy of courts as the appropriate
forum for the relief desired.