Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Case 71 - Dissenting Opinion PDF
Case 71 - Dissenting Opinion PDF
Promulgated:
BRION, J.:
r
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 2 G.R. No. 170139
4
Id. at 312-324.
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 3 G.R. No. 170139
Significantly, the OSG could not even point to any reason other
than the protection of recruitment agencies and the expansion of the
Philippine overseas program as justification for the limitation of liability
that has effectively distinguished OFWs from locally-based workers.
These reasons, unfortunately, are not on the same plane as protection to
labor in our constitutional hierarchy of values. Even RA 8042 repeats
that “the State does not promote overseas employment as a means to
sustain economic growth and national development.” Under RA 8042’s
own terms, the overseas employment program exists only for OFW
protection. Thus viewed, the expansion of the Philippine overseas
deployment program and the need for incentives to achieve results are
simply not valid reasons to justify a classification, particularly when the
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 4 G.R. No. 170139
Article XIII
x x x x
Section 18. The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and
overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and
equality of employment opportunities for all.
(b) The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas,
organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of
employment opportunities for all. Towards this end, the State shall
provide adequate and timely social, economic and legal services to Filipino
migrant workers.
xxxx
5
Id. at 322-324; italics and emphasis supplied, citations omitted.
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 5 G.R. No. 170139
(e) Free access to the courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal
assistance shall not be denied to any person by reason of poverty. In this
regard, it is imperative that an effective mechanism be instituted to ensure
that the rights and interests of distressed overseas Filipinos, in general, and
Filipino migrant workers, in particular, documented or undocumented, are
adequately protected and safeguarded.
6
The long title of R.A. No. 8042.
7
Supra note 2, at 313-314.
8
Id. at 314.
9
Id.
10
Supra note 2, at 314.
11
Id.
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 6 G.R. No. 170139
Viewed in this light, the subject clause can only pass constitutional
muster if it shows: (1) a lawful purpose; and (2) lawful means to achieve the
lawful purpose.
12
Section 10 of R.A. No. 8042 pertinently reads:
SECTION 10. Money Claims. — Notwithstanding any provision of law to the
contrary, the Labor Arbiters of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) shall
have the original and exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide, within ninety (90)
calendar days after the filing of the complaint, the claims arising out of an employer-
employee relationship or by virtue of any law or contract involving Filipino workers for
overseas deployment including claims for actual, moral, exemplary and other forms of
damages.
Such liabilities shall continue during the entire period or duration of the
employment contract and shall not be affected by any substitution, amendment or
modification made locally or in a foreign country of the said contract.
Second, the chosen mode of granting the incentive, i.e., the liability
limitation for wrongful dismissals of already deployed OFWs,
effectively imposed, with legal sanction, a partial condonation of the
foreign principal/employer’s liability to OFWs.23 The incentive,
therefore, “from a more practical and realistic view, is really part of a
scheme to sell Filipino overseas labor at a bargain for purposes solely of
16
Supra note 2, at 317.
17
Id.
18
Supra note 2, at 319.
19
Id. at 320.
20
Id. at 320.
21
Id. at 320.
22
Id.
23
Supra note 2, at 320.
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion 8 G.R. No. 170139
attracting the market," 24 a scheme that sadly reduces our OFWs to mere cash
cows.
QPWDM~
ARTURO D. BRION
Associate Justice
24
Id.
25
Id. at 320.
26
Id. at 320-321.
27
Id. at 321.
28
Id.