Digitel vs. Soriano G. R. No. 166039
Digitel vs. Soriano G. R. No. 166039
Digitel vs. Soriano G. R. No. 166039
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DECISION
From the records of the case, the following antecedent facts are
culled:
Eleven months after her resignation letter was filed or on May 28,
2001, Mariquit filed criminal complaints against petitioners Go and
Severino,[16] for violation of R.A. 7877 (Anti-Sexual Harassment Law)
and/or Article 336 of the Revised Penal Code (Acts of Lasciviousness),
before the Quezon City Prosecutors Office which referred the complaints
to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
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About one and a half years after she filed her letter of resignation
or on December 20, 2001, Mariquit filed a
[19]
complaint for illegal dismissal against petitioners Digitel, Go and
Severino before the NLRC, docketed as NLRC NCR Case No. 12-06571-
2001. During the initial mandatory conference which took place
on January 23, 2002, she clarified that her cause of action was
for constructive dismissal,[20] alleging that she was harassed by herein
individual petitioners to thus compel her to resign from Digitel.
All other claims herein sought and prayed for are hereby
denied for lack of legal and factual bases. [24]
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No pronouncement as to costs.[33]
II.
III.
THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED WHEN IT FOUND
PETITIONERS GUILTY OF ILLEGAL
DISMISSAL CONSIDERING THAT THE HONORABLE
COURT MADE SEVERAL FINDINGS OF
FACT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENTIARY
SUPPORT OR BASIS ON RECORD, AND RULED ON
SOME ISSUES WHICH NEITHER RESPONDENT NOR
PETITIONERS RAISED IN THE PRESENT CASE.
A. THE COURT OF APPEALS GAVE UNDUE AND
UNDESERVED CREDENCE TO THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION REPORT
SUBMITTED BY DR. MAGNO.
IV
The first two errors assigned by petitioners, along with their plea
for a review of the appellate courts findings of fact, being interrelated,
shall be discussed simultaneously.
Petitioners contend that in certiorari proceedings, judicial review
does not go as far as evaluating the sufficiency of evidence upon which
the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC had based their conclusion, and while
the Court of Appeals concluded that the factual findings of the NLRC are
arbitrary and unfair, it failed to show the basis thereof.
Judicial review of decisions of the NLRC via petition for certiorari under
Rule 65 is confined only to issues of lack or excess of jurisdiction and
grave abuse of discretion on the part of the NLRC. [37] Thus Danzas
Intercontinental, Inc. v. Daguman[38] teaches:
Absent any showing that the DOJ acted with arbitrariness, this Court is
bound to accept its findings as it is this department which has control and
supervision over public prosecutors.
Nonetheless, this Court has given the evidence a hard look if only to put
to rest any nagging doubts on the correctness of the assessment thereof by
the lower tribunals.
To prove that she was sexually harassed to thus force her to resign,
Mariquit submitted before the Labor Arbiter the following documents as
part of her Position Paper dated April 26, 2002: her Affidavit dated April
25, 2002;[46] Affidavit dated April 25, 2002 of her friend Grace J. Sta.
Clara;[47] and Affidavit dated April 25, 2002 of Francisco C. Wenceslao.[48]
In her April 25, 2002 Affidavit, Mariquit gave the following pertinent
statements as regards petitioner Go:
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8. Sometime in May 1999, during a cocktail party for the sales
department of Digitel held at the Summit Lounge of the Manila
Galleria Suites, Go, after noticing that I was wearing a short
skirt, insisted that I sit down so that he could take a better look
at my legs.
13. Go then crept his hand under the throw pillow which I
had placed to separate me from Go to reach for my vagina
and to poke it several times. I could not escape because I was
hemmed in by the arm of the sofa.
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18. I also caught Severino looking at my legs up to the back of
my thighs on several occasions, to wit: (a) in January 1999
when he intentionally pointed to my legs to a fellow company
officer who also looked at them; (b) in the NEAX Training
Room in February 1999 when I picked up things I dropped on
the floor, where Severino even walked behind me to get a
better view of my thighs; and (c) during our out-of-town
strategic planning session in September 1999 at the Princess
Urduja Hotel in Pangasinan.
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10. That after the incident and Go must have felt that Ms.
Soriano was avoiding him, which he said so according to her,
Severino suddenly changed his attitude toward her and, in Ms.
Sorianos words, began making impossible demands she could
not possibly comply with.
11. That Ms. Soriano told me Severino must have been under
pressure from Go to make her give in to his advances because
he (Go) knew she was a single parent who could not afford to
lose her job, which was a usual technique of a sexual predator
like Go who reportedly used it in the past with female
employees.[51]
x x x x (Italics in the original; underscoring supplied)
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10. That Ms. Soriano was very angry and outraged on both
occasions for the humiliation she suffered because Go treated
her so cheaply in front of her fellow Digitel executives. [52]
x x x x (Underscoring supplied)
Wenceslao added:
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xxxx
xxxx
21. I was also present at the birthday party of Mr. Jun Pau
on 19 November 1999. As my usual behavior in Digitel
parties, I would go around to check if people are interacting
with each other. It has been more than a month since I left the
company, hence, I was excited to chat with most of the people
there. I noticed Mariquit somewhat feeling out-of-place with
other executives, as usual with her distant affect. I never
detected any unusual happenings between Mr. Johnson and her
during said party. I even sat in-between Mr[.] Johnson [Go]
and Mariquit owing to the space between them in the sofa,
while Reby Magtuto was in the single armchair perpendicular
to the sofa.
x x x x (Underscoring supplied)
If Rosalinda kept her silence, she must have done so out of fear of losing
her job. When, however, she was fired, she immediately broke her
silence.
At all events, it is settled that the only test of whether an alleged fact or
circumstance is worthy of credence is the common experience,
knowledge and observation of ordinary men.
As New Jersey Vice Chancellor Van Fleet stated in the often-cited case
of Daggers v. Van Dyck:[67] Evidence to be believed, must not only
proceed from the mouth of a credible witness, but it must be credible in
itself such as the common experience and observation of mankind can
approve as probable under the circumstances. We have no test of the truth
of human testimony, except its conformity to our knowledge, observation,
and experience. Whatever is repugnant to these belongs to the miraculous
and is outside of judicial cognizance.[68]
Mariquit went on to claim that Go crept his hand under a throw pillow
and poked her vagina several times. She justified her failure to flee by
claiming that she was hemmed in by the arm of the sofa. But if indeed Go
did such condemnable act, could she not have slapped him or stood up
and/or left?
Yet still, by her claim, Mariquit danced on the same occasion with Go,
albeit allegedly thru force, during which he pressed her close to him and
moved his hand across her back to feel her body. Any woman in her right
mind, whose vagina had earlier been poked several times without her
consent and against her will, would, after liberating herself from the
clutches of the person who offended her, raise hell. But Mariquit did not.
Mariquit claimed that while dancing, in order to free herself from Gos
hold, she maneuvered to turn to the beat of the music. It was at this time,
according to her, that Go reached out his hand and groped [her] breast,
caressed [her] back and reached inside [her] blouse to rub [her] from up
[her] brassieres down to [her] buttocks. Since this alleged incident
occurred while Mariquit and Go were dancing, and surely there were a lot
of people around in the well lighted small area as stated by house
owner Pau, would Go be that maniacal to forego the respect accorded to
him by virtue of his high position? To be sure, a person who holds a very
exalted position would normally behave at social gatherings, unless he is
a proven maniac, to deserve that respect.
In Lufthansa German Airlines v. CA,[70] this Court, citing the earlier case
of Santos v. Concepcion and Santos[71], ruled that the presence of an
employer-employee relationship where a witness is an employee of a
party is not or itself sufficient to discredit his testimony.
Again, after submitting her resignation letter, why would she, by her
claim, want to withdraw the same. Even if it would mean working again
with her alleged sexual harassers?[77] Given her educational background
and her work experiences, it would not be difficult for her to land on
another job, free from any harassment. [78] To be sure, she would not wish
to stay in Digitel any longer if she was really harassed, sexually and
professionally.