By NONETTE BENNETT
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — John Hay Management Corporation with its president, chief operations officer, chief executive officer and chairman of the Board, Ma. Cristina R. Corona were ordered by the National Labor Relations Commission Regional Arbitration Branch last March 9  to pay two former employees their backwages and to reinstate them to their former positions.

NLRC labor arbiter Monroe Tabingan in his decision on February 26, ordered JHMC to reinstate Eugene Galicia to his position as a contractual paralegal officer after he charged the company with constructive dismissal and non-payment of his wages in 2009. Tabingan also released on the same date the decision to reinstate Hector Hugh Ngales to his former position as Examiner/OSAC Processor and payment of backwages after he filed a case of illegal dismissal in 2009. Galicia was awarded a total of P187,220 as backwages, holiday pay, 13th month pay, and attorney’s fees, while Ngales was awarded P211,914.84 for backwages and attorney’s fees.

Tabingan in his discussions of the case of constructive dismissal of Galicia and contract of employment with JHMC said, “it would seem that the respondent company is so ill-prepared and unorganized that they prepare employment contracts after they hire an employee.” Galicia started to work with JHMC on April 15, 2009 but was not paid his salary until he left on June 15, JHMC alleged that the contract was under revision. Tabingan said that it was “not normal” that, while the employee “has to grovel with an empty stomach for his hard earned wages” contracts have “to be presented through the echelons of top management for revision, amendment, alteration and, ultimately, approval and finalization.”

Meanwhile, JHMC also faces two more labor cases at the NLRC. Utility men and gardeners, Bertito Bermundo and Ruel Ducusin charged JHMC with illegal dismissal and unfair labor practice last February 19 through their counsel Jessie Lacsigen. Bermundo and Ducusin alleged that they were advised by JHMC management on the first week of February to have their clearances signed because they were no longer employees as of February 1 and to report to an agency. They alleged that they were not informed about the transactions made by the two companies and had not been paid their salaries for the period of January 15 to 30 at the time of their filing of their case.

JHMC and president Ma. Cristina R. Corona, wife of Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona, also faces libel raps after Nonnette Bennett, former Public Relations Officer of JHMC, filed her case before Fiscal Ruperto Vergara at the Baguio City Justice Hall last March 10. Bennett’s libel case against Corona was dismissed by the Regional Trial Court of Kalinga for improper venue on December 6, 2009.

Bennett cited the May 10, 2009 paid advertisement of the John Hay Management Corporation on page 11 of the Baguio Midland Courier as the source of the libelous statements. Bennett with Hector Ngales were said to have flunked the written exams and the interviews administered by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and also to have been caught in “activities inimical to the best interest of the corporation”.  Bennett won her labor case of illegal dismissal against JHMC on January 14, after labor arbiter Tabingan ordered her reinstatement and for the payment of her backwages, moral damages and lawyer’s fees. She filed her labor case at the NLRC on May 4, 2009 through counsel lawyer Milton Balagtey. #nordis.net