LINGAT v.

CCBPI
G.R. No. 205688 July 4, 2018

FACTS:
Petitioners Lingat and Altoveros filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, moral and exemplary damages,
and attorney’s fees against respondent Coca-Cola Bottlers Phils., Inc (CCBPI). Petitioners were employed by
CCBPI as a plant driver, forklift operator and segregator. According to petitioners, they were regular
employees of CCBPI because it engaged them to perform tasks necessary and desirable in its business or
trade. Petitioners further stated, that after becoming regular employees (as they had been employed for more
than a year), and by way of a modus operandi, CCBPI transferred them from one agency to another. These
agencies include Lipercon Services, Inc., People Services, Inc., Interserve Management and Manpower
Resources Inc., and Monte Dapples Trading Corp., (MDTC). Petitioners claim that the transfers were a scheme
to avoid their regularization and that they were illegally dismissed after CCBPI found out that they were
“overstaying.” The Labor Arbiter ruled for the petitioners, while NLRC dismissed the case but ordered MDTC to
pay Altoveros separation pay. CA modified the NLRC decision to pay both petitioners.

ISSUE:
1. Whether or not there is an employee-employer relationship between Petitioners and Respondent
CCBPI.
2. Whether or not Petitioners were dismissed without cause and due process.

RULING:

1. YES. Article 295 of the Labor Code provides that a regular employee is a) one that has been engaged to
perform tasks usually necessary or desirable in the employer's usual business or trade – without falling
within the category of either a fixed or a project or a seasonal employee; or b) one that has been engaged
for a least one year, whether his or her service is continuous or not, with respect to such activity he or she
is engaged, and the work of the employee remains while such activity exists. To ascertain if one is a regular
employee, it is primordial to determine the reasonable connection between the activity he or she
performs and its relation to the trade or business of the supposed employer. Relating petitioners' tasks to
the nature of the business of CCBPI – which involved the manufacture, distribution, and sale of soft drinks
and other beverages – it cannot be denied that mixing and segregating as well as loading and bringing of
CCBPI's products to its customers involved distribution and sale of these items. Simply put, petitioners'
duties were reasonably connected to the very business of CCBPI. They were indispensable to such business
because without them the products of CCBPI would not reach its customers. side from the fact that their
work involved the distribution and sale of the products of CCBPI, they remained to be working for CCBPI
despite having been transferred from one agency to another. Hence, such repeated re-hiring of
petitioners, and the performance of the same tasks for CCBPI established the necessity and the
indispensability of their activities in its business.

2. YES. As regular employees, petitioners may be dismissed only for cause and with due process. These
requirements were not complied with here. It was not disputed that petitioners ceased to perform their
work when they were no longer given any new assignment upon the alleged termination of the
Warehousing Management Agreement between CCBPI and MDTC. However, this is not a just or authorized
cause to terminate petitioners' services. Otherwise stated, the contract expiration was not a valid basis to
dismiss petitioners from service. At the same time, there was no clear showing that petitioners were
afforded due process when they were terminated. Therefore, their dismissal was without valid cause and
due process of law; as such, the same was illegal. Considering that petitioners were illegally terminated,
CCBPI and MDTC are solidarily liable for the rightful claims of petitioners.
 ABS-CBN BROADCASTING CORPORATION v. NAZARENO
G.R. NO. 164156 September 26, 2006

FACTS:

Petitioner ABS-CBN is engaged in the broadcasting business and owns a network of television and radio
stations, whose operations revolve around the broadcast, transmission, and relay of telecommunication
signals. It has a franchise as a broadcasting company, and was likewise issued a license and authority to
operate by the National Telecommunications Commission. Petitioner employed respondents as production
assistants on different dates. They were assigned at the news and public affairs, for various radio programs in
the Cebu Broadcasting Station. Subsequently, petitioner and its rank-and-file employees executed a Collective
Bargaining Agreement to which respondents were not included as they were not recognize as a part of the
bargaining unit. Respondents then filed a complaint for recognition of regular employment status,
underpayment of overtime pay, holiday pay, premium pay, service incentive pay, sick leave pay and 13 th
month pay with damages against petitioner. Labor Arbiter rendered judgment in favor of the respondents, and
declared that they were regular employees of petitioner as such, they were awarded monetary benefits. NLRC
affirmed the decision of the Labor Arbiter. Petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration but CA dismissed it.

ISSUE:
Whether or not respondents were considered regular employees of ABS-CBN.

RULING:

Respondents are regular employees of ABS-CBN. It was held that where a person has rendered at least
one year of service, regardless of the nature of the activity performed, or where the work is continuos or
intermittnet, the employment is considered regular as long as the activity exists, the reason being that a
customary appointment is not indispensable before one may be formally declared as having attained regular
status. As stated in the case of Universal Robina Corporation v. Catapang, the test in determining whether one
is a regular employee is to determine the reasonable connection between the particular activity performed by
the employee in relation to the usual trade or business of the employer. The test is whether the former is
usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer. The connection can be
determined by considering the nature of work performed and its relation to the scheme of the particular
business or trade in its entirety. Also, if the employee has been performing the job for at least a year, even if
the performance is not continuous and merely intermittent, the law deems repeated and continuing need for
its performance as sufficient evidence of the necessity if not indispensability of that activity to the business.
Hence, the employment is considered regular, but only with respect to such activity and while such activity
exists.
Not considered regular employees are "project employees," the completion or termination of which is
more or less determinable at the time of employment, such as those employed in connection with a particular
construction project, and "seasonal employees" whose employment by its nature is only desirable for a limited
period of time. Even then, any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous
or intermittent, is deemed regular with respect to the activity performed and while such activity actually
exists. Thus, there are two kinds of regular employees under the law: (1) those engaged to perform activities
which are necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer; and (2) those casual
employees who have rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or broken, with respect to the
activities in which they are employed.
 ALU-TUCP v. NLRC
G.R. NO. 109902 August 2, 1994

FACTS:

Petitoners, as employees of private respondent National Steel Corporation (NSC), filed separate
complaints for unfair labor practice, regularization and monetary benefits with the NLRC Sub-Regional
Arbitration Branch XII. The complaints were consolidated and after hearing, the LA declared petitioners
“regular project employees who shall continue their employment as such for as long as the activity exists,”
but entitled to the salary of a regular employee pursunt to the provisions in the collective bargaining
agreement. The NLRC in its questioned resolutions modified the Labor Arbiter’s decision, holding that
petitioners were project employees since they were hired to perform work in a specific undertaking, the
completion of which had been determined at the time of their engagement and which operation was no
directly related to the business of steel manufacturing. The NLRC, however, set aside the award to
peitioners of the same benefits enjoyed by regular employees for lack of legal and factual basis.

ISSUE:
Whether or not petitioners are considered “permanent employees” as opposed to being only “project
employees” of NSC.

RULING:

NO. Petitioners are not considered “permanent employees.” However, contary to petitioners’
apprehensions, the designation of named employees as “project employees” and their assignment to a
specific project are effected and implemented in good faith, and not merely as a means of evading
otherwise applicable requirements of labor laws. On the claim that petitioners’ service to NSC of more
than 6 years should qualify them as “regular employees”, the Supreme Court believed this claim is without
legal basis. The simple fact that the employment of petitioners as project employees had gone beyond one
year, does not detract from, or legally dissolve their status as “project employees”. The second paragraph
of Article 280 of the Labor Code, providing that an employee who has served for at lest one year shall be
considered a regular employee relates to casual employees, not to project employees.
 EQUIPMENT TECHNICAL SERVICES v. CA
G.R NO. 157680 October 8, 2008

FACTS:

Petitioner Equipment Technical Services (ETS) is primarily engaged in the business of sub-contracting
plumbing works of on-going building construction. Among its clients was Uniwide. Petitioner Dequito,
during the period material, was occupying the position of manager of ETS, albeit the CA referred to him as
ETS’ president. On various occasions involving different projects, ETS hired the services of private
respondents as pipe fitters, plumbers, or threaders. Subsequently, ETS experienced financial difficulties
when Uniwide failed to pay for the plumbing work being done at its Coastal Mall. As a result, ETS was only
able to pay its employes 13th month pay equivalent to two weeks’ salary which prompted respondents to
file a case before the Arbitration branch of the NLRC. Later, two other cases were filed against ETS for
illegal dismissal and payment of money claims when the complainants thereat were refused to work in
another ETS project allegedly because they refused to sign individual employment contracts with ETS. The
three cases were consolidated before the Labor Arbiter, however conciliation efforts failed. Labor Arbiter
issued a decision holding that private respondents were regular employees of ETS. NLRC reversed the
decision stating that private respondents are project workers which the CA stated as utterly unsupported
by the evidence on record and is patently erroneous.

ISSUE:

Whether or not respondents are project employees

RULING:

The principal test for determining whether an employee is properly characterized as "project
employee," as distinguished from "regular employee," is whether or not "the project employee" was
assigned to carry out "a specific project or undertaking," the duration and scope of which were specified
at the time the employees were engaged for that project. Article 280 of the Labor Code distinguished a
regualr employee from a project employee wherein the former is engaged to perform activities which are
usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, and the latter as having
employment that has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of
which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee.

It bears to stress at the outset that ETS admits hiring or employing private respondents to perform
plumbing works for various projects. Given this postulate, regular employment may reasonably be
presumed and it behooves ETS to prove otherwise, that is, that the employment in question was
contractual in nature ending upon the expiration of the term fixed in the contract or for a specific project
or undertaking. But the categorical finding of the CA, confirmatory for the most part of that of the labor
arbiter, is that not a single written contract of employment fixing the terms of employment for the
duration of the Uniwide project, or any other project, was submitted by ETS despite the latter's allegations
that private respondents were merely contractual employees. Records of payroll and other pertinent
documents, such as job contracts secured by ETS showing that private respondents were hired for specific
projects, were also not submitted by ETS. Moreover, if private respondents were indeed employed as
project employees, petitioners should have had submitted a report of termination every time their
employment was terminated owing to the completion of each plumbing project. 
 DACUITAL v. LM CAMUS ENGINEERING CORPORATION
G.R. NO. 176748 September 1, 2010

FACTS:

Petitioners (LMCEC Employees) filed a complaint for illegal dismissal and non-payment of monetary
benefits against respondent LM Camus Engineering Corp. before the National Labor Relations Commission
(NLRC). The employees alleged that they were illegally dismissed from employment and that their employer
failed to pay them their holiday pay, premium pay for holiday, rest day, service incentive leave pay, and 13th
month pay during the existence and duration of their employment. They also averred that they were not
provided with sick and vacation leaves. Respondents denied that petitioners were illegally dismissed from
employment, stating that petitioners were project employees and, upon the completion of each project, they
were served notices of project completion. They clarified that the termination of petitioners’ employment was
due to the completion of the projects for which they were hired. Petitioners, however, countered that they
were regular employees as they had been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or
desirable in the usual business or trade of LMCEC. They denied that they were project or contractual
employees because their employment was continuous and uninterrupted for more than one (1) year. Finally,
they maintained that they were part of a work pool from which LMCEC drew its workers for its various
projects. The Labor Arbiter rendered a decision declaring the dismissal of the complainant-employees as illegal
and the complainants are entitled to reinstatement without back wages. The NLRC modified the decision of
the Labor Arbiter and ordered the reinstatement of the complainants with limited backwages. The
respondents appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals and the appellate court held that the complainants
are project employees and hence, there was no illegal dismissal.

ISSUE:
Whether petitioners are project employees hence dismissal from employment was legal

RULING:

Article 280 of the Labor Code distinguished a regualr employee from a project employee wherein the
former is engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade
of the employer, and the latter as having employment that has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking
the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee.
The principal test used to determine whether employees are project employees is whether or not the
employees were assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking, the duration or scope of which was
specified at the time the employees were engaged for that project. Even though the absence of a written
contract does not by itself grant regular status to petitioners, such a contract is evidence that petitioners were
informed of the duration and scope of their work and their status as project employees. In this case, where no
other evidence was offered, the absence of the employment contracts raises a serious question of whether
the employees were properly informed at the onset of their employment of their status as project employees.
While it is true that respondents presented the employment contract of Dacuital, the contract does not show
that he was informed of the nature, as well as the duration of his employment. In fact, the duration of the
project for which he was allegedly hired was not specified in the contract. Hence, the dismissal of the
petitioners is declared illegal.
 FILIPINAS PRE FABRICATED BUILDING SYSTEMS v. PUENTE
G.R. NO. 153832 March 18, 2005

FACTS:
Respondent Puente alleged that he worked with petitioner Filsystems, Inc. starting June 1989 initially
as an installer, and was later promoted to mobile crane operator at the company premises He claims that his
work was not dependent on the completion or termination of any project; that since his work was not
dependent on any project, his employment with the company was continuous and without interruption for
the past 10 years. On October 1, 1999, he was dismissed from his employment allegedly because he was a
project employee. He filed a pro forma complaint for illegal dismissal against the company on November 18,
1999. Petitioner on the other hand alleged that complainant was hired as a project employee in the company’s
various projects; that his employment contracts showed that he was a project worker with specific project
assignments; that after completion of each project assignment, his employment was likewise terminated and
the same was correspondingly reported to the DOLE. 

ISSUE:
Whether or not respondent is a project employee

RULING:

YES. Art 280 of the labor Code defines project employees as those where the employment has been
fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the
time of the engagement of the employee. Particularly, DO 19-1993 states that project employees are those
employed in connection with a particular construction project or phase thereof and whose employment is co-
terminous with each project or phase of the project to which they are assigned. Either one or more of the
following circumstances, among other, may be considered as indicators that an employee is a project
employee: (a) the duration of the specific/identified undertaking for which the worker is engaged is
reasonably determinable; (b) such duration, as well as the specific work/service to be performed, is defined in
an employment agreement and is made clear to the employee at the time of hiring; (c) the work/service
performed by the employee is in connection with the particular project/undertaking for which he is engaged;
(d) the employee, while not employed and awaiting engagement, is free to offer his services to any other
employer; (e) The termination of his employment in the particular project/undertaking is reported to the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Regional Office having jurisdiction over the workplace within 30
days following the date of his separation from work, using the prescribed form on employees’
terminations/dismissals/suspensions; (f) an undertaking in the employment contract by the employer to pay
completion bonus to the project employee as practiced by most construction companies. A project employee
is one whose “employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination
of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee or where the work or services
to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration of the season.” The length of
service of a project employee is not the controlling test of employment tenure but whether or not ‘the
employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has
been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee.’” 
In the present case, the contracts of employment of Puente attest to the fact that he was hired for
specific projects. His employment was coterminous with the completion of the projects for which he had been
hired. Those contracts expressly provided that his tenure of employment depended on the duration of any
phase of the project or on the completion of the construction projects. Furthermore, petitioners regularly
submitted to the labor department reports of the termination of services of project workers. Such compliance
with the reportorial requirement confirms that respondent was a project employee. 
 TOMAS LAO CONSTRUCTION v. NLRC, et.al
G.R. NO. 116781 September 5, 1997

FACTS:
Private respondent were hired as construction workers for various periods, in which they alternately
worked for petitioners Tomas Lao Corporation (TLC), Thomas and James Developers (T&J) and LVM
Construction Corporation (LVM), altogether informally referred to as the “Lao Group of Companies.” The three
entities comprising a business conglomerate exclusively controlled and managed by members of the Lao
Family. Petitioners are engaged in the constrution of public roads and bridges. They entered joint ventures
among each other and lease tools and equipment of one another. Each entity also allowed the utilization of
their respective employees by the other two entities. Due to non-compliance with a memorandum which
respondents believed were a scheme to downgrade their status from regular to contractual employee, they
were dismissed. Consequently, respondents filed a case for illegal dismissal.

ISSUE:
Whether or not private respondents are regular employees of petitioners

RULING:

YES. The principal test in determining whether particular employees are "project employees"
distinguished from "regular employees" is whether the "project employees" are assigned to carry out "specific
project or undertaking," the duration (and scope) of which are specified at the time the employees are
engaged for the project. "Project" in the realm of business and industry refers to a particular job or
undertaking that is within the regular or usual business of employer, but which is distinct and separate and
identifiable as such from the undertakings of the company. Such job or undertaking begins and ends at
determined or determinable times. While it may be allowed that in the instant case the workers were initially
hired for specific projects or undertakings of the company and hence can be classified as project employees.
the repeated re-hiring and the continuing need for their services over a long span of time (the shortest, at
seven [7] years) have undeniably made them regular employees. Thus, we held that where the employment of
project employees is extended long after the supposed project has been finished, the employees are removed
from the scope of project employees and considered regular employees. While length of time may not be a
controlling test for project employment, it can be a strong factor in determining whether the employee was
hired for a specific undertaking or in fact tasked to perform functions which are vital, necessary and
indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer. In the case at bar, private respondents had
already gone through the status of project employees. But their employments became non-coterminous with
specific projects when they started to be continuously re-hired due to the demands of petitioners’ business
and were re-engaged for many more projects without interruption.

 
 ABESCO CONSTRUCTION & DEVELOPMENT v. RAMIREZ, et. al
G.R. No. 1411168 April 10, 2006

FACTS:

Petitioner company was engaged in a construction business where respondents were hired on
different dates either as laborers, road roller operators, painters or drivers. Respondents filed two separate
complaints for illegal dismissal against the company and its General Manager, Oscar Banzon, before the Labor
Arbiter. Petitioners allegedly dismissed them without a valid reason and without due process of law. The
complaints also included claims for non-payment of the 13th month pay, five days’ service incentive leave pay,
premium pay for holidays and rest days, and moral and exemplary damages. The LA later on ordered the
consolidation of the two complaints. Petitioners denied liability to respondents and countered that
respondents were “project employees” since their services were necessary only when the company had
projects to be completed. Petitioners argued that, being project employees, respondents’ employment was
coterminous with the project to which they were assigned. They were not regular employees who enjoyed
security of tenure and entitlement to separation pay upon termination from work. 

ISSUE:

Whether or not respondents are project employees or regular employees

RULING:

Respondents are regular employees of petitioner. he principal test for determining whether employees
are “project employees” or “regular employees” is whether they are assigned to carry out a specific project or
undertaking, the duration and scope of which are specified at the time they are engaged for that project. Such
duration, as well as the particular work/service to be performed, is defined in an employment agreement and
is made clear to the employees at the time of hiring.  In this case, petitioners did not have that kind of
agreement with respondents. Neither did they inform respondents of the nature of the latter’s work at the
time of hiring. Hence, for failure of petitioners to substantiate their claim that respondents were project
employees, we are constrained to declare them as regular employees.