OABEL, JEAN MONIQUE C.

Assignment 06-Intro to Law

IC-JD5 October 25, 2018

MARIVELES SHIPYARD CORP. VS. CA et al.

G.R. No. 144134, November 11, 2003, 415 SCRA 573

Ponente: Quisumbing, J.

FACTS:
Mariveles Shipyard Corporation engaged the services of Longest Force Investigation and
Security Agency, Inc. to render security services at its premises. Longest Force then deployed its security
guards at the shipyard. However, Mariveles Shipyard found the services rendered by private respondents
unsatisfactory and inadequate causing it to terminate its contract with Longest Force and in turn, the latter
terminated the employment of said respondents. Consequently, private respondents filed a case for illegal
dismissal, underpayment of wages pursuant to the PNPSOSIA-PADPAO rates, non-payment of overtime
pay, premium pay for holiday and rest day, service incentive leave pay, 13th month pay and attorney’s
fees, against both Longest Force and petitioner, before NLRC, who in turn sought the guards’
reinstatement with full backwages and without loss of seniority rights. Petitioner appealed to the NLRC,
contending that it should not be held jointly and severally liable with Longest Force for underpayment of
wages and overtime pays because it had been religiously and promptly paying the bills for the security
services sent by Longest Force and that these are in accordance with the statutory minimum wage. Also,
petitioner contends that it should not be held liable for overtime pay as private respondents failed to
present proof that overtime work was actually performed. However, the labor tribunal affirmed in toto the
decision of the Labor Arbiter.

ISSUE: Whether or not petitioner is jointly and severally liable with Longest Force
HELD:

Yes. Petitioner’s liability is joint and several with that of Longest Force, pursuant to Articles 106,
107 and 109 of the Labor Code. When the petitioner contracted with Longest Force, petitioner became an
indirect employer of private respondents pursuant to Article 107. Following Article 106, when the agency
as contractor failed to pay the guards, the corporation as principal becomes jointly and severally liable for
the guards’ wages. This is mandated by the Labor Code to ensure compliance with its provisions,
including payment of statutory minimum wage. The security agency is held liable by virtue of its status
as direct employer, while the corporation is deemed the indirect employer of the guards for the purpose of
paying their wages in the event of failure of the agency to pay them. This statutory scheme gives the
workers the ample protection consonant with labor and social justice provisions of the Constitution.
Petitioner cannot evade its liability by claiming that it had religiously paid the compensation of guards as
stipulated under the contract with the security agency. Labor standards are enacted by the legislature to
alleviate the plight of workers whose wages barely meet the spiraling costs of their basic needs. Labor
laws are considered written in every contract. Stipulations in violation thereof are considered null.
Similarly, legislated wage increases are deemed amendments to the contract. Thus, employers cannot
hide behind their contracts in order to evade their (or their contractors’ or subcontractors’) liability for
noncompliance with the statutory minimum wage.
Bustos v. Lucero
GR No. L-2068, October 20, 1948, 81 Phil. 640

Ponente: TUASON, J.

FACTS:
The petitioner herein, an accused in a criminal case, filed a motion with the Court of First
Instance of Pampanga after he had been bound over to that court for trial, praying that the record of the
case be remanded to the justice of the peace court of Masantol, the court of origin, in order that the
petitioner might cross-examine the complainant and her witnesses in connection with their testimony, on
the strength of which warrant was issued for the arrest of the accused. The accused, assisted by counsel,
appeared at the preliminary investigation. In that investigation, the justice of the peace informed him of
the charges and asked him if he pleaded guilty or not guilty, upon which he entered the plea of not guilty.
Then his counsel moved that the complainant present her evidence so that she and her witnesses could be
examined and cross-examined in the manner and form provided by law. The fiscal and the private
prosecutor objected, invoking section 11 of rule 108, and the objection was sustained. In view thereof, the
accused's counsel announced his intention to renounce his right to present evidence, and the justice of the
peace forwarded the case to the court of first instance.

ISSUE:Whether or not the Justice of the Peace court of Masantol committed grave abuse of discretion in
refusing to grant the accused's motion to return the record.

HELD:
No. The Supreme Court that section 11 of Rule 108 does not curtail the sound discretion of the
justice of the peace on the matter. Said section defines the bounds of the defendant's right in the
preliminary investigation, there is nothing in it or any other law restricting the authority, inherent in a
court of justice, to pursue a course of action reasonably calculated to bring out the truth.
Th defendant can not, as a matter of right, compel the complaint and his witnesses to repeat in his
presence what they had said at the preliminary examination before the issuance of the order of arrest. The
constitutional right of an accused to be confronted by the witnesses against him does not apply to
preliminary hearings' nor will the absence of a preliminary examination be an infringement of his right to
confront witnesses. Preliminary investigation may be done away with entirely without infringing the
constitutional right of an accused under the due process clause to a fair trial.
The premise that "the preliminary investigation is eminently and essentially remedial is not
correct. Undoubtedly the majority means to say procedural, in line with the conclusion in the resolution,
because remedial law is one thing, and procedural law is another. Obviously they are different branches of
the law. "Remedial statute" is "a statute providing a remedy for an injury as distinguished from a penal
statute. A statute giving a party a mode of remedy for a wrong where he had none or a different one
before. . . . Remedial statutes are those which are made to supply such defects, and abridge such
superfluities in the common law, as arise either from the general imperfections of all human law, from
change of time and circumstances, from the mistakes and unadvised determination of unlearned (or even
learned) judges, or from any other cause whatsoever." (Black's Law Dictionary, third edition, pp. 1525,
1526.)