CIVIL LAW CASE DIGESTS

1. Gatbonton v. NLRC
G.R. No. 146779, January 23, 2006

Facts: A civil engineering student of respondent Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT) filed a letter-complaint
against petitioner Renato S. Gatbonton, MIT’s associate professor for unfair/unjust grading system, sexual
harassment and conduct unbecoming of an academician. Pending investigation, MIT placed the petitioner under
a 30-day preventive suspension on the belief that his continued stay during the investigation would affect his
performance as a faculty member and that the suspension would prevent his influence to other members of the
community. This prompted the petitioner to file a complaint with the NLRC for illegal suspension, damages and
attorney’s fees.

Consequently, the Labor Arbiter rendered a decision declaring the 30-day preventive suspension illegal and
directing MIT to pay petitioner’s wages. When elevated to the NLRC, however, the latter set aside the decision,
thus, the case was brought before the Court of Appeals which confirmed NLRC’s ruling. The petitioner then
filed a petition for review on certiorari before the Supreme Court for CA’s erroneous findings, arguing that his
preventive suspension does not find any justification in the Mapua Rules and Regulations considering that it was
not yet promulgated at the time of his preventive suspension, having published only more than one month later.

Issue: Is MIT’s Rules and Regulations effective as of the time of petitioner’s suspension as it was published
only more than one month thereafter?

Held: No. As enunciated by the Court, R.A. No. 7877 imposed the duty on educational or training institutions
to promulgate rules and regulations in consultation with and jointly approved by the employees or students or
trainees, through their duly designated representatives, prescribing the procedures for the investigation of sexual
harassment cases and the administrative sanctions therefor. Petitioner’s preventive suspension was based on
respondent MIT’s Rules and Regulations for the implementation of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995
(R.A. No. 7877). It bears stressing that said rules and regulations was published only after petitioner’s
suspension. As ruled in the case of Taňada vs. Tuvera, all statutes, including those of local application and private
laws shall be published as a condition for their effectivity as fixed by the legislature. Interpretative regulations
and those merely internal in nature, that is, regulating only the personnel of the administrative agency and not
the public, need not be published. Neither is publication required of the so-called letters of instructions issued
by administrative superiors concerning the rules or guidelines to be followed by their subordinates in the
performance of their duties. Mapua Rules is one of those issuances that should be published for its effectivity,
since its purpose is to enforce and implement R.A. No. 7877, which is a law of general application. Hence, at
the time of the imposition of petitioner’s preventive suspension, the Mapua Rules were not yet legally effective,
and therefore the suspension had no legal basis.