G.R. NO. 155146 -

Ruling

WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby GRANTED. Resolutions dated 31 January 2000 and 24 May 2000 in NLRC-NCR CN 00-02-02148-99 of public respondent National Labor Relations Commission are hereby SET ASIDE. The NLRC is directed to act on the Motion to Reduce Bond and to give due course to the Appeal. SO ORDERED .[9] The petitioners now submit the following issues for our consideration: Whether or not the remand of the case to the NLRC would only further delay the resolution of this case. Whether or not the Honorable Court of Appeals decided the instant case in accordance with law and applicable jurisprudence and based on the evidence on record for having failed to apply the jurisprudential precepts that: errors in the computation of the monetary award are properly a subject of appeal and should be ventilated at the appropriate time, not in a mere motion to reduce bond; and the posting of a bond is an indispensable requirement to perfect an employer's appeal. Whether or not Petitioners are entitled to the benefits of the Retirement Pay Law. Whether or not Petitioners are entitled to interest on their retirement benefits for the unjustified withholding thereof. Whether or not Petitioner Dr. Tan should be made similarly entitled to her retirement pay, which was inadvertently excluded by the Labor Arbiter, pursuant to the timely motion to render judgment nunc pro tunc she filed before the Labor Arbiter and which was consistently raised all the way up to this Honorable Court, in order to effect a complete disposition of the instant case. [10] In short, petitioners raise for our resolution these issues: (1) Did the Court of Appeals err in granting the petition and directing the NLRC to act on the Motion to Reduce Bond and to give due course to the appeal? and (2) Are the petitioners entitled to benefits under Rep. Act No. 7641? On the first issue, petitioners contend that (1) errors in the computation of the monetary award are properly a subject of appeal and should be ventilated at the appropriate time, not in a mere motion to reduce bond; and (2) the posting of a bond is an indispensable requirement to perfect an employer's appeal. Respondent counters that in case the monetary award is being disputed, an appeal may still be filed without the appeal bond, provided that a motion to reduce bond is filed within the reglementary period. We think that the Court of Appeals did not err in granting the petition and holding that there was substantial compliance in the posting of a cash or surety bond. We likewise find Nationwide Security and Allied Services, Inc. v. NLRC [11] and Rosewood Processing, Inc. v. NLRC [12] inapplicable to this case. In Nationwide Security, the petitioners therein filed a motion to reduce bond instead of an appeal or surety bond. The NLRC denied the motion on the grounds that petitioners' alleged inability to post the bond was without basis, and to grant the motion on the grounds stated therein would be tantamount to ruling on the merits