G.R. No. 122107 - CMP FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY, INC., VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION, VALENTIN TAPIS, LUISITO MACABUHAY, RAMON CAMBIADO, ADRIANO JUICO, MACARIO BAJA, ELPIDIO CERCADO, JULIO DULPINA, ROBERTO REBANCO, AND REDOLF FABREAG. D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, the Labor Arbiter found that private respondents were constructively dismissed and were thus awarded back wages, separation pay, attorney's fees, differentials and the return of their cash bonds. But on appeal, the National Labor Relations Commission reversed the finding of the Labor Arbiter that private respondents were constructively dismissed. The Commission premised its conclusion on the prematurity of the complaint. It ratiocinated that "complaints for illegal dismissal must necessarily be judged on the prevailing circumstances at the time of the filing of the complaint, and not on what has transpired at the time of the rendition of the judgment." [5] The Commission further elucidated that "to hold otherwise would be to render nugatory the practice of allowing security agencies to place their employees on floating status not to exceed six months as and by way of consideration on the peculiarity of the demands for their services." [6] On the strength of these findings, the NLRC deleted the back wages and separation pay. However, it maintained the differentials and the return of the cash bonds but reduced the attorney's fees to conform with Art. 111 of the Labor Code. Interestingly, private respondents did not appeal the decision of the Labor Arbiter; as such, they are bound by it. Only the petitioner is now before us imputing grave abuse of discretion on the part of the NLRC in not recomputing the wage differentials despite the fact that recomputation could not be avoided because of the modification of the decision of the Labor Arbiter on illegal dismissal, and in not affirming the award of attorney's fees despite the absence of any justification therefor. Thus, the finding of the NLRC on the legality of the supposed dismissal will no longer be disturbed, especially as there is no abuse of discretion as to its conclusion thereon. The petition is without merit. The NLRC committed no grave abuse of discretion when it upheld the computation of the differentials by the Labor Arbiter. A cursory reading of the Labor Arbiter's decision as to the basis of the differentials would show that the period wherein differentials were computed started only from the time of employment although limited by the 3-year prescriptive period, "till their last detail," thus: [7] Consequently, for lack of evidence (payrolls and time cards), complainants are entitled to their monetary claims from the time they started working with the respondents till their last detail or assignment but limited to the prescriptive period of three years. Their wage differentials should be computed under the minimum standard rate for employees who are tasked to work 12 hours a day including Sundays and Holidays. However, the salaries, overtime pay and 13th month pay received by the complainants should be deducted to arrive at the proper wage differentials. This simply means that the basis for the differentials was never extended to cover the period when back wages were allowa