My First Paralegal Position Paper - based on assignment given

This is my assignment for our Paralegal Training on Labor Relations, Book V of the Labor Code, that was held at Pansol, Calamba City, Laguna, from June 1-3 and June 21-23, 2011. Each one of my classmates has the same assignment. I read my assignment during our graduation on June 30, 2011, held at WODP office at DOLE-Calamba, Laguna. Our professor approved of my position paper, however, the arguments are not enough, but could be improved if I really became a labor paralegal officer. I thank him for that valuable advise. It raised my spirit as a writer and as a paralegal trainee.

OUR ASSIGNMENT: Make a position paper bases on the following details:

FACTS OF THE CASE

Name of Complainant: Junior L. Sy (with SSS ID No. 04-0669456-9)

Address: Anos, Los Banos, Laguna

Date hired: June 01, 2005

Date dismissed: May 08, 2011

Position: Material Controller / Warehouseman

Basic Salary: P380.00 / 8 hours worked

Name of respondents: Yumol Manufacturing Inc., and Imelda Roces, Personnel Manager

Address of the Company: Real, Calamba City, Laguna

Mga ebidensya na hawak ng complainant: 1. Kopya ng Certificate of Employment na nagtrabaho siya mula June 01, 2005 to May 08, 2011; 2. Pay slip ng kanyang sweldo mula May 2, 2011 to May 08, 2011; 3. Police blotter / report dated May 08, 2011

Note: Mula ng pagtatrabaho ng complainant, ngayon lang siya nagkaroon ng kaso mula sa kumpanya. Na-promote siya noong May 02, 2007 mula sa machine operator at naging material controller

> On 08 May 2009, during complainant's breaktime (around 12:40-12:45 noon) and after taking his lunch, complainant proceeded at the smoking area (inside the company premises). As Mr. De Guzman, complainant co-employee, passes through guard, the metal detector buzzed and guard on duty found from Mr. De Guzman 25 pieces of USB connector which De Guzman used in repairing cellular phones. At this juncture, complainant is removing metal items in his body when he noticed that around 500 small pieces of microphones (which are using in the manufacturing of cell phone) are in his uniform pocket. He removed the microphones and surrendered the same to SG Lim, the guard on duty. Their ID's were confiscated by the guard. After smoking, complainant proceeded at his work place at around 1:00 PM.

> After few minutes, complainant and Mr. De Guzman were directed to report at Manager's Office wherein they were met by Imelda Roces, the Personnel Manager. They were accused of stealing company properties. Complainant verbally explained that he did not steal any company properties. But they were instructed to get inside the car and they proceeded at the nearby Calamba Police Station.

> At the Police Station, they were interrogated regarding the alleged stealing. Complainant explained that he did not steal company property and that the parts (microphones) was voluntarily surrendered to the guard by complainant before going to smoking area inside the company premises. Complainant further explained that the incident can be seen through the CCTV camera placed at the guard station / post and he requested that the video tape be presented to the management and police station to see the real incident, but to no avail. They were advised by the police officer to resolve the issue at the plant / company. The full details at the discussions / conversations regarding the alleged stealing were recorded at the Police Station.

> At the company, they were advised by the Personnel Manager that the President of the company decided to terminate their services and their ID were confiscated and were directed to leave the company premises. Complainant pleaded to reconsider their decision and asked to give an opportunity to explain his side, but his plea fell to deaf ears of respondents.

> On 15 June 2011, complainant filed a complaint at the National Labor Relations Commission - Regional Arbitration Branch IV at Calamba City against respondents for illegal dismissal. The case was docketed as NLRC-RAB IV Case No. 06-00235-11-L.

> Parties failed to settle the case amicably in the mandatory conference at NLRC. They were required by the Labor Arbiter to submit their verified position paper on 30 June 2011.

MY ASSIGNMENT:

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT

National Labor Relations Commission

Regional Arbitration Branch IV

Calamba City, Laguna

JUNIOR L. SY

Complainant

                                                                                    NLRC-RAB IV Case No. 06-00235-11-L

vs

Yumol Manufacturing Inc., and Imelda Roces, Personnel Manager

Respondent

POSITION PAPER

Complainant, through counsel and unto this Honorable Office most respectfully submits this Position Paper, thus;

PARTIES IN THE CASE

1. The complainant, Junior L. Sy, with SSS ID No. 04-0669456-9, worked as an employee of Yumol Manufacturing Inc., located at Real, Calamba City, Laguna. He worked in the said company from June 01, 2005 until May 08, 2011, with basic salary P380.00 per 8 hours worked per day. From machine operator, he was promoted to material controller / warehouseman on May 2, 2007.

2. The respondents, Yumol Manufacturing Inc., located at Real, Calamba City, Laguna, which is the company that Junior L. Sy worked with, and Imelda Roces, Personnel Manager of the said company.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

1. On 08 May 2009, during complainant's breaktime (around 12:40-12:45 noon) and after taking his lunch, complainant proceeded at the smoking area (inside the company premises). As Mr. De Guzman, complainant co-employee, passes through guard, the metal detector buzzed and guard on duty found from Mr. De Guzman 25 pieces of USB connector which De Guzman used in repairing cellular phones. At this juncture, complainant is removing metal items in his body when he noticed that around 500 small pieces of microphones (which are using in the manufacturing of cell phone) are in his uniform pocket. He removed the microphones and surrendered the same to SG Lim, the guard on duty. Their ID's were confiscated by the guard. After smoking, complainant proceeded at his work place at around 1:00 PM.

2. After few minutes, complainant and Mr. De Guzman were directed to report at Manager's Office wherein they were met by the respondent, Imelda Roces, the Personnel Manager. They were accused of stealing company properties. Complainant verbally explained that he did not steal any company properties. But they were instructed to get inside the car and they proceeded at the nearby Calamba Police Station.

3. At the Police Station, they were interrogated regarding the alleged stealing. Complainant explained that he did not steal company property and that the parts (microphones) was voluntarily surrendered to the guard by complainant before going to smoking area inside the company premises. Complainant further explained that the incident can be seen through the CCTV camera placed at the guard station / post and he requested that the video tape be presented to the management and police station to see the real incident, but to no avail. They were advised by the police officer to resolve the issue at the plant / company. The full details at the discussions / conversations regarding the alleged stealing were recorded at the Police Station.

4. At the company, they were advised by the Personnel Manager that the President of the company decided to terminate their services and their ID were confiscated and were directed to leave the company premises. Complainant pleaded to reconsider their decision and asked to give an opportunity to explain his side, but his plea fell to deaf ears of respondents.

5. Complainant filed an illegal dismissal case against the respondents.

ISSUES TO BE RESOLVED

1. The issues to be resolved are whether the complainant was terminated for a just cause, and whether complainant was accorded due process.

2. The complainant wants to be reinstated by the company because there is no just cause for the illegal dismissal case by the company, and he was the breadwinner of his family,

ARGUMENT / DISCUSSIONS

1. The complainant was accused by stealing when in fact he only went to the smoking area about 15 minutes before he went back to work. Therefore he is not going home. The smoking area is within the perimeter of the company, and it is the only area allowed by the company for the employees to smoke.

2. The complainant voluntarily surrendered to the guard on duty, SG Lim, the 500 small pieces of microphones (which are using in the manufacturing of cell phone) which are in his uniform pocket will readily be used at work after he smoke and after breaktime.

3. The complainant argued that the company has no just cause to dismiss him because he was not accorded due process. He was not given time to explain his side to defend himself. As a regular employee, he has right for security of tenure, and he should not be terminated by the company without just cause. (Rolando Roxas Surveying vs NLRC 125 SCRA 36).

4. Any termination, dismissal and suspension of workers in the company accused by any case, but without hearing of the complaints, should be treated as null and void. (FEWA vs CIR, 14 SCRA 781; Magtoto vs NLRC, 140 SCRA 58; Akay Printing vs MOLE, 140 SCRA 381; De Leon vs NLRC, 100 SCRA 691; BLTB vs Court of Appeals, 71 SCRA 470; Reyes vs Phil. Duplicators, 109 SCRA 489; Phil Movie Prod. Assn. vs Premier, GR No. L-5621, March 25 1963).

5. In termination proceedings of employees, procedural due process consists of the twin requirements of notice and hearing. The employer must furnish the employee with two written notices before the termination of employment can be effected: (1) the first apprises the employee of the particular acts or omissions for which his dismissal is sought; and (2) the second informs the employee of the employer’s decision to dismiss him. The requirement of a hearing is complied with as long as there was an opportunity to be heard, and not necessarily that an actual hearing was conducted. (Pharmacia and Upjohn, Inc., et al. vs. Ricardo P. Albayda, Jr., G.R. No. 172724, August 23, 2010.)

PRAYER

WHEFOR, premises considered, it is respectfully prayed from this Honorable Office that judgment be rendered in favor of tha Complainant with the following terms:

1. Finding the respondents liable / guilty for illegally dismissing the complainant without due process;

2. Ordering the respondent to reinstate the complainant to his former work.

Other reliefs just and equitable under the circumstances also prayed for.

City of Calamba, June 30, 2011

PROLETARIAN PARALEGAL OFFICE

Calamba City, Laguna

Counsel for the Complainant

BY:

GREGORIO V. BITUIN JR.

Paralegal Officer

VERIFICATION

I, JUNIOR L. SY, after having been duly sworn to in accordance with law, hereby depose and state:

1. That I am the complainant in the above-entitled case;

2. That I caused the preparation of the foregoing Position Paper;

3. That all the allegations therein contained are true and correct to the best of our knowledge;

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto affixed my signature this 29th day of June, 2011 at the City of Calamba.

JUNIOR L. SY

Affiant

Poor Publisher I am

Do you believe I'm one of the most successful publisher in my 4 years as manager of Aklatang Obrero Publishing Collective, but remains poor. I have no capital to own a printing press, but only have determination and courage. I already published more than thirty (30) different books. But sometimes, I have to walk miles to go into office because there's not enough money for transportation and food, hehe. But I'm happy.

Rebel or Revolutionary?

REBEL OR REVOLUTIONARY?

by Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

Many people thought that I am a rebel. That I am against the government. But they said, why will I rebel against the government? I said, I am not a rebel. I'm an activist, but more than that, I'm a revolutionary.

But most of the times, they didn't understand. As long as they see me in television with other rallyists, they always thought I'm a rebel. My friends, my former classmates in the elementary and high school, my former teachers. As they read my articles and my blog entries, such as poems and essays, they firmly believed that I am a rebel.

If you join a rally, are you a rebel? No! Does having dissenting opinion make you a rebel? No! It is our right to dissent, but dissent is not rebellion.

They ask me, why do I rebel? My mother once said that I should not rebel against the government because the food we eat and the money they gave me when I'm still with them are from the government. Both my parents worked with the government. My mother still works but my father has retired a couple of years ago.

Am I really a rebel? In the context of rebellion against the government, no, I'm not a rebel. I did not rebel because I was a victim of repression, or injustices. But I'm proud to say I'm a revolutionary.

Rebels and revolutionaries look like the same, but they are not. Both are working against the government, or the status quo, but they have different reasons. Rebels are those who became victims of injustices and join a rebel group to fight and get what is due for them. If they already get what they want, they will stop their rebellion. If they get the land they want, they will stop. If the criminals who did them injustice were brought to jail, they will discontinue to rebel.

But revolutionary is different. They studied the system itself. They read and absorbed wholeheartedly the theory of revolution. Most of the activists we know became revolutionary, join rallies, write dissenting opinions on different issues affecting the masses, most especially the working class. They believe that there is another world to win, unlike the present system that divides the people into classes, there are few billionaires compared to billions languishing in poverty. I want to contribute my self, my talent, and sacrifices to make this world a better place, to make this world having respect to human rights, to workers rights, to women's rights, to child's rights, where everybody is enjoying our right to live peacefully and happy. I want to change the world not because I am angry with the present system. I want to change the world because of concern to the welfare and well-being of our fellow human being, regardless of race, or any type of distinction. My life is the best I can give to make this dream come true.

I became a revolutionary because that's my choice, and I want to die serving the people and the revolution I'm embraced. I may not see in my lifetime the system change I am longing for, but I know that I am contributing something to advance our noble cause.

Filipino Hero Gat Andres Bonifacio, Socialist

FILIPINO HERO GAT ANDRES BONIFACIO, SOCIALIST

by Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

(This paper was distributed at the Socialist Conference held on November 27-28, 2010 at UP, with 15 foreign delegates and about 60 Filipinos)

We Filipinos celebrates through mobilization the birthday of plebeian hero Gat Andres Bonifacio. We do it with big rally as symbol of protest to the rotten system that plagues our nation. But we do not celebrate in the same scale the birthday or death anniversary of national hero Gat Jose Rizal, more so with another hero Gat Emilio Aguinaldo, who became president of the Philippines. Why is this so?

Bonifacio was one of the founder and later the supreme leader of the KKK (Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan), in short, Katipunan, which was conceived on July 7, 1892. It aimed for the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Philippine Revolution on August 1896, which is considered the Birth of the Nation. He did not finished his formal education, but Bonifacio was self-educated. As a wide reader, he read books about the French Revolution, biographies of the Presidents of the United States, the colonial penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Eugène Sue's Le Juif errant and José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

Unlike Rizal, who some historians say, is an “American-sponsored” hero and an elite, Bonifacio came from the working class background. Gat Andres is a symbol of the struggle of the working people. At the young age, he gave up his studies to work full time to support his brothers and sisters. At first he was a bodegero (warehouse keeper) in a mosaic tile factory in Manila. Then he got a job as a clerk. After that he became an agent for the English firm of J. M. Fleming & Company in Binondo. After five years, Bonifacio left the Fleming company and joined a German firm named Carlos Fressel & Company.

Some historians proudly proclaimed Bonifacio as a socialist. American James Le Roy, one of the authority during the Filipino-American war, wrote in 1907: “Andres Bonifacio, an employee of a foreign business house in Manila, was the leading spirit of the Katipunan; gathering his ideas of modern reform from reading Spanish treatises on the French revolution, he had imbibed also a notion that the methods of the mob in Paris where those best adapted to secure amelioration for the Filipinos. His ideas where those of a socialist, and of a socialist of the French revolution type, and he thought them applicable to an undeveloped tropical country, where the pressure of industrial competition is almost unknown, and where with the slightest reasonable exertion, starvation may be dismissed from thought.”

Le Roy may refer to the “methods of the mob in Paris” as the Paris Commune of 1871, which Karl Marx acknowledged as “the finally discovered political form under which the economic emancipation of labour could take place”.

Rizal and Aguinaldo, for many Filipinos are symbols of elite and the status quo. Rizal came from a rich family in Laguna, while Aguinaldo, as general of the revolution, ordered the salvaging (summary execution) of Bonifacio and his brother Procopio. Bonifacio and his brother were ‘salvaged’ (killed) by Aguinaldo’s men headed by Major Lazaro Macapagal on May 10, 1897.

Five years after Bonifacio's death, the first workers union in the Philippines, the Union Obrera Democratica, was established in 1902 by Isabelo Delos Reyes. Then, the first Filipino socialist novel Banaag at Sikat by Lope K. Santos was published in 1906.

Bonifacio’s essays and poetry reflects, not just love of country, but most of all the well-being of fellow individuals, whether they are Filipinos or foreigners. The internationalism of the Kartilya (Charter) of Katipunan, is a testament to this. The Kartilya discusses the vision of Katipunan.

One of the verse in Kartilya, which depicts a socialist thinking, says: “All persons are equal, regardless of the color of their skin. While one could have more schooling, wealth, or beauty than another, all that does not make one more human than anybody else."

On August 1896, Katipunan’s revolution became the highlight of the birth of the nation. The Kartilya ng Katipunan served as guidebook for new members of the organization, which laid out the group’s rules and principles. The first edition of the Kartilya was written by Emilio Jacinto.

WORKING CLASS MOBILIZATION EVERY NOVEMBER 30

Every year, the Filipino working class commemorate the birthday of Bonifacio. This we cannot say to Aguinaldo, although also a hero, for he represents the elite. Rizal, on the other hand, was remembered only by the elite in government, but the people did not mobilize themselves for this day for Rizal is considered part of the elite.

Let us join our comrades on November 30 in a big mobilization in Manila and pay our respect to many working class heroes represented by Bonifacio.

Introduction to this blog

I just want to write some personal essays in english as part of my goal to renew my skills in writing in english. As a former features and literary editor of our university paper The Featinean for two years, I wrote most of my articles there in that language.

When I became activist, and wrote for the workers and urban poor publications, I wrote mostly in Tagalog. More than one decade after, I believe I can still write in english and I want to practice this again. That's why I created this blog.

I titled this blog "Alone in the Battlefield" because this depicts what I really am. A loner perhaps although I have so many friends. Or probably a survivor, I've survived many battles and accidents and I'm still alive. Or maybe a one-man army, doing many things through DIY (do-it-yourself), such as publishing books that I sell. I've published about 30 books already, and I've written almost one-third of it. I layouted the book, design the cover, and published it alone.

But most of the time, I'm alone. Not because they want me that way, but because that's what I chose. I want to be alone so that I can think and write my articles and poems with preciseness in thought and clarity.

I hope that my relationship with the english language and for the love of poetry, I can write more often now in english than before.

Hope you read what I have written, although you may not like some of it. You're free to give your opinion on anything I wrote. Thank you very much.