As a practicing lawyer for no less than 40 years now, specializing on labor litigations and appeals, and as a professor of law since 1977, I have read, analyzed, discussed and written about employees’ acts of frauds, stealing, falsification, malversation, estafa, qualified theft and all sorts of dishonesty and betrayal of trust. I was a labor relation of San Miguel Corporation for 12 years and Vice President of Pepsi Cola, in charge of HR, legal and corporate affairs for five years. I was the HR director of Petron for three years and a senior labor attorney of PNOC handling investigations and litigations employing employee frauds and defalcation. I have learned a lot about law and human behavior.
Lately, there was a nurse of the country’s best and most expensive hospital, who was caught by the guard trying to bring home some cotton and syringes. She was dismissed and her case of illegal dismissal was thrown out by the Supreme Court. Even if everyone else is doing it or that the values of the things are quite negligible, the trust is broken. Dismissal is justified even if that was her first offense after a long tenure with the hospital. There was a worker in a soft drinks company who stole the cell phone of his co-worker. The High Court approved his dismissal even when the owner of the cell phone executed an affidavit stating that he has forgiven the thief.
There were security officers of San Miguel who were dismissed because they falsified their daily time records. There was an employee in a cement plant in La Union who was dismissed for bringing home a small wire not worth too much. There was a manager in the Baguio Country Club who was dismissed for altering the receipts in a liquidation report. There was also a Meralco lineman who stole electric power by illegal connections. There were beer and soft drinks salesmen who were dismissed for not remitting the cash proceeds of their daily sales. All these cases were won by management. The Supreme Court never forgives dishonesty.
There was a teacher who changed the grades of her pupil for financial gain, especially when the pupil was tutored by her after class for a pay. There was a faculty member of San Beda who influenced another faculty to let his relative pass even when the boy deserved failure. That faculty member was dismissed. There was a University treasurer in Nueva Ecija who was dismissed for some irregularities involving financial transactions in the university. There was a Dean in a Baguio University who was dismissed for putting up a review center that competed with her employer university. All these cases were decided by the Supreme Court in favor of management.
I have thousands of cases discussed in my latest book How To Terminate Employment Legally and with Honor and Dignity. I always profess what the Supreme Court pontificate on Protection for the poor workers should not lead us to commit injustice against the rich employers. Stealing is evil, dishonesty is bad, even when committed by the poor. One’s poverty is not an excuse for being dishonest.
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