Gender discrimination case: PT& T case
Gender discrimination: Termination on ground of marriage is illegal
Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company vs. NLRC and De Guzman
G.R. No. 118978, May 23, 1997Regalado, J.
Facts: PT&T hired Grace de Guzman as a reliever. In the employment application form, she indicated that she was single although she had contracted marriage months earlier. PT&T had a policy of not accepting married women for employment. Hence, when PT&T discovered that she was married, it terminated Grace’s employment on the ground of dishonesty; i.e. for concealing her true civil status. Grace challenged her dismissal as illegal as it was solely due to her marriage.
Decision: Grace was illegally dismissed. The company’s policy of not accepting married women for employment contravenes the Article 138 of the Labor Code which prohibits stipulations against marriage. In upholding the right of de Guzman as a woman worker, the Supreme Court explained:
“1. Decreed in the Bible itself is the universal norm that women should be regarded with love and respect but, through the ages, men have responded to that injunction with indifference, on the hubristic conceit that women constitute the inferior sex. Nowhere has that prejudice against womankind been so pervasive as in the field of labor, especially on the matter of equal employment opportunities and standards. In the Philippine setting, women have traditionally been considered as falling within the vulnerable groups or types of workers who must be safeguarded with preventive and remedial social legislation against discriminatory and exploitative practices in hiring, training, benefits, promotion and retention.
The Constitution, cognizant of the disparity in rights between men and women in almost all phases of social and political life, provides a gamut of protective provisions. To cite a few of the primordial ones, Section 14, Article II on the Declaration of Principles and State Policies, expressly recognizes the role of women in nation-building and commands the State to ensure, at all times, the fundamental equality before the law of women and men. Corollary thereto, Section 3 of Article XIII (the progenitor whereof dates back to both the 1935 and 1973 Constitution) pointedly requires the State to afford full protection to labor and to promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all, including an assurance of entitlement to tenurial security of all workers. Similarly, Section 14 of Article XIII mandates that the State shall protect working women through provisions for opportunities that would enable them to reach their full potential.
2. Corrective labor and social laws on gender inequality have emerged with more frequency in the years since the Labor Code was enacted on May 1, 1974 as Presidential Decree No. 442, largely due to our country’s commitment as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Principal among these laws are: Republic Act No. 6727, which explicitly prohibits discrimination against women with respect to terms and conditions of employment, promotion, and training opportunities; Republic Act No. 6955 which bans the ‘mail-order-bride’ practice for a fee and the export of female labor to countries that cannot guarantee protection to the rights of women workers; Republic Act No. 7192, also known as the ‘Women in Development and Nation Building Act,’ which affords women equal opportunities with men to act and to enter into contracts, and for appointment, admission, training, graduation, and commissioning in all military or similar schools of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police; Republic Act No. 7322 increasing the maternity benefits granted to women in the private sector; Republic Act No. 7877, which outlaws and punishes sexual harassment in the workplace and in the education and training environment; and Republic Act No. 8042, or the ‘Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995,’ which prescribes as a matter of policy, inter alia, the deployment of migrant workers, with emphasis on women, only in countries where their rights are secure. Likewise, it would not be amiss to point out that in the Family Code women’s rights in the field of civil law have been greatly enhanced and expanded.
In the Labor Code, provisions governing the rights of women workers are found in Articles 130 to 138 thereof. Article 130 involves the right against particular kinds of night work while Article 132 ensures the right of women to be provided with facilities and standards which the Secretary of Labor may establish to ensure their health and safety. For purposes of labor and social legislation, a woman working in a nightclub, cocktail lounge, massage clinic, bar or other similar establishments shall be considered as an employee under Article 138. Article 135, on the other hand, recognizes a woman’s right against discrimination with respect to terms and conditions of employment on account simply of sex. Finally, and this brings us to the issue at hand, Article 136 explicitly prohibits discrimination merely by reason of the marriage of a female employee.
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In the case at bar, petitioner’s policy of not accepting or considering as disqualified from work any woman worker who contracts marriage runs afoul of the test of, and the right against, discrimination, afforded all women workers by our labor laws and by no less than the Constitution. Contrary to petitioner’s assertion that it dismissed private respondent from employment on account of her dishonesty, the record discloses clearly that her ties with the company were dissolved principally because of the company’s policy that married women are not qualified for employment in PT&T, and not merely because of her supposed acts of dishonesty.”
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N.B. This case digest is going to be part of a book project, The Davide Court: Its Contributions to Gender and Women’s Rights, to be published by the UP Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc.
