MANILA, Philippines 3rd August 2018 — The Court of Appeals issued a Decision in this case last 31 July 2018, a copy of which was received by PLDT’s counsel today.

In a series of orders – including a Compliance Order issued by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Regional Office on 3 July 2017, which was partly affirmed by DOLE Secretary Bello in his resolutions dated 10 January 2018 and 24 April 2018 – the DOLE had previously ordered PLDT to regularize 7,344 workers from 38 of PLDT’s third party service contractors. PLDT questioned these “regularization orders” before the Court of Appeals, which led to the 31 July 2018 Decision. 

In sum, the Court of Appeals – 

(i) GRANTED PLDT’s prayer for an injunction against the regularization orders;
 
(ii) SET ASIDE the regularization orders insofar as they declared that there was labor-only contracting of the following functions: (a) janitorial services, messengerial and clerical services; (b) information technology (IT) firms and services; (c) IT support services, both hardware and software; and applications development; (d) back office support and office operations; (e) business process outsourcing or call centers; (f) sales; and (g) medical, dental engineering and other professional services;  and, 
 
(iii) REMANDED to the DOLE for further proceedings, the matters of (a) determining which contractors, and which individuals deployed by these contractors, are performing installation, repair and maintenance of PLDT lines; and (b) properly computing monetary awards for benefits such as unpaid overtime or 13th month pay, which in the regularization orders amounted to Php51.8 million. 

The Court of Appeals agreed with PLDT’s contention that the Secretary’s regularization order was “tainted with grave abuse of discretion” because it did not meet the “substantial evidence” standards set out by the Supreme Court in landmark jurisprudence.  The Court also said that the DOLE’s appreciation of evidence leaned in favor of the contractor workers, and that the Secretary had “lost sight” of distinctions involving the labor law concepts of “control over means and methods,” and “control over results.” 

PLDT and its legal counsel are studying the Court of Appeals decision to determine the Company’s appropriate next steps.