Exocet Security & Allied Services Corp., vs. Serrano, GR No. 198538, Sept.

29, 2014

FACTS:

Petitioner entered into a contract with JG Summit Holdings, whereby respondent, as employee of the
petitioner, would be assigned as “close-in” security of JG Summit’s corporate officers in September 1994.
After 8 years, he was reassigned as close-in security of Lance Gokongwei, and then to his wife. In 2006,
Serrano was relieved by JG Summit. For more than 6 months, he reported back to Exocet without any
assignment. Thus, in 2007, he filed a complaint for illegal dismissal with the NLRC.

In its defense, Exocet denied dismissing Serrano. It alleged that since there were no VIP assignments available
after Serrano was relieved from JG Summit, the latter was temporarily assigned to general security service. It
added that it was Serrano who refused to accept these assignments as he was not used to being a regular
security guard.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Serrano was constructively dismissed.

RULING:

The petition is meritorious.

There is no specific provision of law which treats of a temporary retrenchment or lay-off and provides for
the requisites in effecting it or a period or duration therefor. These employees cannot forever be temporarily
laid-off. To remedy this situation or fill the hiatus, Article 286 [now 292] may be applied but only by analogy
to set a specific period that employees may remain temporarily laid-off or in floating status. Six months is
the period set by law that the operation of a business or undertaking may be suspended thereby suspending
the employment of the employees concerned. The temporary lay-off wherein the employees likewise cease
to work should also not last longer than six months. After six months, the employees should either be recalled
to work or permanently retrenched following the requirements of the law, and that failing to comply with
this would be tantamount to dismissing the employees and the employer would thus be liable for such
dismissal.

When a security guard is placed on a "floating status," he does not receive any salary or financial benefit
provided by law. Due to the grim economic consequences to the employee, the employer should bear the
burden of proving that there are no posts available to which the employee temporarily out of work can be
assigned.

In this case however, there is no showing that Exocet was in bad faith when it placed Serrano in floating
status for more than 6 months. Serrano’s lack of assignment cannot be attributed to the petitioner. On the
contrary, in as early was one month after Serrano was relieved, Exocet had already offered him general
security service assignment as there were no available VIP contracts, their availability being not wholly within
Exocet’s control.

SC ruled that a security guard’s security of tenure does not give him a vested right to the position as would
deprive the company of its prerogative to change the assignment of, or transfer the security guard to a station
where his services would be most beneficial to the client. Thus, it is manifestly unfair and unacceptable to
immediately declare the mere lapse of the six-month period of floating status as a case of constructive
dismissal, without looking into the peculiar circumstances that resulted in the security guard’s failure to
assume another post. This is especially true in the present case where the security guard’s own refusal to
accept a non-VIP detail was the reason that he was not given an assignment within the six-month period.
The security agency, Exocet, should not then be held liable.