In LEUS vs ST. SCHOLASTICA'S COLLEGE, et al G.R. No. 187226, January 28, 2015, we see how a school’s strict moral standards do not necessarily justify the dismissal of an employee. In this case, the petitioner was hired by a Catholic school as part of its non-teaching personnel. She engaged in pre-marital sexual relations and got pregnant. When the school discovered the pregnancy, the Directress advised her to resign. She refused. The Directress then directed her to explain why she should not be dismissed for “engaging in pre-marital sexual relations and getting pregnant as a result thereof, which amounts to serious misconduct and conduct unbecoming of an employee of a Catholic school.”
In response, she explained “that her pregnancy out of wedlock does not amount to serious misconduct or
conduct unbecoming of an employee.” She stated that she was not aware of any
policy that this constituted serious misconduct and, thus, a ground for
dismissal. She asked for a copy of the school’s policy and guidelines.
The Directress informed
her that the school follows the 1992 Manual of Regulations for Private Schools
(1992 MRPS); that Section 94(e) of the 1992 MRPS cites “disgraceful or immoral
conduct” as a ground for dismissal in addition to the just causes for
termination of employment provided under Article 282 of the Labor Code.”
She responded, through
counsel, that “pre-marital sex between two consenting adults without legal impediment
to marry each other who later on married each other does not fall within the
contemplation of “disgraceful or immoral conduct” and “serious misconduct” of
the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools and the Labor Code of the
Philippines.” They argued that petitioner being a bad example to the students
was “speculative and is more imaginary than real.”
The school, now also
through counsel, “maintained that pre-marital sexual relations, even if between
two consenting adults without legal impediment to marry, is considered a
disgraceful and immoral conduct or a serious misconduct xxx.” And that the
school “has the right to uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church xxx.” They further
asserted that the petitioner’s indiscretion is further aggravated by the fact
that she is the Assistant to the Director of the Lay Apostolate and Community
Outreach Directorate, a position of responsibility that the students look up to
as role model.” She was asked to explain why she should not be dismissed.”
The petitioner advised
the school that she was adopting her counsel’s letter as her written
explanation. She was thereafter terminated by the school on the ground of serious
misconduct, stating that “pre-marital sexual relations between two consenting
adults with no impediment to marry, even if they subsequently married, amounts
to immoral conduct.”
Petitioner filed a
complaint for illegal dismissal with the NLRC which was dismissed, with the
Labor Arbiter and the Commission ruling against her. This was likewise upheld by the Court of Appeals.
The need for proof that pre-marital sex and
pregnancy out of wedlock are disgraceful or immoral
The
Supreme Court overturned the decision of the CA. However, it did uphold the
validity of the 1992 MRPS, specifically Section 94 as having been validly issued
by the Secretary of Education pursuant to BP 232.
The Court then focused
on the validity of the dismissal which “hinges on the determination of whether
pregnancy out of wedlock by an employee of a catholic educational institution
is a cause for the termination of her employment. But the Court resolved this “from a strictly
neutral and secular point of view – the relationship between SSCW as employer
and the petitioner as an employee, the causes provided for by law in the
termination of such relationship, and the evidence on record.”
Her dismissal was
based on “pre-marital sexual relations and, consequently, pregnancy out of
wedlock.” This was to be assessed as to
whether the same constitutes a valid ground for dismissal pursuant to Section
94(e) of the 1992 MRPS which provides that:
“Sec.
94. Causes of Terminating Employment – In addition to the just causes
enumerated in the Labor Code, the employment of school personnel, including
faculty, may be terminated for any of the following causes:
x
x x x
e.
Disgraceful or immoral conduct;
x
x x x”
The Court found no
substantial evidence to support the previous conclusion arrived at by the labor
tribunals that she engaged in “disgraceful and immoral conduct.” Without more, pregnancy
out of wedlock “is not enough to characterize the petitioner’s conduct as
disgraceful or immoral. There must be substantial evidence to establish that
pre-marital sexual relations and, consequently, pregnancy out of wedlock, are
indeed considered disgraceful or immoral.”
Determining disgraceful and
immoral conduct
The Court held that “the
determination of whether a conduct is disgraceful or immoral involves a
two-step process: first, a consideration of the totality of the
circumstances surrounding the conduct; and second, an assessment of the said
circumstances vis-à-vis the prevailing norms of conduct, i.e.,
what the society generally considers moral and respectable.” It further stated that her employment by a
Catholic school “per se does not absolutely determine whether her
pregnancy out of wedlock is disgraceful or immoral. There is still a necessity
to determine whether the petitioner’s pregnancy out of wedlock is considered
disgraceful or immoral in accordance with the prevailing norms of conduct.”
Interestingly, the
Court made a distinction between public and secular morality versus religious
morality. The distinction “is important because the jurisdiction of the Court
extends only to public and secular morality. As cited by the Court:
“The
morality referred to in the law is public and necessarily secular, not
religious x x x. Religious teachings as expressed in public debate may
influence the civil public order but public moral disputes may be resolved only
on grounds articulable in secular terms. Otherwise, if government relies
upon religious beliefs in formulating public policies and morals, the resulting
policies and morals would require conformity to what some might regard as
religious programs or agenda. xxx Succinctly put, a law could be
religious or Kantian or Aquinian or utilitarian in its deepest roots, but it
must have an articulable and discernible secular purpose and justification to
pass scrutiny of the religion clauses. x x x.”
Extramarital relations
with between unmarried persons
is not disgraceful
and immoral
Under these tests, two
things may be concluded from the fact that an unmarried woman gives birth out
of wedlock with respect to administrative cases: (i) if the father of the child
is single, then the woman is not ordinarily liable for disgraceful and
immoral conduct and (ii) if the father is married to someone else, then, then
there is a cause for administrative sanction against either of them. The
“disgraceful and immoral conduct” consists of having extramarital relations
with a married person. “The sanctity of marriage is constitutionally
recognized and likewise affirmed by our statutes as a special contract of
permanent union.”
When the law refers to morality – it is public
and secular morality, not religious morality
The Court, applying
those doctrines to the case, stated that that “the right of an employee to
security of tenure is protected by the Constitution. Perfunctorily, a regular
employee may not be dismissed unless for cause provided under the Labor Code
and other relevant laws, in this case, the 1992 MRPS. As stated above, when the
law refers to morality, it necessarily pertains to public and secular morality
and not religious morality. Thus, the proscription against “disgraceful or
immoral conduct” under Section 94(e) of the 1992 MRPS, which is made as a cause
for dismissal, must necessarily refer to public and secular morality. Accordingly,
in order for a conduct to be considered as disgraceful or immoral, it must be
“‘detrimental (or dangerous) to those conditions upon which depend the
existence and progress of human society’ and not because the conduct is
proscribed by the beliefs of one religion or the other.”
The Court did “not
find any circumstance” xxx “to conclude that the petitioner committed a
disgraceful or immoral conduct. It bears stressing that the petitioner and her
boyfriend, at the time they conceived a child, had no legal impediment to
marry. Indeed, even prior to her dismissal, the petitioner married her
boyfriend, the father of her child. As the Court has previously held, “there is
no law which penalizes an unmarried mother by reason of her sexual conduct or
proscribes the consensual sexual activity between two unmarried persons; that
neither does such situation contravene any fundamental state policy enshrined
in the Constitution.”
Her conduct “viewed
against the prevailing norms of conduct,” xxx “cannot be considered as
disgraceful or immoral; such conduct is not denounced by public and secular
morality. It may be an unusual arrangement, but it certainly is not disgraceful
or immoral within the contemplation of the law. To stress, pre-marital sexual
relations between two consenting adults who have no impediment to marry each
other, and, consequently, conceiving a child out of wedlock, gauged from a
purely public and secular view of morality, does not amount to a disgraceful or
immoral conduct under Section 94(e) of the 1992 MRPS.”
Contrary to the labor
tribunals’ declarations, the Court also found that the school “failed to adduce
substantial evidence to prove that the petitioner conduct caused grave scandal
to the school and its students.” Since
she was only a non-teaching personnel; her interaction with the students is
minimal.
In termination cases, “the
burden of proving that the dismissal of the employees was for a valid and
authorized cause rests on the employer.”
However, there was no valid ground for dismissal as her “conduct is not
considered by law as disgraceful or immoral.” As admitted, the school at the
time did not have “any policy or rule against an employee who engages in
pre-marital sexual relations and conceives a child as a result thereof.” With no basis in law or in its policy and rules,
the dismissal was “despotic and arbitrary and, thus, not a valid exercise of
management prerogative.” The Court
awarded her “separation pay, in lieu of actual reinstatement, full backwages
and attorney’s fees, but not to moral and exemplary damages.”
The moral of the story
appears to be that even for a Catholic school, secular and not religious
standards will prevail. This highlights
another separation, not of Church and State, but between Church and Court, at
least when it comes to norms of conduct.
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