Freyssinet Filipinas Corporation vs. Lapuz

An employee repeatedly and successively rehired for the same task in the same project under short-term contracts is a regular employee, not a project employee, where the employer fails to prove that he was assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking and that the duration and scope of the work were specified at the time of his engagement, and where the work performed is vital, necessary, and indispensable to the employer's usual business or trade. Corporate officers may be held personally liable for corporate obligations only if bad faith is both alleged in the complaint and proved, and moral and exemplary damages in dismissal cases require evidence of bad faith or oppressiveness, not bare allegations.

Freyssinet Filipinas Corporation (FFC), now Frey-Fil Corporation, is a domestic corporation engaged in general construction, pre-stressed, and post-tensioning works, among others; its co-petitioners Eric A. Cruz, Gaudencio S. Reyes, and Carlota R. Satorre are among its corporate officers. Amado R. Lapuz served as warehouse supervisor, a position deployed at the company's project sites. The employment relationship is governed by Article 295 (formerly Article 280) of the Labor Code, which classifies employment as regular or project-based, and by Department Order No. 19, Series of 1993, which prescribes the guidelines governing the employment of workers in the construction industry, including the reporting of project terminations to the Department of Labor and Employment.

Amado R. Lapuz worked as warehouse supervisor for Freyssinet Filipinas Corporation (FFC), now Frey-Fil Corporation, a domestic corporation engaged in general construction, pre-stressed, and post-tensioning works. Lapuz claimed that he had commenced work for the company as early as 1977 under its previous names — FF Interior from 1977 to 1982, Freyssinet Post Tensioning System Philippines, Inc. (FPTSPI) or Filsystem from 1982 to 1999, and FFC from 2006 to 2012 — and that, except for FPTSPI, which was owned by one Philip Cruz, the remaining firms were owned and operated by petitioner Eric A. Cruz. He was assigned to the company's various projects, the last of which was the Wharton Parksuite Project in Binondo, Manila.

Sometime in December 2011, Lapuz averred that he was verbally informed of his termination by project manager Gaudencio S. Reyes, who told him "Hoy umalis ka na dyan," and was thereafter no longer allowed to perform his work or enter the premises. He nonetheless continued to report at the project site until he received a notice of termination dated January 5, 2012 directing him to secure his clearance from the HRD Department, which he complied with. Believing that he had been dismissed without substantive and procedural due process, Lapuz filed a complaint for illegal dismissal with a prayer for reinstatement and payment of attorney's fees against FFC, Cruz, Reyes, and Carlota R. Satorre before the NLRC.

For their part, petitioners asserted that Lapuz had started working as warehouse supervisor for FFC only on April 11, 2007 under a project employment contract for its Texas Instruments project in Pampanga, which lasted until September 2008. He was thereafter rehired on a per-project basis for the Robinson's Place project in Dumaguete City from September 12, 2008 until February 26, 2010; the Calumpit Plant project from March 7, 2010 until April 4, 2011; and the Wharton Parksuite project from April 22, 2011 until the termination of his contract on December 31, 2011. In support, FFC submitted copies of Lapuz's project employment contracts for his last assignment at Wharton Parksuite, which showed that his services had been engaged intermittently for fixed periods of one or three months only. Petitioners further contended that the termination had been reported to the Department of Labor and Employment in accordance with Section 2.2 of Department Order No. 19, Series of 1993, and maintained that Lapuz was not illegally dismissed because his project employment contract had merely expired. They also averred that the corporate officers should not be held liable in view of the separate personality of the corporation from its officers and the absence of any showing of bad faith on their part.

The Labor Arbiter found that petitioners' failure to adduce proof of the filing of termination reports with the DOLE every time a project or phase was completed indicated that Lapuz was not a project employee, and noted that he had been employed as warehouse supervisor since 1977 and had in that capacity performed tasks usually necessary or desirable in the usual business of the company. The NLRC, on the other hand, found Lapuz to be a project employee whose engagement was manifested by his identification card, clearance, project employment contracts, and establishment termination report to the DOLE, and held that since his most recent project contract had already ended, he could not be said to have been illegally dismissed. The Court of Appeals reinstated the Labor Arbiter's findings, holding that FFC, FPTSPI, and Filsystems were run by the same people and had merely evolved into different names, and that petitioners' failure to religiously report the termination of Lapuz's employment contracts established that he was a regular employee and that the employment contracts were a mere afterthought to escape the legal obligations attached to regular employment.

• Project Employment: Petitioners maintained that Lapuz was a project employee, having been hired on a per-project basis under contracts that specified the project and the fixed duration of his engagement, and that his services were engaged intermittently for one or three months at a time.
• Expiration of Contract: Petitioners argued that Lapuz was not illegally dismissed because his project employment contract had merely expired upon completion of the project, and that his termination had been reported to the DOLE in accordance with Section 2.2 of Department Order No. 19, Series of 1993.
• Separate Corporate Personality: Petitioners averred that the corporate officers should not be held liable in view of the separate personality of the corporation from its officers, absent any showing of bad faith on their part.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Employment Status: Whether the Court of Appeals erred in finding grave abuse of discretion on the part of the NLRC in reversing the Labor Arbiter's ruling that respondent was a regular employee who had been illegally dismissed.
• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Reckoning of Employment: Whether the Court of Appeals erred in finding that respondent's employment with petitioners began in 1977 on the theory that FF Interior, FPTSPI/Filsystem, and FFC were one and the same company.
• Liability of Corporate Officers: Whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding the impleaded corporate officers jointly and severally liable with the corporation for the monetary awards.
• Moral and Exemplary Damages: Whether the Court of Appeals erred in upholding the award of moral and exemplary damages in favor of respondent.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Employment Status: No. The Court of Appeals committed no reversible error in ruling that respondent was a regular, not a project, employee, the employer having failed to prove the requisites of project employment and the successive short-term contracts having been used to circumvent tenurial security under Article 295 of the Labor Code.
• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Reckoning of Employment: Yes, in part. FFC, FPTSPI, and Filsystems Tower 1, Inc. were issued separate certificates of registration and are therefore deemed separate and distinct corporate personalities, so respondent's employment is reckoned only from April 11, 2007.
• Liability of Corporate Officers: Yes. The Court of Appeals erred in holding the corporate officers solidarily liable, the twin requisites of allegation and proof of bad faith under prevailing case law being clearly lacking.
• Moral and Exemplary Damages: Yes. The awards must be deleted, moral and exemplary damages in dismissal cases requiring proof of bad faith or oppressiveness beyond bare allegations.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Employment Status: Certiorari requires a satisfactory showing that the court or quasi-judicial authority gravely abused the discretion conferred upon it, which connotes a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment done in a despotic manner by reason of passion or personal hostility, so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform the duty enjoined or to act at all in contemplation of law; it likewise arises when a lower court or tribunal patently violates the Constitution, the law, or existing jurisprudence. Tested against these considerations, the Court of Appeals committed no reversible error in granting respondent's certiorari petition insofar as it ruled that he was a regular, and not a project, employee. Under Article 295 of the Labor Code, regular employment exists when the employee is engaged to perform activities usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, or is a casual employee who has rendered at least one year of service with respect to the activity in which he is employed. Project employment, by contrast, exists when the employee is hired under a contract specifying that the employment will last only for a specific project or undertaking, the completion or termination of which is determined at the time of his engagement. For an employee to be considered project-based, the employer must prove that the employee was assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking, and that the duration and scope of the work were specified at the time the employee was engaged for such project. A project employee lawfully terminates upon completion of the project or phase thereof. As held in GMA Network, Inc. vs. Pabriga, if the particular job or undertaking is within the regular or usual business of the employer and is not identifiably distinct or separate from the other undertakings of the company such that there is clearly a constant necessity for the performance of the task, the job or undertaking should not be considered a project. For the first three projects — the Texas Instruments project in Pampanga, the Robinson's Place project in Dumaguete City, and the Calumpit Plant project — petitioners failed to show that respondent was hired on a project basis and that he was informed of the duration and scope of his work; no employment contracts for those projects were presented. While the absence of a written contract does not per se grant regular status, it is nonetheless evidence bearing on whether he was informed of the duration and scope of his work and of his status as a project employee. In addition, no termination reports for each completed project were shown to have been submitted to the DOLE as mandated under Section 2 (2.2) (e) of Department Order No. 19-93; compliance was made only during respondent's last assignment at the Wharton Parksuite project. The failure of an employer to file a termination report with the DOLE every time a project or phase thereof is completed indicates that the workers hired were not project employees, consistent with Tomas Lao Construction vs. NLRC, which ruled that the report of termination is one of the indicators of project employment. As to the Wharton Parksuite project, the contracts submitted did specify the covered project and duration, but they remained insufficient: respondent was repeatedly and successively rehired as warehouse supervisor for the same project eight times, for the periods (a) July 1, 2010 to August 31, 2010; (b) September 1, 2010 to September 30, 2010; (c) October 1, 2010 to October 31, 2010; (d) January 16, 2011 to February 28, 2011; (e) March 1, 2011 to March 31, 2011; (f) June 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011; (g) July 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011; and (h) October 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011. Petitioners failed to show that his services were needed only for the period contracted and that the particular phase or undertaking for which he had been hired had been completed to warrant termination. On the contrary, his successive rehiring to perform the same kind of work for the same project, contract after contract — most of which were for a duration of one month only — reasonably showed that the project employment contracts were merely used to circumvent the law on tenurial security; when periods have been imposed to preclude the acquisition of tenurial security by the employee, they should be struck down as contrary to public morals, good customs, or public order. Even on the assumption that respondent was a project employee, an employment ceases to be co-terminous with specific projects when the employee is continuously rehired due to the demands of the employer's business and re-engaged for many more projects without interruption. As pointed out in Maraguinot, Jr. vs. NLRC, once a project or work pool employee has been continuously, as opposed to intermittently, rehired by the same employer for the same tasks or nature of tasks, and these tasks are vital, necessary, and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer, the employee must be deemed a regular employee. While length of time is not the controlling test for project employment, it is nonetheless vital in determining whether the employee was hired for a specific undertaking or tasked to perform functions vital, necessary, and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer. Considering that the function of a warehouse supervisor is no doubt vital, necessary, and desirable to the construction business of petitioners, and that respondent's work as such for the latter's various projects without interruption since 2007 was necessary and desirable to that business, the Court of Appeals properly deemed him a regular employee; where the employment of project employees is extended long after the supposed project has been finished, the employees are removed from the scope of project employees and are considered regular employees. As a regular employee, respondent is entitled to security of tenure and may only be dismissed for just or authorized causes; not having been dismissed for a valid and legal cause, the Court of Appeals was correct in declaring him illegally dismissed.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion — Reckoning of Employment: The Court took exception to the Court of Appeals' finding that respondent's employment started in 1977 based on its flawed finding that FF Interior and FFC are one and the same company. The Court of Appeals upheld the assertion that FF Interior, FPTSPI/Filsystem, and FFC merely changed their names and were managed and owned by the same people, but the records reveal that FFC originated from Freyssinet (Davao) Inc., registered on February 28, 1994 before the SEC and issued SEC Registration No. ASO94-001909, thereafter renamed FFC in 2002 and subsequently Frey-Fil Corporation in 2011. FPTSPI was shown to have been registered under SEC Registration No. ASO94-002261, while Filsystems Tower 1, Inc. is registered under SEC Registration No. ASO94-00011538. Having been issued separate certificates of registration, FFC, FPTSPI, and Filsystems Tower 1, Inc. are by law deemed separate and distinct corporate personalities. Mere ownership by a single stockholder or by another corporation of all or nearly all of the capital stock of a corporation is not of itself sufficient ground for disregarding the separate corporate personality, nor is the existence of interlocking directors, corporate officers, and shareholders enough justification to pierce the veil of corporate fiction in the absence of fraud or other public policy considerations; it must be shown that the separate and distinct personalities of the corporations were set up to justify a wrong, protect fraud, or perpetrate a deception. The wrongdoing must be clearly and convincingly established by substantial evidence and cannot be presumed, lest an injustice never intended result from an erroneous application; no such evidence was submitted by respondent. In addition, respondent himself admitted that his employment with FPTSPI ceased in 1999 and that he was hired anew by FFC only in 2006. While he declared in his complaint that he was employed by FFC on July 11, 2006, no evidence was presented to substantiate this, and he did not deny FFC's claim that he was hired as warehouse supervisor in 2007 for its Texas Instruments project in Pampanga. Under the circumstances, the Court was inclined to believe that respondent was hired by FFC only on April 11, 2007, and not on July 11, 2006 as he claimed. Since there was no basis for the Court of Appeals to disregard the separate juridical personality of FFC under the doctrine of piercing the corporate veil, and considering that respondent was deemed a regular employee of FFC having been consistently hired as warehouse supervisor since April 11, 2007 and terminated without a valid cause on January 5, 2012, the awards of backwages and separation pay in lieu of reinstatement are in accord with Article 294 of the Labor Code.

• Liability of Corporate Officers: The Court equally found error on the part of the Court of Appeals in holding the impleaded corporate officers jointly and severally liable to respondent. Case law states that to hold a director or officer personally liable for corporate obligations, two requisites must concur: (1) it must be alleged in the complaint that the director or officer assented to patently unlawful acts of the corporation or that the officer was guilty of gross negligence or bad faith; and (2) there must be proof that the officer acted in bad faith. Here, the twin requirements of allegation and proof of bad faith necessary to hold the impleaded corporate officers liable for the monetary awards are clearly lacking.

• Moral and Exemplary Damages: With respect to the award of moral and exemplary damages, moral damages are recoverable where the dismissal of the employee was attended by bad faith or fraud, or constituted an act oppressive to labor, or was done in a manner contrary to morals, good customs, or public policy, while exemplary damages may be awarded if the dismissal was effected in a wanton, oppressive, or malevolent manner. Apart from respondent's bare allegations, no evidence was presented to prove that his dismissal was attended with bad faith or was done oppressively.

• Requisites of Project Employment — An employee is under project employment when hired under a contract specifying that the employment will last only for a specific project or undertaking, the completion or termination of which is determined at the time of engagement. For an employee to be considered project-based, the employer must prove: (a) that the employee was assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking; and (b) that the duration and scope of the work were specified at the time the employee was engaged for such project. A project employee assigned to a project or phase thereof which begins and ends at determined or determinable times may be lawfully terminated at the completion of such project or phase. In this case, the employer failed to prove both requisites for the first three projects and failed to show that the particular phase for which respondent was hired had been completed in the last project.

• Identifiably Distinct Undertaking Test (GMA Network, Inc. vs. Pabriga) — If the particular job or undertaking is within the regular or usual business of the employer company and is not identifiably distinct or separate from the other undertakings of the company such that there is clearly a constant necessity for the performance of the task in question, the job or undertaking should not be considered a project. The Court applied this test in holding that the work of a warehouse supervisor was vital, necessary, and desirable to the employer's construction business.

• Termination Report as Indicator of Project Employment — Under Section 2 (2.2) (e) of Department Order No. 19, Series of 1993, the termination of an employee's employment in a particular project or undertaking must be reported to the DOLE Regional Office having jurisdiction over the workplace within 30 days following the date of separation, using the prescribed form. The failure of an employer to file a termination report with the DOLE every time a project or a phase thereof is completed indicates that the workers hired were not project employees; the report of termination is one of the indicators of project employment. Here, compliance was made only for respondent's last assignment, which weighed against the claim of project status for the earlier projects.

• Tenurial Security Cannot Be Circumvented by Contractual Periods — When periods have been imposed to preclude the acquisition of tenurial security by the employee, they should be struck down as contrary to public morals, good customs, or public order. The Court found that respondent's successive rehiring for the same kind of work in the same project, contract after contract — most for a duration of one month only — showed that the project employment contracts were merely used to circumvent the law on tenurial security.

• Project Pool Employee Rule (Maraguinot, Jr. vs. NLRC) — An employment ceases to be co-terminous with specific projects when the employee is continuously rehired due to the demands of the employer's business and re-engaged for many more projects without interruption. Once a project or work pool employee has been (1) continuously, as opposed to intermittently, rehired by the same employer for the same tasks or nature of tasks; and (2) these tasks are vital, necessary, and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer, the employee must be deemed a regular employee. Length of time is not the controlling test for project employment but is nonetheless vital in determining whether the employee was hired for a specific undertaking or tasked to perform functions vital, necessary, and indispensable to the employer's business.

• Extended Project Employment Converts to Regular Employment — Where the employment of project employees is extended long after the supposed project has been finished, the employees are removed from the scope of project employees and are considered regular employees. The Court relied on this rule in affirming respondent's regular status.

• Piercing the Corporate Veil — Insufficiency of Common Ownership and Interlocking Directors — Mere ownership by a single stockholder or by another corporation of all or nearly all of the capital stock of a corporation is not of itself sufficient ground for disregarding the separate corporate personality. Neither is the existence of interlocking directors, corporate officers, and shareholders enough justification to pierce the veil of corporate fiction in the absence of fraud or other public policy considerations. It must be shown that the separate and distinct personalities of the corporations were set up to justify a wrong, protect fraud, or perpetrate a deception, and the wrongdoing must be clearly and convincingly established by substantial evidence; it cannot be presumed. The Court applied this in rejecting the Court of Appeals' finding that FFC and its predecessors were one and the same company.

• Twin Requisites for Personal Liability of Corporate Officers — To hold a director or officer personally liable for corporate obligations, two requisites must concur: (1) it must be alleged in the complaint that the director or officer assented to patently unlawful acts of the corporation or that the officer was guilty of gross negligence or bad faith; and (2) there must be proof that the officer acted in bad faith. Both requisites were absent here, warranting the absolution of the impleaded corporate officers.

• Bad Faith as Basis for Moral and Exemplary Damages in Dismissal Cases — Moral damages are recoverable where the dismissal of the employee was attended by bad faith or fraud, or constituted an act oppressive to labor, or was done in a manner contrary to morals, good customs, or public policy; exemplary damages may be awarded if the dismissal was effected in a wanton, oppressive, or malevolent manner. Bare allegations without evidence do not suffice, and the awards were accordingly deleted.

• "when periods have been imposed to preclude the acquisition of tenurial security by the employee, they should be struck down as contrary to public morals, good customs or public order." — This is the ratio for rejecting the employer's successive one-month project contracts; it supplies the standard for testing whether fixed-term engagements are a legitimate project arrangement or a device to defeat security of tenure.
• "once a project or work pool employee has been: (1) continuously, as opposed to intermittently, rehired by the same employer for the same tasks or nature of tasks; and (2) these tasks are vital, necessary, and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer, then the employee must be deemed a regular employee." — This is the canonical formulation of the project pool employee rule drawn from Maraguinot, Jr. vs. NLRC, and it is the operative test on which the affirmance of respondent's regular status rested.
• "the mere ownership by a single stockholder or by another corporation of all or nearly all of the capital stock of a corporation is not of itself sufficient ground for disregarding the separate corporate personality." — This states the threshold requirement for piercing the corporate veil and explains why the Court of Appeals erred in treating FFC and its predecessor corporations as a single entity for purposes of reckoning respondent's length of service.
• "to hold a director or officer personally liable for corporate obligations, two requisites must concur: (1) it must be alleged in the complaint that the director or officer assented to patently unlawful acts of the corporation or that the officer was guilty of gross negligence or bad faith; and (2) there must be proof that the officer acted in bad faith." — This is the controlling two-part test for officer liability, and its non-satisfaction is the ground for absolving petitioners Cruz, Reyes, and Satorre.

• GMA Network, Inc. vs. Pabriga, 722 Phil. 161 (2013) — Controlling precedent for the rule that a job or undertaking within the regular or usual business of the employer and not identifiably distinct or separate from its other undertakings, such that there is a constant necessity for the task, should not be considered a project.
• Tomas Lao Construction vs. NLRC, 344 Phil. 268 (1997) — Followed for the rule that the report of termination is one of the indicators of project employment, and for the principle that contractual periods imposed to preclude the acquisition of tenurial security are struck down as contrary to public morals, good customs, or public order.
• Maraguinot, Jr. vs. NLRC, 348 Phil. 580 (1998) — Followed for the project pool employee rule: continuous rehiring for the same tasks, where those tasks are vital, necessary, and indispensable to the employer's usual business, renders the employee regular.
• PNOC-Energy Development Corporation vs. National Labor Relations Commission, 549 Phil. 733 (2007) — Followed for the rule that where the employment of project employees is extended long after the supposed project has been finished, the employees are removed from the scope of project employees and are considered regular employees.
• Dacles vs. Millenium Erectors Corporation, 763 Phil. 550 (2015) — Cited for the requisites the employer must prove to establish project employment: assignment to a specific project or undertaking, and specification of the duration and scope of the work at the time of engagement.
• Omni Hauling Services, Inc. vs. Bon, 742 Phil. 335 (2014) — Cited for the proposition that the absence of a written contract does not per se grant regular status but is evidence bearing on whether the employee was informed of the duration and scope of his work.
• Integrated Contractor and Plumbing Works, Inc. vs. NLRC, 503 Phil. 875 (2005) — Cited for the principle that length of time, while not the controlling test for project employment, is vital in determining whether the employee was hired for a specific undertaking or tasked to perform functions vital to the employer's business.
• Liganza vs. RBL Shipyard Corporation, 535 Phil. 662 (2006) — Cited in support of the rule that employment ceases to be co-terminous with specific projects when the employee is continuously rehired due to the demands of the employer's business.
• Zambrano vs. Philippine Carpet Manufacturing Corporation, G.R. No. 224099, June 21, 2017, 828 SCRA 144 — Cited for the rule that mere ownership by a single stockholder or another corporation of all or nearly all of the capital stock is not of itself sufficient ground for disregarding the separate corporate personality.
• Philippine National Bank vs. Hydro Resources Contractors Corporation, 706 Phil. 297 (2013) — Cited for the rule that interlocking directors, corporate officers, and shareholders do not justify piercing the corporate veil absent fraud or other public policy considerations.
• Kukan International Corporation vs. Reyes, 646 Phil. 210 (2010) — Cited for the requirement that it must be shown that the separate and distinct corporate personalities were set up to justify a wrong, protect fraud, or perpetrate a deception.
• Philippine National Bank vs. Andrada Electric & Engineering Company, 430 Phil. 882 (2002) — Cited for the rule that the wrongdoing justifying the piercing of the corporate veil must be clearly and convincingly established by substantial evidence and cannot be presumed.
• Dimson vs. Chua, 801 Phil. 778 (2016) — Cited for the twin requisites for holding a director or officer personally liable for corporate obligations: allegation of assent to patently unlawful acts, gross negligence, or bad faith, and proof that the officer acted in bad faith.
• Pasos vs. Philippine National Construction Corporation, 713 Phil. 416 (2013) — Cited for the standards governing the award of moral and exemplary damages in dismissal cases, which require bad faith, fraud, oppressiveness, or a wanton, oppressive, or malevolent manner of dismissal.
• Bahia Shipping Services, Inc. vs. Hipe, Jr., 746 Phil. 955 (2014) — Cited for the definition of grave abuse of discretion as a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment amounting to an evasion of positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform the duty enjoined or to act at all in contemplation of law.
• Tagolino vs. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, 706 Phil. 534 (2013) — Cited for the rule that grave abuse of discretion arises when a lower court or tribunal patently violates the Constitution, the law, or existing jurisprudence.
• Felipe vs. Danilo Divina Tamayo Konstract, Inc. (DDTKI), 795 Phil. 891 (2016) — Cited for the rule that a project employee's services may be lawfully terminated at the completion of the project or phase thereof.
• Gadia vs. Sykes Asia, Inc., 752 Phil. 413 (2015) — Cited, together with Omni Hauling, for the same rule on lawful termination of project employment upon completion of the project or phase.

• Article 295 (formerly Article 280), Labor Code — Defines regular employment as existing when the employee is engaged to perform activities usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, or is a casual employee who has rendered at least one year of service with respect to the activity in which he is employed; it also defines project employment as employment under a contract specifying that it will last only for a specific project or undertaking, the completion or termination of which is determined at the time of engagement. The provision supplied the classification framework against which respondent's successive engagements were tested, and the employer's failure to prove the requisites of project employment resulted in a finding of regular status.
• Article 294 (formerly Article 279), Labor Code — Provides that in cases of regular employment, the employer shall not terminate the services of an employee except for a just cause or when authorized by law, and that an employee unjustly dismissed is entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges, to full backwages inclusive of allowances, and to other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time compensation was withheld up to actual reinstatement. It is the basis for the awards of backwages and separation pay in lieu of reinstatement, reckoned from April 11, 2007.
• Section 2 (2.2) (e), Department Order No. 19, Series of 1993 ("Guidelines Governing the Employment of Workers in the Construction Industry") — Requires that the termination of an employee's employment in a particular project or undertaking be reported to the DOLE Regional Office having jurisdiction over the workplace within 30 days following the date of separation, using the prescribed form on employees' terminations, dismissals, or suspensions. The employer's failure to file termination reports for each completed project, compliance having been made only for the last assignment, was treated as an indicator that the workers hired were not project employees.

Carpio (Chairperson), Caguioa, J. Reyes, Jr., and Lazaro-Javier, JJ., concurred. Carpio was designated Acting Chief Justice per Special Order No. 2644 dated March 15, 2019.