PLDT Inc. is questioning the Labor Department’s directive to regularize more than 7,300 employees of the company’s service contractors.
PLDT in a manifestation sought to impugn the clarificatory order of Labor Secretary Silvestro Bello III, saying it was “irregularly issued, procedurally inappropriate, based on selective and/or biased information and vague.”
“It was irregularly issued because, among others, the clarificatory order was released even though the previous orders of the Labor Secretary [issued on Jan. 10 and April 24, 2018] are final, cannot be modified and subject to the proceedings before the Court of Appeals,” it said.
“If the intent of the clarificatory order is to expand, modify or alter the regularization orders, then to that extent it contravenes jurisprudence and established procedure,” PLDT said in the manifestation.
PLDT said the order was also issued without giving the company a chance to be properly heard, as required by due process of law.
The leading telecom company earlier advised its customers about operational issues, after the Labor Department issued a cease and desist order to a number of its service providers requiring them to stop rending services to PLDT.
Bello released the clarificatory order immediately after he met with representatives of PLDT labor union, the Manggagawa sa Komunikasyon sa Pilipinas, on July 11, 2018. PLDT said in an earlier manifestation to the Labor secretary on July 16, said did not receive a notice calling it to such a meeting.
“Regretfully, because the clarificatory order was issued immediately after this meeting with the MKP, it cannot escape the impression that the order is based entirely on a factual position advocated by the MKP which is … inaccurate and misleading. In all candor, these circumstances also increase PLDT’s concern that it will not receive a fair hearing on this matter before this Honorable Office,” PLDT said.
PLDT said the clarificatory order was issued because the Labor secretary appeared to have concluded that PLDT was “defying or disobeying its regularization orders”.
“If this is the conclusion of the clarificatory order or this honorable office, then with due respect it is wrong. PLDT has not taken any act to ‘frustrate or tend to frustrate’ this honorable office’s regularization orders,” PLDT said.
PLDT said its intake process is “the logical, reasonable and necessary step in response to those regularization orders.”
The process does not require workers in the Labor Department’s list to “apply” for employment, contrary to the false and misleading claims by the MKP. PLDT said it was not even asked by the Labor secretary to explain the intake process.
“The intake process starts with the identification of the individual worker to determine first and foremost that he is on the regularization list enumerated by this honorable office, and second, to ascertain that the person presenting himself or herself as such is indeed the same person on the regularization list,” PLDT said.
The process also asks the workers to provide information relevant to employment, such as SSS, Philhealth, Pag-IBIG, and tax identification number details, in a manner compliant with the data privacy law.