BY Atty. Marcial P. Bernales, Jr., MARCH 2024 

“Actively participating in profane conversations with coworkers using company resources during office hours and sending company information to one’s personal email address in violation of company rules amount to serious misconduct, which is a just cause of terminating one’s employment.”* 

Employee A was a customer representative in the HRAD of XYZ Company. Employee A was reported to have sent obscene messages and lewd remarks about female colleagues, photos of female and male genitalia, and sexual intercourse in the company’s group chat app, as well as forwarded company information to a personal email account. Consequently, Employee A was dismissed for serious misconduct in violation of company policy.  

Employee A filed a complaint for illegal dismissal denying to have posted such messages but admitted to only saying “Hahaha…” and “Up down up down left right left right”. Employee A also denied forwarding confidential information to a personal email account. Further, Employee A argued that the penalty of dismissal was not commensurate to the acts that were allegedly committed.  

Article 297 of the Labor Code provides that an employer may terminate the employee for serious misconduct. Misconduct is defined as the “transgression of some established and definite rule of action, a forbidden act, a dereliction of duty, willful in character, and implies wrongful intent and not mere error in judgment”. In the present case, Employee A was found to have participated in and used the company chatroom in uttering indecent words about female colleagues and sending out company information to a personal email address which were clear violations of company policy. Hence, the Supreme Court ruled that Employee A was validly dismissed from employment. 

*G.R. No. 256939; 11/13/2023 (uploaded 02/08/2024); Supreme Court of the Philippines; https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/decisions/  

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