The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said it is now considering filing charges against ABS-CBN over its alleged “intellectual dishonesty” during the Congressional hearing on the media broadcasting firm’s franchise.
In a SMS, Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III told BusinessMirror the matter is now “under study.”
On Thursday, he issued a statement calling out ABS-CBN for supposedly committing “intellectual dishonesty” when it claimed DOLE has “tacit approval of the seasonal work arrangement for the broadcast firm’s program employees.”
During the Congressional hearing on Tuesday, ABS CBN counsels cited Policy Instruction No. 40 to justify its use of seasonal work arrangement.
Bello was irked by the pronouncement since the 1979 policy was already declared illegal by the courts.
“The policy referred to and adopted more than 40 years ago was declared by the courts in 2004 to be invalid,” Bello said.
The labor official also hit ABS-CBN’s claim before the Congress that it compliant with labor laws and regulations.
He said the company has 67 pending labor cases before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and various courts.
“It is therefore patently misleading to attribute to us the claim that ABS CBN is a compliant company,” Bello stressed.
During the Congressional hearing, Labor undersecretary Ana Dione said 108 of the 109 alleged illegal dismissal case lodge against ABS-CBN were “resolved.”
Of the said resolved cases, 60 percent were decided in favor of the workers.
“When we say ABS-CBN is fully complied, we refer to the findings during the inspection. So for our part in the DOLE proper, I don’t know any more pending [cases],” Dione said in the hearing.
Image credits: Roy Domingo