Brent School v. Zamora

BRENT SCHOOL, INC., and REV.
GABRIEL DIMACHE
vs.
RONALDO ZAMORA, the Presidential Assistant for Legal Affairs, Office of the President, and
DOROTEO R. ALEGRE
G.R. No. L-48494
February 5, 1990
Facts:
Petitioner Brent School, Inc. hired respondent Doroteo Alegre as athletic director for a fixed term
of five years from July 18, 1971 to July 17, 1976. Subsequent subsidiary agreements dated March 15,
1973, August 28, 1973, and September 14, 1974 reiterated the same terms and conditions, including the
expiry date, as those contained in the original contract of July 18, 1971. Months before the expiration of
the stipulated period, Alegre was given a copy of the report filed by Brent School with the Department of
Labor advising of the termination of his services effective on July 16, 1976. The stated ground for the
termination was completion of contract, expiration of the definite period of employment. However, at the
investigation conducted by a Labor Conciliator of said report of termination of his services, Alegre
protested the announced termination of his employment. He argued that although his contract did stipulate
that the same would terminate on July 17, 1976, since his services were necessary and desirable in the
usual business of his employer, and his employment had lasted for five years, he had acquired the status
of a regular employee and could not be removed except for valid cause.
The Regional Director considered Brent School’s report as an application for clearance to

terminate employment (not a report of termination), refused to give such clearance and instead required
the reinstatement of Alegre, as a permanent employee, to his former position without loss of seniority
rights and with full back wages. Brent School filed a motion for reconsideration. The Regional Director
denied the motion and forwarded the case to the Secretary of Labor for review. The latter sustained the
Regional Director. Brent appealed to the Office of the President. The OP dismissed the appeal for lack of
merit and affirmed the Labor Secretary’s decision, ruling that Alegre was a permanent employee who
could not be dismissed except for just cause, and expiration of the employment contract was not one of
the just causes provided in the Labor Code for termination of services. Hence, the instant petition.
Issue:
Whether or not the provisions of the Labor Code, as amended, have anathematized fixed period
employment or employment for a term.
Ruling:
No. There is nothing essentially contradictory between a definite period of an employment
contract and the nature of the employee’s duties set down in that contract as being usually necessary or
desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer. The concept of the employee’s duties as being
usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer is not synonymous with or
identical to employment with a fixed term. Logically, the decisive determinant in term employment
should not be the activities that the employee is called upon to perform, but the day certain agreed upon
by the parties for the commencement and termination of their employment relationship, a day
certain being understood to be that which must necessarily come, although it may not be known when.
Seasonal employment, and employment for a particular project are merely instances employment in
which a period, where not expressly set down, necessarily implied.
The Civil Code has always recognized and continues to recognize the validity and propriety of
contracts and obligations with a fixed or definite period, and imposes no restraints on the freedom of the
parties to fix the duration of a contract, whatever its object, be it specie, goods or services, except the
general admonition against stipulations contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order or public
policy. Under the Civil Code, therefore, and as a general proposition, fixed-term employment contracts
are not limited, as they are under the present Labor Code, to those by nature seasonal or for specific
projects with pre-determined dates of completion; they also include those to which the parties by free
choice have assigned a specific date of termination. Some familiar examples may be cited of employment
contracts which may be neither for seasonal work nor for specific projects, but to which a fixed term is an
essential and natural appurtenance.
Since the entire purpose behind the development of legislation culminating in the present Article
280 of the Labor Code clearly appears to have been, as already observed, to prevent circumvention of the
employee's right to be secure in his tenure, the clause in said article indiscriminately and completely
ruling out all written or oral agreements conflicting with the concept of regular employment as defined
therein should be construed to refer to the substantive evil that the Code itself has singled out –
agreements entered into precisely to circumvent security of tenure. It should have no application to
instances where (1) a fixed period of employment was agreed upon knowingly and voluntarily by the
parties, without any force, duress or improper pressure being brought to bear upon the employee and
absent any other circumstances vitiating his consent, or (2) where it satisfactorily appears that the
employer and employee dealt with each other on more or less equal terms with no moral dominance
whatever being exercised by the former over the latter. In view of the foregoing, respondent Alegre’s
employment was terminated upon the expiration of his last contract with Brent School on July 16, 1976
without the necessity of any notice. The advance written advice given the Department of Labor with copy
to said petitioner was a mere reminder of the impending expiration of his contract, not a letter of
termination, nor an application for clearance to terminate which needed the approval of the Department of
Labor to make the termination of his services effective. In any case, such clearance should properly have
been given, not denied.

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BRENT SCHOOL, INC., and REV.

The Regional Director considered Brent School’s report as an application for clearance to

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