Private respondent International School, Inc. (the School, for short), pursuant to Presidential Decree 732, is a domestic educational institution established primarily for dependents of foreign diplomatic personnel and other temporary residents. The School hires both foreign and local teachers as members of its faculty, classifying the same into two: (1) foreign-hires and (2) local-hires. The School grants foreign-hires certain benefits not accorded local-hires. These include housing, transportation, shipping costs, taxes, and home leave travel allowance. Foreign-hires are also paid a salary rate twenty-five percent (25%) more than local-hires. The School justifies the difference on two "significant economic disadvantages" foreign-hires have to endure, namely: (a) the "dislocation factor" and (b) limited tenure. When negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement were held on June 1995, petitioner International School Alliance of Educators, "a legitimate labor union and the collective bargaining representative of all faculty members"[4] of the School, contested the difference in salary rates between foreign and local-hires. This issue, as well as the question of whether foreign-hires should be included in the appropriate bargaining unit, eventually caused a deadlock between the parties.
Court ruling:
That public policy abhors inequality and discrimination is beyond contention. Our Constitution and laws reflect the policy against these evils. The Constitution[8] in the Article on Social Justice and Human Rights exhorts Congress to "give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all people to human dignity, reduce social, economic, and political inequalities." The very broad Article 19 of the Civil Code requires every person, "in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, [to] act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith."
International law, which springs from general principles of law,[9] likewise proscribes discrimination. General principles of law include principles of equity,[10] i.e., the general principles of fairness and justice, based on the test of what is reasonable.[11] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[12] the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,[13] the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,[14] the Convention against Discrimination in Education,[15] the Convention (No. 111) Concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation[16] - all embody the general principle against discrimination, the very antithesis of fairness and justice. The Philippines, through its Constitution, has incorporated this principle as part of its national laws.
In the workplace, where the relations between capital and labor are often skewed in favor of capital, inequality and discrimination by the employer are all the more reprehensible.
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