"x x x.
The issue as to whether petitioners were project employees or regular employees is factual in nature. It is well-settled in jurisprudence that factual findings of administrative or quasi-judicial bodies, which are deemed to have acquired expertise in matters within their respective jurisdictions, are generally accorded not only respect but even finality, and bind the Court when supported by substantial evidence.[7] Section 5, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court, defines substantial evidence as "that amount of relevant evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to justify a conclusion." Consistent therewith is the doctrine that this Court is not a trier of facts, and this is strictly adhered to in labor cases.[8] We [this Court] may take cognizance of and resolve factual issues, only when the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the Labor Arbiter or the NLRC are inconsistent with those of the CA.[9] In the present case, the NLRC and the CA have opposing views.
According to the CA, petitioners are project employees as found by Labor Arbiter Ernesto Carreon in his Decision dated May 28, 1998, because they were hired for the construction of the Cordova Reef Village Resort in Cordova, Cebu, which was later on affirmed by the NLRC in its January 12, 1999 decision. The only discrepancy is the Order of the NLRC that petitioners are entitled to backwages up to the finality of its decision, when as project employees, private respondents are only entitled to payment of backwages until the date of the completion of the project. In a later resolution on private respondent's motion for reconsideration of its January 12, 1999 decision, the NLRC changed its findings by ruling that petitioners herein were regular employees and, therefore, entitled to full backwages, until finality of the decision, citing that petitioners’ repeated rehiring over a long span of time made them regular employees.
Article 280 of the Labor Code distinguishes a "project employee" from a "regular employee," thus:
Article 280. Regular and Casual Employment − The provisions of written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and regardless of the oral agreement of the parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, except where the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee or where the work or service to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration of the season.
An employment shall be deemed to be casual if it is not covered by the preceding paragraph: Provided, That, any employee who has rendered at least one year service, whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such activity exists.
In Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Ltd. v. Ibañez,[10] this Court extensively discussed the above distinction, thus:
x x x [T]he principal test for determining whether particular employees are properly characterized as "project employees" as distinguished from "regular employees" is whether or not the project employees were assigned to carry out a "specific project or undertaking," the duration and scope of which were specified at the time the employees were engaged for that project.[11]
In a number of cases,[12] the Court has held that the length of service or the re-hiring of construction workers on a project-to-project basis does not confer upon them regular employment status, since their re-hiring is only a natural consequence of the fact that experienced construction workers are preferred. Employees who are hired for carrying out a separate job, distinct from the other undertakings of the company, the scope and duration of which has been determined and made known to the employees at the time of the employment , are properly treated as project employees and their services may be lawfully terminated upon the completion of a project.[13] Should the terms of their employment fail to comply with this standard, they cannot be consideredproject employees.
In Abesco Construction and Development Corporation v. Ramirez,[14] which also involved a construction company and its workers, this Court considered it crucial that the employees were informed of their status as project employees:
The principal test for determining whether employees are "project employees" or "regular employees" is whether they are assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking, the duration and scope of which are specified at the time they are engaged for that project. Such duration, as well as the particular work/service to be performed, is defined in an employment agreement and is made clear to the employees at the time of hiring.
In this case, petitioners did not have that kind of agreement with respondents. Neither did they inform respondents of the nature of the latter’s work at the time of hiring. Hence, for failure of petitioners to substantiate their claim that respondents were project employees, we are constrained to declare them as regular employees.
In Caramol v. National Labor Relations Commission,[15] and later reiterated in Salinas, Jr. v. National Labor Relations Commission,[16] the Court markedly stressed the importance of the employees' knowing consent to being engaged as project employees when it clarified that "there is no question that stipulation on employment contract providing for a fixed period of employment such as “project-to-project” contract is valid provided the period 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 x x x."
Applying the above disquisition, this Court agrees with the findings of the CA that petitioners were project employees. It is not disputed that petitioners were hired for the construction of the Cordova Reef Village Resort in Cordova, Cebu. By the nature of the contract alone, it is clear that petitioners' employment was to carry out a specific project. Hence, the CA did not commit grave abuse of discretion when it affirmed the findings of the Labor Arbiter. The CA correctly ruled:
A review of the facts and the evidence in this case readily shows that a finding had been made by Labor Arbiter Ernesto Carreon, in his decision dated May 28, 1998, that complainants, including private respondents, are project employees. They were hired for the construction of the Cordova Reef Village Resort in Cordova, Cebu. We note that no appeal had been made by the complainants, including herein private respondents, from the said finding. Thus, that private respondents are project employees has already been effectively established.
Likewise, a review of the public respondent's January 12, 1999 decision shows that it affirmed the labor arbiter's finding of the private respondents' being project employees.
We therefore cannot fathom how the public respondent could have ordered backwages up to the finality of its decision when, as project employees, private respondents are only entitled to payment of the same until the date of the completion of the project. It is settled that, without a valid cause, the employment of project employees cannot be terminated prior to expiration. Otherwise, they shall be entitled to reinstatement with full backwages. However, if the project or work is completed during the pendency of the ensuing suit for illegal dismissal, the employees shall be entitled only to full backwages from the date of the termination of their employment until the actual completion of the work.
While it may be true that in the proceedings below the date of completion of the project for which the private respondents were hired had not been clearly established, it constitutes grave abuse of discretion on the part of the public respondent for not determining for itself the date of said completion instead of merely ordering payment of backwages until finality of its decision.
x x x x
The decision of the labor arbiter, as affirmed by the public respondent in its January 12, 1999 decision, clearly established that private respondents were project employees. Because there was no showing then that the project for which their services were engaged had already been completed, the public respondent likewise found that private respondents were illegally dismissed and thus entitled to backwages.
However, in utter disregard of the law and prevailing jurisprudence, the public respondents capriciously and arbitrarily ordered that the said backwages be computed until the finality of its decision instead of only until the date of the project completion. In grave abuse of its discretion, the public respondent refused to consider the evidence presented before it as to the date of completion of the Cordova Reef Village Resort project. The records show that affidavits have been executed by the petitioner's manager, corporate architect and project engineer as to the fact of the completion of the project in October 1996. As these evidences [sic] were already a matter of record, the public respondent should not have closed its eyes and should have endeavored to render a correct and just judgment.
x x x x
Furthermore, as earlier noted, private respondents did not appeal from the Labor Arbiter's findings that they were indubitably project employees. However, they were entitled to the payment of separation pay only for the reason that the date of the completion of the project for which they were hired had not been clearly established. Thus, in affirming the labor arbiter's decision, the public respondent in effect sustained the finding that private respondents are project employees. The statement, therefore, contained in the resolution of the petitioner's motion for reconsideration of its January 12, 1999 decision that repeated rehiring makes the worker a regular employee, is at best an obiter, especially considering that such conclusion had not been shown to apply to the circumstances then obtaining with the private respondents' employment with the petitioner.[17]
Therefore, being project employees, petitioners are only entitled to full backwages, computed from the date of the termination of their employment until the actual completion of the work. Illegally dismissed workers are entitled to the payment of their salaries corresponding to the unexpired portion of their employment where the employment is for a definite period.[18] In this case, as found by the CA, the Cordova Reef Village Resort project had been completed in October 1996 and private respondent herein had signified its willingness, by way of concession to petitioners, to set the date of completion of the project as March 18, 1997; hence, the latter date should be considered as the date of completion of the project for purposes of computing the full backwages of petitioners.
x x x."
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