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MANILA, Philippines — The Court of Appeals Sixteenth Division has ordered the remand of a consolidated labor dispute involving Nutri-Asia Inc. and several workers to the labor arbiter for further proceedings.
In a decision promulgated on Feb. 26, 2026, the appellate court dismissed the petitions filed by both Nutri-Asia and the group of workers led by Jeniffer Lagaya, citing a lack of factual findings on the merits of the case.
According to the appellate court, while the laborers are guilty of forum shopping regarding their status as regular employees, this does not bar them from seeking justice for their alleged summary termination.
The case involves Lagaya and several other laborers who served as production crew for Nutri-Asia Inc. through the Alternative Network Resources Unlimited Multipurpose Cooperative (ANR).
The workers have long maintained that they are regular employees of Nutri-Asia, asserting that ANR is a "labor-only" contractor lacking substantial capital and equipment.
On July 6, 2019, workers were reportedly barred from entering the Nutri-Asia premises, and Lagaya and her colleagues described the event as a violent dispersal involving security forces and police, resulting in injuries and detentions.
Conversely, Nutri-Asia claimed the workers initiated an illegal lockdown and assaulted personnel with improvised weapons.
Resolutions from the labor arbiter. According to resolutions from the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), on July 11, 2017, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Regional Office IV-A conducted a joint assessment of service contractors operating within Nutri-Asia’s premises, including ANR, where labor laws compliance officers found that the tools and equipment used by ANR’s workers were owned by Nutri-Asia and that the latter exercised control over how the work was performed.
The officers likewise determined that the workers’ tasks were directly related and integral to Nutri-Asia’s main business, prompting the regional director, in an order dated Nov. 24, 2017, to conclude that Nutri-Asia and ANR were engaged in labor-only contracting and to direct the regularization of ANR’s workers as employees of Nutri-Asia.
However, on Sept. 20, 2019, former Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III reversed these findings and declared the arrangement to be legitimate contracting, subsequently denying the workers’ motion for reconsideration.
Despite this, Lagaya and others elevated the matter through a petition for certiorari before the Court of Appeals, which, in a March 17, 2022 decision, granted the petition, reinstated the earlier DOLE order, and ruled that labor-only contracting existed.
While Nutri-Asia and ANR’s motion for reconsideration remained pending, Lagaya and her co-petitioners proceeded to file the present complaint.
Court’s ruling. The appellate court ruled that the laborers are guilty of forum shopping only insofar as their cause of action for regularization is concerned, because that specific legal and factual question is already pending before the Supreme Court.
However, the Court of Appeals held that claims for illegal dismissal, unfair labor practice and money claims are distinct from the status of their employment.
The Court reasoned that the evidence required to prove an illegal dismissal—which focuses on the validity of a termination—is fundamentally different from the evidence needed to establish a "labor-only" contracting arrangement.
“Lagaya, et al. are correct in asserting that the causes of action for regularization and illegal dismissal are not identical. This Court is particularly guided by the precedent set in Del Rosario v. ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation, which involved a group of employees who filed an illegal dismissal case against their employer during the pendency of a regularization case which they earlier filed against the latter. In ruling that the employees are not guilty of forum shopping, the Supreme Court explained that the reliefs sought and the causes of action, as well as the evidence to be presented, in the earlier filed regularization case is different from the illegal dismissal case which was filed at a later time.”
The Court emphasized that labor law is "imbued with social justice considerations" and that procedural missteps like forum shopping on one claim cannot be used to extinguish other fundamental rights.
The appellate court also noted that summarily dismissing the workers' claims of force and intimidation without a factual hearing would disregard the State’s policy of affording full protection to labor.
“Such assertions strike at the very core of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of labor to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and protection against arbitrary and oppressive employer conduct,” the appellate court’s ruling read.
“To summarily dismiss these claims on procedural grounds, without affording the labor tribunals the opportunity to make the necessary factual determinations, would be to disregard the State’s avowed policy of affording full protection to labor,” it added.
The Court of Appeals clarified that neither the Labor Arbiter nor the National Labor Relations Commission had yet made definitive findings on the merits of the alleged illegal dismissal.
With this, a remand to the Labor Arbiter is necessary for the proper reception and evaluation of evidence, according to the Court of Appeals.
“In the absence of such factual findings, it would be procedurally improper for this Court to make such determinations in the first instance. The remand of the case to the Labor Arbiter is thus warranted to allow the proper reception, evaluation, and resolution of the factual issues that were not passed upon,” the appellate court’s ruling read.
Philstar.com has reached out to Nutri-Asia for comment on the Court of Appeals’ ruling. However, the company declined to comment on the matter.
