Region 7’s NLRC tops in resolved labor cases

The National Labor Relations Commission in Central Visayas has recorded the highest number of settled labor cases over other branches across the country.

Executive labor arbiter Judge Julie Rendoque said the NLRC-Central Visayas resolved a total of 811 resolved cases filed in this branch last year, and this is the highest achievement among regional branches nationwide.

Rendoque said this means that NLRC-Central Visayas had solved 50 cases within 30 working days, exceeding even the quota of 27 cases needed to be solved within a month.

“Our quota is 27 cases per month wherein 300 cases will only be solved in a year so this counts that we have gone higher from what we wanted to achieve,” he said.

The figures indicated a higher settlement of labor cases and a climate of industrial peace in the region, Rendoque said. 

Rendoque said that more companies are now giving time to discuss their problems that almost always ended up in amicable settlements under the Walk-In-Settlement program of the NLRC that was started in 1996.

The NLRC said that it has been determined to resolve labor disputes in the fairest, quickest, cheapest and most effective way possible to be able to erase its backlog of unresolved cases by this year.

NLRC chairman Benedicto Ernesto Bitonio earlier announced that the proposed 3-Year Master Plan, recently approved by the NLRC en banc, will serve as a tool to fulfill its goal of being backlog-free of labor cases.

The chairman said the backlog refers to cases that the NLRC fails to resolve within six months from the date of filing, receiving, or docketing.

There are now a total of 4,922 backlog cases in the Commission level, and there are 8,808 backlog cases in the regional arbitration branches as of June 30, 2005, which also consisted of unresolved cases from the previous years. 

The target of the 3-Year Master Plan was to reach zero pending cases by 2007 and no more earlier cases by June 30 this year. To achieve this, each of the fifteen NLRC commissioners must dispose of 57.2 cases monthly, and each of the 105 labor arbiters must dispose of 25.3 cases a month after resolving older cases.

Bitonio believed that the three NLRC plans are attainable. – Jasmin R. Uy/RAE