MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court ordered the chief finance officer of Kentex Manufacturing Corporation, the footwear factory that was gutted by fire five years ago, to pay the workers found to be underpaid.
In a decision issued July 8 and released to media Friday, the SC First Division reinstated the Labor Department’s 2015 order that Kentex chief finance officer Ong King Guan should pay 57 factory workers P1.44 million.
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The ruling of the high court reversed a 2017 decision of the Court of Appeals that discharged Ong from being personally and solidarily liable with Kentex for the monetary awards.
“The June 26, 2015 order having become final, it could no longer be altered or modified by discharging or releasing Ong from his accountability,” read the ruling penned by Associate Justice Mariano Del Castillo.
It added: “Thus, it is self-evident that the CA committed serious error when it ordered the discharge or release of Ong from the obligations of Kentex. The reason is elemental in its simplicity: contrary to settled, unrelenting jurisprudence, it unconsciously and egregiously sought to alter and modify, as indeed it altered and modified, an already final and executor verdict.”
DOLE earlier filed a petition before SC questioning the appellate court’s decision for excluding Ong from liability for monetary awards.
Seventy-two people died and a number of workers were injured when a fire broke out in a factory owned by Kentex on May 13, 2015. — Gaea Katreena Cabico