CONCHITA J. RACELIS vs. UNITED PHILIPPINE LINES, INC. and/or HOLLAND AMERICA LINES, INC.,*and FERNANDO T. LISING, G.R. No. 198408, November 12, 2014
“x x x.
As a final point of rumination, it must be highlighted that the CA’s parameter of analysis in cases elevated to it from the NLRC is the existence of the latter’s grave abuse of discretion, considering that they come before the appellate court through petitions for certiorari. This delimitation, in relation to the Court’s task of reviewing the case eventually appealed before it, was explained in Montoya v. Transmed Manila Corporation93 as follows:
[W]e review in this Rule 45 petition the decision of the CA on a Rule 65 petition filed by Montoya withthat court.1âwphi1 In a Rule45 review, we consider the correctness of the assailed CA decision, in contrast with the review for jurisdictional error that we undertake under Rule 65. Furthermore, Rule 45 limits us to the review of questions of law raised against the assailed CA decision. In ruling for legal correctness, we have to view the CA decision in the same context that the petition for certiorari it ruled upon was presented to it; we have to examine the CA decision from the prism of whether it correctly determined the presence or absence of grave abuse of discretion in the NLRC decision before it, not on the basis of whether the NLRC decision on the merits of the case was correct. In other words, we have to be keenly aware that the CA undertook a Rule 65 review, not a review on appeal, of the NLRC decision challenged before it. This is the approach that should be basic in a Rule 45 review ofa CA ruling in a labor case. In question form, the question to ask is: Did the CA correctly determine whether the NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion in ruling on the case?94
Given that the NLRC’s ruling was amply supported by the evidence on record and current jurisprudence on the subject matter, the Court, in opposition to the CA, finds that no grave abuse of discretion had been committed by the labor tribunal. Hence,the CA’s grant of respondents’ certiorari petition before it ought to be reversed, and consequently the NLRC Decision be reinstated.
X x x.”
