Reinstate lawyer, NLRC orders John Hay execs

BAGUIO CITY—The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) has ordered the government firm overseeing Camp John Hay to reinstate a lawyer it fired in March for failing a performance audit.

In a 12-page ruling in September that was received here last week, the NLRC said lawyer Genevieve Ayochok was illegally dismissed by John Hay Management Corp. (JHMC), and had described some of the decisions made by its president, Jamie Eloise Agbayani, as acts of “bad faith.”

The NLRC ordered Agbayani to take back Ayochok as the firm’s assistant legal manager and to pay her P240,777.57 in back wages, damages and lawyer’s fees amounting to more than P124,000.

Agbayani had not issued a statement when contacted by the Inquirer last week.

The JHMC, an affiliate of the Bases Group of Companies owned by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), serves as estate manager of the Camp John Hay reservation and the John Hay Special Economic Zone.

According to JHMC’s affidavit, Ayochok was terminated as the company’s assistant legal manager for failing three performance evaluations. Ayochok had applied for the post of legal manager but did not made the cut, the company said.

But the ruling, penned by Cordillera labor arbiter Monroe Tabingan, said Ayochok’s supposed poor performance surfaced only during Agbayani’s term.

It said Ayochok received “excellent” and “very satisfactory” ratings from Agbayani’s predecessors, among them Maria Cristina Corona, wife of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“The poor ratings of the complainant (Ayochok) were not a result of gross and habitual negligence in the performance of her work but rather a subjective evaluation and a scheme to remove her from her employment,” Tabingan said.

He said Agbayani may have committed “clear, bad faith… in her acts of issuing the series of poor performance ratings to the complainant.” Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon