CADALIN ET AL VS.

POEA ET AL
MARCH 28, 2013 ~ VBDIAZ
G.R. No. L-23678 (June 6, 1967)
Bellis vs. Bellis
FACTS:
Amos G. Bellis was a citizen of the State of Texas
and of the United States. He had five legitimate
children with his first wife (whom he divorced), three
legitimate children with his second wife (who
survived him) and, finally, three illegitimate children.
6 years prior Amos Bellis death, he executed
two(2) wills, apportioning the remainder of his estate
and properties to his seven surviving children. The
appellants filed their oppositions to the project of
partition claiming that they have been deprived of
their legitimes to which they were entitled according
to the Philippine law. Appellants argued that the
deceased wanted his Philippine estate to be governed
by the Philippine law, thus the creation of two
separate wills.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the Philippine law be applied in the
case in the determination of the illegitimate
childrens successional rights
RULING:
Court ruled that provision in a foreigners will to
the effect that his properties shall be distributed in
accordance with Philippine law and not with his
national law, is illegal and void, for his national law
cannot be ignored in view of those matters that
Article 10 now Article 16 of the Civil Code
states said national law should govern.
Where the testator was a citizen of Texas and
domiciled in Texas, the intrinsic validity of his will
should be governed by his national law. Since Texas
law does not require legitimes, then his will, which
deprived his illegitimate children of the legitimes, is
valid.

The Supreme Court held that the illegitimate children

are not entitled to the legitimes under the texas law,
which is the national law of the deceased.

which was terminated prematurely, and secondarily,

the payment of the interest of the earnings of the
Travel and Reserved Fund; interest on all the unpaid
benefits; area wage and salary differential pay; fringe
benefits; reimbursement of SSS and premium not
remitted to the SSS; refund of withholding tax not
remitted to the BIR; penalties for committing
prohibited practices; as well as the suspension of the
license of AIBC and the accreditation of BRII
On October 2, 1984, the POEA Administrator denied
the Motion to Strike Out of the Records filed by
AIBC but required the claimants to correct the
deficiencies in the complaint pointed out.

BIENVENIDO M. CADALIN, ROLANDO M.

AMUL, DONATO B. EVANGELISTA, and the rest
of 1,767 NAMED-COMPLAINANTS, thru and by
their Attorney-in-fact, Atty. GERARDO A. DEL
MUNDOvs. PHILIPPINE OVERSEAS
EMPLOYMENT ADMINISTRATIONS
ADMINISTRATOR, NLRC, BROWN & ROOT
INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ASIA
INTERNATIONAL BUILDERS CORPORATION
GRN 104776, December 5,1994.
FACTS:
This is a consolidation of 3 cases of SPECIAL CIVIL
ACTIONS in the Supreme Court for Certiorari.
On June 6, 1984, Cadalin, Amul and Evangelista, in
their own behalf and on behalf of 728 other OCWs
instituted a class suit by filing an Amended
Complaint with the POEA for money claims
arising from their recruitment by ASIA
INTERNATIONAL BUILDERS CORPORATION
(AIBC) and employment by BROWN & ROOT
INTERNATIONAL, INC (BRI) which is a foreign
corporation with headquarters in Houston, Texas, and
is engaged in construction; while AIBC is a domestic
corporation licensed as a service contractor to recruit,
mobilize and deploy Filipino workers for overseas
employment on behalf of its foreign principals.
The amended complaint sought the payment of the
unexpired portion of the employment contracts,

AIB and BRII kept on filing Motion for Extension of

Time to file their answer. The POEA kept on granting
such motions.
On November 14, 1984, claimants filed an opposition
to the motions for extension of time and asked that
AIBC and BRII declared in default for failure to file
their answers.
On December 27, 1984, the POEA Administrator
issued an order directing AIBC and BRII to file their
answers within ten days from receipt of the order.
(at madami pang motions ang na-file, new
complainants joined the case, ang daming inavail na
remedies ng both parties)
On June 19, 1987, AIBC finally submitted its answer
to the complaint. At the same hearing, the parties
were given a period of 15 days from said date within
which to submit their respective position papers. On
February 24, 1988, AIBC and BRII submitted
position paper. On October 27, 1988, AIBC and BRII
filed a Consolidated Reply, POEA Adminitartor
rendered his decision which awarded the amount of
$824, 652.44 in favor of only 324 complainants.
Claimants submitted their Appeal Memorandum
For Partial Appeal from the decision of the POEA.
AIBC also filed its MR and/or appeal in addition to
the Notice of Appeal filed earlier.
NLRC promulgated its Resolution, modifying the
decision of the POEA. The resolution removed some
of the benefits awarded in favor of the claimants.

NLRC denied all the MRs. Hence, these petitions

filed by the claimants and by AlBC and BRII.
The case rooted from the Labor Law enacted by
Bahrain where most of the complainants were
deployed. His Majesty Ise Bin Selman Al Kaifa, Amir
of Bahrain, issued his Amiri Decree No. 23 on June
16, 1176, otherwise known re the Labour Law for the
Private Sector. Some of the provision of Amiri
Decree No. 23 that are relevant to the claims of the
complainants-appellants are as follows:
Art. 79: x x x A worker shall receive payment for
each extra hour equivalent to his wage entitlement
increased by a minimum of twenty-rive per centurn
thereof for hours worked during the day; and by a
minimum off fifty per centurn thereof for hours
worked during the night which shall be deemed to
being from seven oclock in the evening until seven
oclock in the morning .
Art. 80: Friday shall be deemed to be a weekly day of
rest on full pay.
If employee worked, 150% of his normal wage shall
be paid to him x x x.
Art. 81; x x x When conditions of work require the
worker to work on any official holiday, he shall be
paid an additional sum equivalent to 150% of his
normal wage.
Art. 84: Every worker who has completed one
years continuous service with his employer shall
be entitled to Laos on full pay for a period of not less
than 21 days for each year increased to a period not
less than 28 days after five continuous years of
service.
A worker shall be entitled to such leave upon a
quantum meruit in respect of the proportion of his
service in that year.
Art. 107: A contract of employment made for a period
of indefinite duration may be terminated by either
party thereto after giving the other party prior notice
before such termination, in writing, in respect of
monthly paid workers and fifteen days notice in
respect of other workers. The party terminating a

contract without the required notice shall pay to the

other party compensation equivalent to the amount of
wages payable to the worker for the period of such
notice or the unexpired portion thereof.
Art. Ill: x x x the employer concerned shall pay to
such worker, upon termination of employment, a
leaving indemnity for the period of his employment
calculated on the basis of fifteen days wages for
each year of the first three years of service and of one
months wages for each year of service thereafter.
Such worker shall be entitled to payment of leaving
indemnity upon a quantum meruit in proportion to
the period of his service completed within a year.
ISSUE:
1. WON the foreign law should govern or the
contract of the parties.(WON the complainants who
have worked in Bahrain are entitled to the abovementioned benefits provided by Amiri Decree No. 23
of Bahrain).
2. WON the Bahrain Law should apply in the case.
(Assuming it is applicable WON complainants
claim for the benefits provided therein have
prescribed.)
3. Whether or not the instant cases qualify as; a class
suit (siningit ko nalang)
(the rest of the issues in the full text of the case refer
to Labor Law)
RULING:
1. NLRC set aside Section 1, Rule 129 of the 1989
Revised Rules on Evidence governing the pleading
and proof of a foreign law and admitted in evidence a
simple copy of the Bahrains Amiri Decree No. 23
of 1976 (Labour Law for the Private Sector).
NLRC applied the Amiri Deere, No. 23 of 1976,
which provides for greater benefits than those
stipulated in the overseas-employment contracts of
the claimants. It was of the belief that where the laws
of the host country are more favorable and beneficial
to the workers, then the laws of the host country shall
form part of the overseas employment contract. It

approved the observation of the POEA Administrator

that in labor proceedings, all doubts in the
implementation of the provisions of the Labor Code
and its implementing regulations shall be resolved in
favor of labor.

reference to the provisions of the foreign law, the

contract does not become a foreign contract to be
governed by the foreign law. The said law does not
operate as a statute but as a set of contractual terms
deemed written in the contract.

The overseas-employment contracts, which were

prepared by AIBC and BRII themselves, provided
that the laws of the host country became applicable to
said contracts if they offer terms and conditions more
favorable than those stipulated therein. However
there was a part of the employment contract which
provides that the compensation of the employee may
be adjusted downward so that the total
computation plus the non-waivable benefits shall be
equivalent to the compensation therein agree,
another part of the same provision categorically states
that total remuneration and benefits do not fall
below that of the host country regulation and
custom.

A basic policy of contract is to protect the expectation

of the parties. Such party expectation is protected by
giving effect to the parties own choice of the
applicable law. The choice of law must, however,
bear some relationship the parties or their transaction.
There is no question that the contracts sought to be
enforced by claimants have a direct connection with
the Bahrain law because the services were rendered
in that country.

Any ambiguity in the overseas-employment contracts

should be interpreted against AIBC and BRII, the
parties that drafted it. Article 1377 of the Civil Code
of the Philippines provides:
The interpretation of obscure words or stipulations
in a contract shall not favor the party who caused the
obscurity.
Said rule of interpretation is applicable to contracts of
adhesion where there is already a prepared form
containing the stipulations of the employment
contract and the employees merely take it or leave
it. The presumption is that there was an imposition
by one party against the other and that the employees
signed the contracts out of necessity that reduced
their bargaining power.
We read the overseas employment contracts in
question as adopting the provisions of the Amiri
Decree No. 23 of 1976 as part and parcel thereof. The
parties to a contract may select the law by which it is
to be governed. In such a case, the foreign law is
adopted as a system to regulate the relations of
the parties, including questions of their capacity to
enter into the contract, the formalities to be observed
by them, matters of performance, and so forth.
Instead of adopting the entire mass of the foreign law,
the parties may just agree that specific provisions of a
foreign statute shall be deemed incorporated into
their contract as a set of terms. By such

2. NLRC ruled that the prescriptive period for the

filing of the claims of the complainants was 3 years,
as provided in Article 291 of the Labor Code of the
Philippines, and not ten years as provided in Article
1144 of the Civil Code of the Philippines nor one
year as provided in the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976.
Article 156 of the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976
provides:
A claim arising out of a contract of employment
shall not actionable after the lapse of one year from
the date of the expiry of the Contract.
As a general rule, a foreign procedural law will not
be applied in the forum (local court), Procedural
matters, such as service of process, joinder of actions,
period and requisites for appeal, and so forth, are
governed by the laws of the forum. This is true even
if the action is based upon a foreign substantive law.
A law on prescription of actions is sui generis in
Conflict of Laws in the sense that it may be viewed
either as procedural or substantive, depending on the
characterization given such a law. In Bournias v.
Atlantic Maritime Company (220 F. 2d. 152, 2d Cir.
[1955]), where the issue was the applicability of the
Panama Labor Code in a case filed in the State of
New York for claims arising from said Code, the
claims would have prescribed under the Panamanian
Law but not under the Statute of Limitations of New
York. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the
Panamanian Law was procedural as it was not
specifically intended to be substantive, hence,

the prescriptive period provided in the law of the

forum should apply. The Court observed: . . . we
are dealing with a statute of limitations of a foreign
country, and it is not clear on the face of the statute
that its purpose was to limit the enforceability,
outside as well as within the foreign country
concerned, of the substantive rights to which the
statute pertains. We think that as a yardstick for
determining whether that was the purpose, this test is
the most satisfactory one.
The Court further noted: Applying that test here it
appears to us that the libellant is entitled to succeed,
for the respondents have failed to satisfy us that the
Panamanian period of limitation in question was
specifically aimed against the particular rights which
the libellant seeks to enforce. The Panama Labor
Code is a statute having broad objectives. The
American court applied the statute of limitations of
New York, instead of the Panamanian law, after
finding that there was no showing that the
Panamanian law on prescription was intended to be
substantive. Being considered merely a procedural
law even in Panama, it has to give way to the law of
the forum (local Court) on prescription of actions.

in this jurisdiction of Section 156 of the Amiri Decree

No. 23 of 1976.
The courts of the forum (local Court) will not enforce
any foreign claim obnoxious to the forums public
policy. To enforce the one-year prescriptive period of
the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976 as regards the
claims in question would contravene the public
policy on the protection to labor.
In the Declaration of Principles and State Policies,
the 1987 Constitution emphasized that:The state
shall promote social justice in all phases of national
development (Sec. 10).
The state affirms labor as a primary social
economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers
and promote their welfare (Sec. 18).
In Article XIII on Social Justice and Human Rights,
the 1987 Constitution provides:
Sec. 3. The State shall afford full protection to
labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized,
and promote full employment and equality of
employment opportunities for all.

However the characterization of a statute into a

procedural or substantive law becomes irrelevant
when the country of the forum (local Court) has a
borrowing statute. Said statute has the practical
effect of treating the foreign statute of limitation as
one of substance. A borrowing statute directs the
state of the forum (local Court) to apply the foreign
statute of limitations to the pending claims based on a
foreign law. While there are several kinds of
borrowing statutes, one form provides that an
action barred by the laws of the place where it
accrued will not be enforced in the forum even
though the local statute was not run against it.

Thus, the applicable law on prescription is the

Philippine law.

Section 48 of Code of Civil Procedure is of this kind.

It provides: If by the laws of the state or country
where the cause of action arose, the action is barred,
it is also barred in the Philippine Islands.

(1) Upon a written contract; (2) Upon an obligation

created by law; (3) Upon a judgment
In this case, the claim for pay differentials is
primarily anchored on the written contracts between
the litigants, the ten-year prescriptive period provided
by Art. 1144(l) of the New Civil Code should govern.

Section 48 has not been repealed or amended by the

Civil Code of the Philippines. In the light of the 1987
Constitution, however, Section 48 cannot be enforced
ex proprio vigore insofar as it ordains the application

The next question is whether the prescriptive period

governing the filing of the claims is 3 years, as
provided by the Labor Code or 10 years, as provided
by the Civil Code of the Philippines.
Article 1144 of the Civil Code of the Philippines
provides:
The following actions must be brought within ten
years from the time the right of action accross:

3. NO. A class suit is proper where the subject matter

of the controversy is one of common or general
interest to many and the parties are so numerous that

it is impracticable to bring them all before the court.

When all the claims are for benefits granted under the
Bahrain law many of the claimants worked outside
Bahrain. Some of the claimants were deployed in
Indonesia under different terms and condition of
employment.
Inasmuch as the First requirement of a class suit is
not present (common or general interest based on the
Amiri Decree of the State of Bahrain), it is only
logical that only those who worked in Bahrain shall
be entitled to rile their claims in a class suit.
While there are common defendants (AIBC and
BRII) and the nature of the claims is the same (for
employees benefits), there is no common question
of law or fact. While some claims are based on the
Amiri Law of Bahrain, many of the claimants never
worked in that country, but were deployed elsewhere.
Thus, each claimant is interested only in his own
demand and not in the claims of the other employees
of defendants. A claimant has no concern in
protecting the interests of the other claimants as
shown by the fact, that hundreds of them have
abandoned their co-claimants and have entered into
separate compromise settlements of their respective
claims. The claimants who worked in Bahrain can not
be allowed to sue in a class suit in a judicial
proceeding.
WHEREFORE, all the three petitioners are
DISMISSED

Secondly, the RTC has acquired jurisdiction over the case

because as alleged in the complaint of Morada, she is
bringing the suit for damages under the provisions of our
Civil Law and not of the Arabian Law. Morada then has
the right to file it in the QC RTC because under the Rules
of Court, a plaintiff may elect whether to file an action in
personam (case at bar) in the place where she resides or
where the defendant resides. Obviously, it is well within
her right to file the case here because if shell file it in
Saudi Arabia, it will be very disadvantageous for her (and
of course, again, Philippine Civil Law is the law invoked).

Saudi Arabian Airlines vs Court of Appeals

on November 21, 2012
297 SCRA 469 Conflict of Laws Private
International Law Situs Locus Actus
Milagros Morada was working as a stewardess for Saudia
Arabian Airlines. In 1990, while she and some co-workers
were in a lay-over in Jakarta, Indonesia, an Arab coworker tried to rape her in a hotel room. Fortunately, a
roomboy heard her cry for help and two of her Arab coworkers were arrested and detained in Indonesia. Later,
Saudia Airlines re-assigned her to work in their Manila
office. While working in Manila, Saudia Airlines advised
her to meet with a Saudia Airlines officer in Saudi. She did
but to her surprise, she was brought to a Saudi court where
she was interrogated and eventually sentenced to 5 months
imprisonment and 289 lashes; she allegedly violated
Muslim customs by partying with males. The Prince of
Makkah got wind of her conviction and the Prince
determined that she was wrongfully convicted hence the
Prince absolved her and sent her back to the Philippines.
Saudia Airlines later on dismissed Morada. Morada then
sued Saudia Airlines for damages under Article 19 and 21
of the Civil Code. Saudia Airlines filed a motion to
dismiss on the ground that the RTC has no jurisdiction
over the case because the applicable law should be the law
of Saudi Arabia. Saudia Airlines also prayed for other
reliefs under the premises.
ISSUE: Whether or not Saudia Airlines contention is
correct.
HELD: No. Firstly, the RTC has acquired jurisdiction over
Saudia Airlines when the latter filed a motion to dismiss
with petition for other reliefs. The asking for other reliefs
effectively asked the court to make a determination of
Saudia Airliness rights hence a submission to the
courts jurisdiction.

Thirdly, one important test factor to determine where to

file a case, if there is a foreign element involved, is the so
called locus actus or where an act has been done. In
the case at bar, Morada was already working in Manila
when she was summoned by her superior to go to Saudi
Arabia to meet with a Saudia Airlines officer. She was not
informed that she was going to appear in a court trial.
Clearly, she was defrauded into appearing before a court
trial which led to her wrongful conviction. The act of
defrauding, which is tortuous, was committed in Manila
and this led to her humiliation, misery, and suffering. And
applying the torts principle in a conflicts case, the SC
finds that the Philippines could be said as a situs of the tort
(the place where the alleged tortious conduct took place).