Daily Tribune
While new infections globally fell 38 percent from 2010 to 2022, the Philippines saw a 418 percent increase -- the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the Asia-Pacific region and the fourth fastest in the world, UNAIDS data show. (Photo: JAM STA. ROSA / AFP)
The Supreme Court (SC) in a recent ruling stated that the termination of employment due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is illegal.
This, as the high bench, affirmed the promise of the State to protect Filipino workers here and abroad, that it is illegal to fire an employee solely for testing positive for HIV.
In a decision penned by SC Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa dated 14 February 2024 and uploaded 16 April 2024, the Supreme Court's Third Division found AAA's dismissal as an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) invalid for being discriminatory.
In October 2017, AAA was deployed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) as a cleaning laborer under a two-year contract through the recruitment agency Bison Management Corporation (Bison).
After working for 15 months in January 2019, AAA underwent a routine medical exam and was found positive for HIV.
This prompted AAA's foreign employer to terminate his employment, citing Saudi Arabian laws that consider an HIV-positive individual unfit to work.
The worker, was thus repatriated to the Philippines in February 2019 and later filed a complaint for illegal dismissal, which was dismissed by the Labor Arbiter.
The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) reversed the Labor Arbiter and found Bison, its president, and its foreign recruitment agency Saraja Al Jazirah Contracting Est, liable for illegal dismissal.
The NLRC was affirmed by the Court of Appeals (CA), prompting Bison to go to the SC.
The Court ruled that AAA was illegally dismissed, and thus entitled to salaries for the unexpired portion of his employment contract and moral and exemplary damages, among others.
Provision of the law particularly Section 49 (a) of Republic Act No. 11166, or the Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act that it is unlawful for employees to be terminated from work on the sole basis of their HIV status.
Since Philippine law prohibits the use of a person's HIV-positive condition as a ground for dismissal, there was no valid cause to terminate AAA.
Further, if the foreign law stated in the employment contract contradicts Philippine law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy, then the Philippine laws shall apply.
In this case, even if it is proven that Saudi Arabian law prohibits workers who test positive for HIV, the law takes precedence over it for being against Philippine law.
