FIVE J TAXI and/or JUAN S. ARMAMENTO vs. true that Guillermo H.

Pulia was the authorized

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION representative of private respondents, he was a non-
lawyer who did not fall in either of the foregoing
Facts: categories. Hence, by clear mandate of the law, he is not
entitled to attorney's fees.
Private respondents Domingo Maldigan and Gilberto
Sabsalon were hired by the petitioners as taxi drivers. In Furthermore, the statutory rule that an attorney shall be
less than 4 months after Maldigan was hired as an extra entitled to have and recover from his client a reasonable
driver by the petitioners, he already failed to report for compensation for his services 7 necessarily imports the
work for unknown reasons. Later, petitioners learned existence of an attorney-client relationship as a condition
that he was working for "Mine of Gold" Taxi Company. for the recovery of attorney's fees, and such relationship
With respect to Sabsalon, while driving a taxicab of cannot exist unless the client's representative is a
petitioners on September 6, 1983, he was held up by his lawyer.8
armed passenger who took all his money and thereafter
stabbed him. He was hospitalized and after his WHEREFORE, the questioned judgment of respondent
discharge, he went to his home province to recuperate. National Labor Relations Commission is hereby
In January, 1987, Sabsalon was re-admitted by MODIFIED by deleting the awards for reimbursement
petitioners as a taxi driver under the same terms and of car wash expenses and attorney's fees and directing
conditions as when he was first employed, but his said public respondent to order and effect the
working schedule was made on an "alternative basis," computation and payment by petitioners of the refund
that is, he drove only every other day. However, on for private respondent Domingo Maldigan's deposits,
several occasions, he failed to report for work during his plus legal interest thereon from the date of finality of this
schedule. On September 22, 1991, Sabsalon failed to resolution up to the date of actual payment thereof.
remit his "boundary" of P700.00 for the previous day.
Also, he abandoned his taxicab in Makati without fuel
refill worth P300.00. Despite repeated requests of
petitioners for him to report for work, he adamantly
refused. Afterwards it was revealed that he was driving a
taxi for "Bulaklak Company." Sometime in 1989,
Maldigan requested petitioners for the reimbursement of
his daily cash deposits for 2 years, but herein petitioners
told him that not a single centavo was left of his deposits
as these were not even enough to cover the amount spent
for the repairs of the taxi he was driving. This was
allegedly the practice adopted by petitioners to recoup
the expenses incurred in the repair of their taxicab units.
When Maldigan insisted on the refund of his deposit,
petitioners terminated his services. Sabsalon, on his part,
claimed that his termination from employment was
effected when he refused to pay for the washing of his
taxi seat covers. On November 27, 1991, private
respondents filed a complaint with the Manila
Arbitration Office of the National Labor Relations
Commission charging petitioners with illegal dismissal
and illegal deductions, and asking for paying the private
respondent’s authorized representative’s attorney’s fees.

RULING:

On the issue of attorney's fees or service fees for private

respondents' authorized representative, Article 222 of the
Labor Code, as amended by Section 3 of Presidential
Decree No. 1691, states that non-lawyers may appear
before the NLRC or any labor arbiter only (1) if they
represent themselves, or (2) if they represent their
organization or the members thereof. While it may be