4/16/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly recourse to this Court was made. As a general rule, this petition should have been dismissed outright for failure to comply with a condition precedent in order that this petition for certiorari shall lie. The filing of a motion for reconsideration before resort to certiorari will lie is intended to afford the public respondent an opportunity to correct any actual or fancied error attributed to it by way of re-examination of the legal and factual aspects of the case.[12] However, this rule is subject to certain recognized exceptions.[13] Upon careful consideration of the case at bar, we find that this case falls under one of those recognized exceptions, namely, that the assailed order is a patent nullity, as will be shown later. Anent the first issue, petitioner contends that public respondent NLRC acted with grave abuse of discretion when it considered petitioner's complaint-affidavit as mere hearsay evidence since the petitioner was not cross-examined. Petitioner argues that private respondent I.T. waived its right to cross-examine him when both parties agreed to submit their case for decision before the POEA Adjudication Officer on the basis of each parties' respective position papers, affidavits and other evidence extant on the record below. Petitioner's argument is well-taken. It must be stressed that labor laws mandate the speedy disposition of cases, with the least attention to technicalities but without sacrificing the fundamental requisites of due process. In this light, the NLRC, like the labor arbiter, (in the case at bar, the POEA Adjudication Officer) is authorized to decide cases based on the position papers and other documents submitted, without resorting to technical rules of evidence.[14] We quote, with approval, the following observations of the Solicitor General: "We are constrained to disagree with the ruling of the NLRC. In the recently decided case of Rabago et. al. vs. NLRC and Philippine Tuberculosis Society, Inc., G.R. No. 82868, August 5, 1991, pp. 8-9, this Honorable Court held: 'We have said often enough that the findings of fact of quasi-judicial agencies which have acquired expertise on the specific matters entrusted to their jurisdiction are accorded by this Court not only respect but finality if they are supported by substantial evidence (Omar K. Al-Esayi and Company, Ltd. Vs. Flores, 183 SCRA 458; Chua vs. NLRC, 182 SCRA 353; Pagkakaisa ng mga Manggagawa vs. Ferrer-Calleja, 181 SCRA 119).' `x x x The argument that the affidavit is hearsay because the affiants were not presented for cross-examination is not persuasive because the rules of evidence are not strictly observed in proceedings before administrative bodies like the NLRC, where decisions may be reached on the basis of position papers only. It is also worth noting that ABC has not presented any evidence of its own to disprove the complainant's claim. As the Solicitor General correctly points out, it would have been so easy to submit the complainant's employment records which were in the custody of ABC, to https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/52120 5/12