Arellano vs NLRC : 127896 : Augusst 21, 1997 : J. Padilla : First Division http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/1997/aug1997/127896.htm Private respondent All Oceans maintains that petitioners signature on the incident report to the captain served as sufficient notice that he was being charged with gross insubordination. According to said private respondent, petitioner has a past record of failing to finish his contract for reasons ranging from serious family problems, medical reasons, and by failing to board his ship in Singapore. All these incidents show a pattern of petitioners propensity not to follow orders from his superiors. In his comment, the Solicitor General agrees with the NLRC that the affidavit executed by petitioner to support his claim of illegal dismissal should be entirely discredited under the doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. The Solicitor General contends that petitioner did not question the authenticity and geniuneness of his signature on the IDF system form and on the incident report to the captain which palpably contradicts all the allegations in his affidavit. The Solicitor General further argues in favor of the validity of private respondents IDF system, citing Book V Rule 2 Sections 2 and 3 of the Rules and Regulations Governing Overseas Employment which state that the Standard Employment Contract for seamen only provides the minimum terms and conditions of employment and does not obviate the fixing of additional terms and conditions that may be deemed reasonable under the circumstances. However, the Solicitor General observes that private respondents did not fully observe the twin requirements of procedural due process as there is no evidence that petitioner received a subsequent notice of judgment after due hearing, which sufficiently informed him of the employerss decision to dismiss him. Pursuan to the WhenPhil doctrine, the Solicitor General recommends that private respondent should be made to pay the amount of One Thousand Pesos (P1,000.00) as indemnity to petitioner. The petition is bereft of merit. There is no dispute that petitioner openly defied the lawful orders of his superiors when he refused to help the vessels mechanic in cleaning the scavenge space located in the vessels engine room. Whatever reasons he had at that time to justify his obstinacy cannot be deduced from the evidence presented by both parties. Petitioner had barely been aboard the vessel for three (3) weeks, and yet he was determined to challenge his immediate superiors when he affixed his signature on the incident report to the ship captain to protest the job being assigned to him. In his mind, he would only work on deck and not in the vessels engine room. We hold that the NLRC did not commit any grave abuse of discretion in overturning the decision of the POEA. However, the Court does not see the applicability of the falsu in uno, falsus in omnibus doctrine in resolving a simple issue of whether or not there was a just cause for private respondents to terminate petitioners employment. While petitioners affidavit[6] took the place of his direct testimony in the proceeding before the POEA, we cannot fully ascertain from this single piece of evidence if it was given with an intention to deceive when petitioner claimed that he was unaware of the vessels IDF system and that he was repatriated without due process of law. The material provision in the vessels IDF system is paragraph 3 which reads: The working system for all OOCL vessels is under inter-departmental flexibility system (I.D.F.S.). Therefore new members are implored to do all-around job on board the ship regardless of their actual position/rank whether he is assigned as deck hand or engine hand. We have examined the rest of the documents marked as Annex B[7] in petitioners position paper filed before the NLRC and it appears that the provisions therein pertain to the rules and regulations to be observed aboard the vessel rather that a separate contract aside from the POEA approved contract of employment signed by petitioner. The Court, as a rule, will not interfere with an employers prerogative to regulate all aspects of employment which includes among others, work assignments, working methods, and place and manner of work. As long as 3 of 4 1/24/2016 11:23 PM