5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Petitioner as well as the Solicitor General have failed to show any compelling change in the circumstances that would warrant us to revisit the precedent. We reiterate our finding in Serrano v. Gallant Maritime that limiting wages that should be recovered by an illegally dismissed overseas worker to three months is both a violation of due process and the equal protection clauses of the Constitution. Equal protection of the law is a guarantee that persons under like circumstances and falling within the same class are treated alike, in terms of “privileges conferred and liabilities enforced.”[97] It is a guarantee against “undue favor and individual or class privilege, as well as hostile discrimination or the oppression of inequality.”[98] In creating laws, the legislature has the power “to make distinctions and classifications.”[99] In exercising such power, it has a wide discretion.[100] The equal protection clause does not infringe on this legislative power.[101] A law is void on this basis, only if classifications are made arbitrarily.[102] There is no violation of the equal protection clause if the law applies equally to persons within the same class and if there are reasonable grounds for distinguishing between those falling within the class and those who do not fall within the class.[103] A law that does not violate the equal protection clause prescribes a reasonable classification.[104] A reasonable classification “(1) must rest on substantial distinctions; (2) must be germane to the purposes of the law; (3) must not be limited to existing conditions only; and (4) must apply equally to all members of the same class.”[105] The reinstated clause does not satisfy the requirement of reasonable classification. In Serrano, we identified the classifications made by the reinstated clause. It distinguished between fixed-period overseas workers and fixed-period local workers. [106] It also distinguished between overseas workers with employment contracts of less than one year and overseas workers with employment contracts of at least one year. [107] Within the class of overseas workers with at least one-year employment contracts, there was a distinction between those with at least a year left in their contracts and those with less than a year left in their contracts when they were illegally dismissed. [108] The Congress’ classification may be subjected to judicial review. In Serrano, there is a “legislative classification which impermissibly interferes with the exercise of a fundamental right or operates to the peculiar disadvantage of a suspect class.”[109] Under the Constitution, labor is afforded special protection.[110] Thus, this court in Serrano, “[i]mbued with the same sense of ‘obligation to afford protection to labor,’ . . . employ[ed] the standard of strict judicial scrutiny, for it perceive[d] in the subject clause a suspect classification prejudicial to OFWs.”[111] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57319 14/39