4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly equivalent to the unexpired portion of his contract, or four months, plus 10% thereof as attorney’s fees. Respondents’ Arguments In seeking affirmance of the assailed CA issuances, respondents basically submit that the CA committed no reversible error in excluding petitioner’s claims for vacation leave pay, tonnage bonus, and attorney’s fees. They support and agree with the CA’s reliance upon Skippers Pacific, Inc. v. Skippers Maritime Services, Ltd.,[22] and emphasize that in the absence of bad faith on their part, petitioner may not recover attorney’s fees. Our Ruling The Court grants the Petition. There remains no issue regarding illegal dismissal. In spite of the consistent finding below that petitioner was illegally dismissed, respondents did not take issue, which thus renders all pronouncements on the matter final. In resolving petitioner’s monetary claims, the CA utterly misinterpreted the Court’s ruling in Skippers Pacific, Inc. v. Skippers Maritime Services, Ltd.,[23] using it to support a view which the latter case precisely ventured to strike down. In that case, the employee was hired as the vessel’s Master on a six-months employment contract, but was able to work for only two months, as he was later on illegally dismissed. The Labor Arbiter, NLRC, and the CA all took the view that the complaining employee was entitled to his salary for the unexpired portion of his contract, but limited to only three months pursuant to Section 10[24] of RA 8042. The Court did not agree and hence modified the judgment in said case. It held that, following the wording of Section 10 and its ruling in Marsaman Manning Agency, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Commission,[25] when the illegally dismissed employee’s employment contract has a term of less than one year, he/she shall be entitled to recovery of salaries representing the unexpired portion of his/her employment contract. Indeed, there was nothing even vaguely confusing in the Court’s citation therein of Marsaman: In Marsaman Manning Agency, Inc. vs. NLRC, involving Section 10 of Republic Act No. 8042, we held: [W]e cannot subscribe to the view that private respondent is entitled to three (3) months salary only. A plain reading of Sec. 10 clearly reveals that the choice of which amount to award an illegally dismissed overseas contract worker, i.e., whether his salaries for the unexpired portion of his employment contract or three (3) months salary for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less, comes into play only when the employment contract concerned has a term of at least one (1) year or more. This is evident from the [wording] “for every elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55699 7/12