PLDT vs Alvarez

G.R. No. 179408, March 05, 2014

FACTS:

Philippine Long Distance Company’s ACP Detection Division regularly visits foreign
countries to conduct market research on various prepaid phone cards offered abroad that allow
their users to make overseas calls to PLDT subscribers in the Philippines at a cheaper rate, so as
to prevent or stop network fraud. While in UK, they bought a prepaid card – The Number One
prepaid card – to make test calls, and discovered that During a test call placed at the PLDT–
ACPDD office, the receiving phone reflected a PLDT telephone number (2–8243285) as the
calling number used, as if the call was originating from a local telephone in Metro Manila. Upon
verification with the PLDT’s Integrated Customer Management (billing) System, the ACPDD
learned that the subscriber of the reflected telephone number is Abigail R. Razon Alvarez, with
address at 17 Dominic Savio St., Savio Compound, Barangay Don Bosco, Parañaque City. It
further learned that several lines are installed at this address with Abigail and Vernon R. Razon.
Local call tests were conducted then in the country. Moreso, they test other call cards as well,
Unity Card and IDT Supercalling Card, which yield to the same results. All foreign calls are
directed to same local PLDT number belonging to Experto Enterprises, which when traced, the
occupant is still Abigail n that same address in Paranaque.

According to PLDT, the respondents are engaged in a form of network fraud known as
International Simple Resale (ISR) which amounts to theft under the RPC. ISR is a method of
routing and completing international long distance calls using lines, cables, antennae and/or
wave frequencies which are connected directly to the domestic exchange facilities of the country
where the call is destined (terminating country); and, in the process, bypassing the IGF at the
terminating country.

Several Search warrants were then filed for violating PD 401. Among the items seized were the
following:
a.6 Quintum router;

b. 13 Com router;

c. 1 Cisco 800 router;

d. 1 Nokia Modem for PLDT DSL;

e. 1 Meridian Subscriber’s Unit[;]

f. 5 Personal Computers[;]

g. 1 Computer Printer[; and]

h. 1 Flat–bed Scanner[.]
Respondent filed a motion to quash but was denied by the RTC. Respondent then filed a petition
for Certiorari and was granted. PLDT filed for a motion for reconsideration but was denied.
Hence this case.

ISSUE:
WON respondent Alvarez is liable for theft.

RULING:
Partially granted. Deviating from its earlier rule that an ISR activities do not constitute a crime
under Philippine law; the court held that even prior to the passage of the RPC, jurisprudence is
settled that “any personal property, tangible or intangible, corporeal or incorporeal, capable of
appropriation can be the object of theft.” 40 This jurisprudence, in turn, applied the prevailing
legal meaning of the term “personal property” under the old Civil Code as “anything susceptible
of appropriation and not included in the foregoing chapter (not real property).” 41 PLDT’s
telephone service or its business of providing this was appropriable personal property and was, in
fact, the subject of appropriation in an ISR operation, facilitated by means of the unlawful use of
PLDT’s facilities.

. It is the use of these communications facilities without the consent of PLDT that constitutes the
crime of theft, which is the unlawful taking of the telephone services and business.

Therefore, the business of providing telecommunication and the telephone service are personal
property under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code, and the act of engaging in ISR is an act of
“subtraction” penalized under said article.

However, on the Court ruled that Paragraphs 7 to 8 of SW B–l and SW B–2 read as follows:
7. COMPUTER PRINTERS AND SCANNERS or any similar equipment or device used for
copying and/or printing data and/or information;

8. SOFTWARE, DISKETTES, TAPES or any similar equipment or device used for recording or
storing information; and

9. Manuals, phone cards, access codes, billing statements, receipts, contracts, checks, orders,
communications and documents, lease and/or subscription agreements or contracts,
communications and documents relating to securing and using telephone lines and/or
equipment[.]74

The fact that the printers and scanners are or may be connected to the other illegal connections to
the PLDT telephone lines does not make them the subject of the offense or fruits of the offense,
much less could they become a means of committing an offense. What PD No. 401 punishes is
the unauthorized installation of telephone connection without the previous consent of PLDT. In
the present case, PLDT has not shown that connecting printers, scanners, diskettes or tapes to a
computer, even if connected to a PLDT telephone line, would or should require its prior
authorization.
TEODORA L. VDA. De Miranda and others, plaintiffs-appellants, 
vs. Feliciano IMPERIAL IMPERIAL AND JUANA, defendants-appellees.

GR No. L-49090 February 28, 1947

FACTS: Defendants Feliciano and Juana Imperial barrowed from plaintiff Miranda the amount
of P1,000; that in consideration of this debt and to guarantee payment they executed verbal
antichresis in favor of the latter. In an action filed by Miranda against Imperial, the lower court
in deciding based its finding in the judgment delivered by the Court of Appeals in the case of
Santa Rosa vs. Noble. Obtaining a negative judgment, appellant has brought the present appeal
claiming that the court erred in applying the case of Santa Rosa vs. Noble alleging that cases
decided by the court of appeals does not constitute precedent and hence may not be applied in
deciding cases.

ISSUE: Whether the decisions of the Court of Appeals constitute precedents.

HELD: Only the decisions of Supreme Court establish jurisprudence or doctrines in the
jurisdiction. However, this does not prevent that a conclusion or pronouncement of the Court
of Appeals which covers a point of law still undecided in our jurisprudence may serve as
juridical guide to the inferior courts, and that such conclusion or pronouncement be raised as a
doctrine if, after it has been subjected to test in the crucible of analysis and revision, this
Supreme Court should find that it has merits and qualities sufficient for its consecration as a rule
of jurisprudence.
The Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd., Employees Association - NATU, FGU Insurance Group Workers and
Employees Association - NATU, and Insular Life Building Employees Association - NATU, petitioners
vs.
The Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd., FGU Insurance Group, Jose M. Olbes, and Court of Industrial
Relations, respondents.
G.R. No. L-25291, January 20, 1971

FACTS:

The Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd., Employees Association - NATU, FGU Insurance Group Workers and Employees
Association - NATU, and Insular Life Building Employees Association - NATU (herein referred to as the Unions), while
still members of the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), entered into separate collective bargaining agreements with
the Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd., and the FGU Insurance Group (herein referred to as the Companies).

Two of the lawyers and officers of the Unions namely Felipe Enaje and Ramon Garcia, tried to dissuade the Unions
from disaffiliating with the FFW and joining the National Association of Trade Unions (NATU), to no avail. Enaje and
Garcia soon left the FFW and secured employment with the Anti-Dummy Board of the Department of Justice and
were thereafter hired by the companies - Garcia as assistant corporate secretary and legal assistant, and Enaje as
personnel manager and chairman of the negotiating panel for the Companies in the collective bargaining with the
Unions.

On October 1957, negotiations for the collective bargaining was conducted but resulted to a deadlock. From April 25
to May 6, 1958, the parties negotiated on the labor demands but with no satisfactory results due to the stalemate on
the matter of salary increases. This prompted the Unions to declare a strike in protest against what they considered
the Companies’ unfair labor practices. On May 20, 1958, the Unions went on strike and picketed the offices of the
Insular Life Building at Plaza Moraga.

On May 21, Jose M. Olbes, the acting manager and president, sent individual letters to the striking employees urging
them to abandon their strike with a promise of free coffee, movies, overtime pay, and accommodations. He also
warned the strikers if they fail to return to work by a certain date, they might be replaced in their jobs. Further, the
Companies hired men to break into the picket lines resulting in violence, and the filing of criminal charges against
some union officers and members. When eventually, the strikers called off their strike to return to their jobs, they
were subjected to a screening process by a management committee, among the members were Garcia and Enaje.
After screening, eighty-three (83) strikers were rejected due to pending criminal charges, and adamantly refused
readmission of thirty-four (34) officials and members of the Unions who were most active in the strike.

The CIR prosecutor filed a complaint for unfair labor practice against the Companies, specifically (1) interfering with
the members of the Unions in the exercise of their right to concerted action; and (2) discriminating against the
members of the Unions as regards readmission to work after the strike on the basis of their union membership and
degree of participation in the strike. After the trial, the Court of Industrial Relations dismissed the Unions’ complaint
for lack of merit.

ISSUES:

I. Whether or not the Companies are guilty of unfair labor practice when they sent individual letters to the
strikers with the promise of additional benefits, and notifying them to either return to work, or lose
their jobs; and

II. Whether or not the Companies are guilty of unfair labor practice for discriminating against the striking
members of the Unions in readmission of employees after the strike.

HELD:

First issue. The Companies contended that by sending those letters, it constituted a legitimate exercise of their
freedom of expression. That contention is untenable. The Companies are guilty of unfair labor practice when they
sent individual letters to the strikers. It is an act of interference with the right to collective bargaining through dealing
with the strikers individually instead of through their collective bargaining representatives. Although the Unions are
on strike, the employer is still obligated to bargain with the union as the employees’ bargaining representative.
Further, it is also an act of interference for the employer to send individual letters to the employees notifying them to
return to their jobs, otherwise, they would be replaced. Individual solicitation of the employees urging them to cease
union activity or cease striking consists of unfair labor practice. Furthermore, when the Companies offered to “bribe”
the strikers with “comfortable cots, free coffee, and movies, overtime work pay” so they would abandon their strike
and return to work, it was guilty of strike-breaking and/or union busting which constitute unfair labor practice.

Second Issue. Some of the members of the Unions were refused readmission because they had pending criminal
charges. However, despite the fact they were able to secure clearances, 34 officials and members were still refused
readmission on the alleged ground that they committed acts inimical to the Companies. It should be noted, however,
that non-strikers who also had criminal charges pending against them in the fiscal’s office, arising from the same
incidents whence against the criminal charges against the strikers are involved, were readily readmitted and were not
required to secure clearances. This is an act of discrimination practiced by the Companies in the process of rehiring
and is therefore a violation of Sec. 4(a)(4) of the Industrial Peace Act.

The respondent Companies did not merely discriminate against all strikers in general since they separated the active
rom the less active unionists on the basis of their militancy, or lack of it, on the picket lines. Discrimination exists
where the record shows that the union activity of the rehired strikers has been less prominent than that of the
strikers who were denied reinstatement.
Ayala Corporation VS. ROSA DIANA REALTY Case Digest
Ayala Corporation VS. ROSA DIANA REALTY 
346 SCRA 633 

FACTS: In April 1976, appellant-petitioner entered into a transaction with Manuel Sy and Sy Ka Kieng where
former sold a lot in Salcedo Village in Makati. The deed of sale had some encumbrances contained in the Special
Conditions of Sale (SCS) and Deed of Restrictions (DR), which should be followed by the vendees. The stipulations
in the SCS are: 

1) a building proposal must be submitted to Ayala which must be in accordance with the DR, 
2) the construction of the building must be completed on or before 1979, and 
3) that there will be no resale of the lot. 

The DR specified the limits in height and floor area of the building to be constructed. However, Sy and Kieng, failed
to build a building but nonetheless with the permission of Ayala, the vendees sold the said lot to the respondent,
Rosa Diana Realty. Respondent Company agreed to abode by the SCS and the DR stipulations. Prior to the
construction, Rosa Diana submitted a building plan to Ayala complying with the DR but it also passed a different
building plan to the building administrator of Makati, which did not comply with the stipulations in the DR. While
the building, “The Peak,” was being constructed, Ayala filed a case praying that: 1) Rosa Diana, be compelled to
comply with the DR and build the building in accordance with the building plan submitted to Ayala; or 2) on the
alternative, the rescission of the deed of sale. 

The trial court ruled in favor of the respondent and thus, Rosa Diana was able to complete the construction of “The
Peak.” Undeterred, Ayala filed before the Register of Deeds (RD) of Makati a cause of annotation lis pendens. RD
refused to grant Ayala such registration for in the lower court; the case is of personal action for a specific
performance and/or rescission. However, the Land Registration Authority (LRA) reversed RD’s ruling. The
appellate court upheld the RD’s ruling stating that the case before the trial court is a personal action for the cause of
action arises from the alleged violation of the DR. The trial court sustained the respondent’s point saying that Ayala
was guilty of abandonment and/or estoppels due to its failure to enforce the terms of the DR and SCS against Sy and
Kieng. Ayala discriminately chose which obligor would be made to follow certain conditions, which is not fair and
legal. On appeal, the CA affirmed the lower court’s ruling. Hence, this petition. 

ISSUE: Whether or not Rosa Diana committed a breach of contract. 

RULING: Yes, the Supreme Court ruled that Rosa Diana committed a breach of contract by submitting a building
plan to Ayala complying with the DR and submitting a different building plan to the building administrator of
Makati, which did not comply with the stipulations in the DR. 

Contractual Obligations between parties have the force of law between them and absent any allegation that the same
are contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order or public policy, they must complied with in good faith. 

Thus, the assailed decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed and set aside.