Illegally Dismissed Overseas: What You Can Claim

Philippine law travelled with you

The first thing employers dispute is whether Philippine labour standards reach a job site in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia or Ghana. In Sameer Overseas Placement Agency, Inc. v. Cabiles (G.R. No. 170139, August 5, 2014, En Banc), the Court answered:

Employees are not stripped of their security of tenure when they move to work in a different jurisdiction. With respect to the rights of overseas Filipino workers, we follow the principle of lex loci contractus.

Lex loci contractus means the law of the place where the contract was made. Your contract was perfected here, so the Labor Code and the Constitution's protection of labour apply to it — and, as the same decision puts it, an OFW may only be terminated for a just or authorized cause and after compliance with procedural due process.

The employer proves the cause, not you

This is the point most workers do not know, and it changes how a case is built:

The burden of proving that there is just cause for termination is on the employer. "The employer must affirmatively show rationally adequate evidence that the dismissal was for a justifiable cause." Failure to show that there was valid or just cause for termination would necessarily mean that the dismissal was illegal.

In Sameer the agency said the worker was inefficient. The Court held that bare allegations do not suffice: where the ground is poor performance, the employer must show that it set standards of conduct and workmanship, that it communicated them to the worker, and that it did so at a reasonable time before the assessment.

Two written notices, and a chance to answer

Substance is only half of it. Sameer restates the procedure, and rejects the argument that it can be relaxed for overseas employment:

A valid dismissal requires both a valid cause and adherence to the valid procedure of dismissal. The employer is required to give the charged employee at least two written notices before termination. One of the written notices must inform the employee of the particular acts that may cause his or her dismissal. The other notice must "[inform] the employee of the employer's decision." Aside from the notice requirement, the employee must also be given "an opportunity to be heard."

Applied to Joy Cabiles, who was told on a Monday that she was terminated that same day and flown home the same day, the Court found the abruptness of the termination negated any finding that she was properly notified and heard. If that is close to your story, the dates are the evidence — write them down while you still remember them.

The money: what Serrano and Sameer decided

Section 10 of Republic Act No. 8042 once limited an illegally dismissed OFW to salaries “for three (3) months for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less.” In Serrano v. Gallant Maritime Services, Inc. (G.R. No. 167614, March 24, 2009, En Banc) that clause was declared unconstitutional for violating equal protection and substantive due process. Congress then re-enacted the identical clause in Section 7 of RA 10022. Sameer refused to let that stand:

Thus, when a law or a provision of law is null because it is inconsistent with the Constitution,the nullity cannot be cured by reincorporation or reenactment of the same or a similar law or provision. A law or provision of law that was already declared unconstitutional remains as such unless circumstances have sochanged as to warrant a reverse conclusion.

The spacing above is as it appears in the reported text. The disposition was categorical:

The clause, "or for three (3) months for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less" in Section 7 of Republic Act No. 10022 amending Section 10 of Republic Act No. 8042 is declared unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void.

That clause is still physically printed in the statute books and still appears when later decisions quote Section 10. It is void. And the position is settled — Denusta v. Migrant Workers Manpower Agency, Inc. (G.R. No. 264158, January 31, 2024) says so:

It is now settled that the clause "or for three (3) months for every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less" is unconstitutional for violating the equal protection clause and substantive due process. Accordingly, an illegally dismissed employee is entitled to his/her salaries for the unexpired portion of her employment contract.

Stated precisely

What was struck down is a cap on how an award is computed. Nothing in Serrano or Sameer made illegal dismissal easier to prove, shifted any element, or guaranteed payment to anyone. The accurate sentence is this: if the dismissal is found to be illegal, the salaries are computed on the entire unexpired portion of the contract rather than the old three-month formula. It is not “you get everything.”

Two further limits worth knowing early. Serrano holds that the word salaries in Section 10 does not include overtime and leave pay absent evidence the work was actually performed. And what else may be recovered — placement-fee reimbursement, unauthorized deductions, interest, damages — carries its own rules, which are set out under unpaid wages and money claims.

If you resigned or asked to be released because conditions had become unbearable, do not assume you dismissed yourself: Denusta recognises constructive dismissal where a reasonable person in your position would have felt compelled to give up the job. Bring your contract, payslips, messages and repatriation papers and book a consultation; who to sue is answered in agency liability, and where, in where OFW cases are filed.

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