Prangan v.
NLRC
GR No. 126529, 15 April 1998
Facts
    Private respondent Masagana Security Services Corp (MSSC) hired Prangan as
      one of its security guards. Thereafter, he was assigned to the Cat House Bar and
      Restaurant with a monthly salary of P2,000 until its closure.
    Petitioner filed a complaint against MSSC for underpayment of wages, non-
      payment of salary, overtime pay, premium pay for holiday, rest day, night shift
      differential, uniform allowance, service incentive leave pay and 13th month
      pay from the year 1990 to 1993.
          o Respondent’s defense: it merely acted as an agent of Prangan in securing
             his employment at the Cat House Bar & Resto.
    LA: in favor of Prangan. NLRC: in favor of MSSC, ruled that Prangan only
      worked for 4 hours and not 12 hrs a day. The shorter hours resulted in a lower
      monetary award by the Labor Arbiter.
    As proof, MSSC submitted daily time records showing that he only worked 4
      hrs. But petitioner claims they were falsified.
Issue & Ruling
WON Prangan was proven to work only 4 hrs a day. NO
    As petitioner’s employer, private respondent has unlimited access to all relevant
      documents and records on the hours of work of the petitioner. Yet, even as it
      insists that petitioner only worked for four hours and not twelve, no employment
      contract, payroll, notice of assignment or posting, cash voucher or any other
      convincing evidence which may attest to the actual hours of work of the petitioner
      was even presented. Instead, what the private respondent offered as evidence
      was only petitioner’s daily time record, which the latter categorically denied ever
      accomplishing, much less signing.
    The document showed that petitioner started work at 10:00 p.m. and would
      invariably leave his post at exactly 2:00 a.m. Obviously, such unvarying recording
      of a daily time record is improbable and contrary to human experience. It is
      impossible for an employee to arrive at the workplace and leave at exactly the
      same time, day in day out. The very uniformity and regularity of the entries are
      badges of untruthfulness and as such indices of dubiety.
          o In the personnel data sheet of the petitioner, duly signed by the former’s
              operation manager, it shows on its face that the latter’s hours of work are
              from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. or twelve hours a day. Hence, private
              respondent is estopped from assailing the contents of its own documents.
          o Lastly, the attendance sheets of Cat House Bar and Restaurant
              showed that petitioner worked from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. daily,
              documents which were never repudiated by the private respondent.