GENERAL PROVISIONS ART.

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a. Recruitment Violation and Related cases consisting of all

preemployment cases which are administrative in character, involving or arising
out of recruitment laws, rules and regulations, including money claims therefrom
or violations of the conditions for issuance of license to recruit workers.1
b. Employer-Employee Relations cases consisting of all claims arising
out of an employer-employee relationship or by virtue of any law or contract
involving Filipino workers in overseas employment, such as but not limited to:
(1) violation of the terms and conditions of employment;
(2) disputes relating to the implementation and interpretation
of employment contracts;
(3) money claims of workers against their employers and
duly authorized agents in the Philippines or vice versa;
(4) claims for death, disability and other benefits arising out
of employment; and
(5) violation/s of or noncompliance with any compromise
agreement entered into by and between the parties in an overseas
employment contract.
c. Disciplinary Action cases consisting of all complaints against a
contract worker for breach of discipline.2 The disciplinary action may take the
form of warning, repatriation, suspension, or disqualification from the overseas
employment program, or inclusion in the POEA blacklist. (See further comments
below.)
5.1 Modification: Employer-Employee Relations Cases: Transferred to
NLRC
The allocation of jurisdiction enumerated above has been significantly
modified by R.A. No. 8042 (“Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of
1995”). This law has transferred to the NLRC the jurisdiction over employer-
employee relations cases. Among the cases now in the hands of labor arbiters
are money claims arising from pretermination of the employment contract
without valid cause. In such a case, Sec. 10 of R.A. No. 8042 entitles the OFW to
“reimbursement of his placement fee with interest plus his salary for either (1)
the unexpired portion of the employment contract or (2) for three months for
every year of the unexpired term, whichever is less.”
This quoted provision has been the subject of cases that will be taken up
under Article 224. But it is important to note here that the three-month option
has been declared unconstitutional in a Supreme Court ruling in 2009.
NLRC’s jurisdiction is taken up in volume two of this work.

Book VI, Rule I.

1

Book VII, Rule VII of POEA Rules.

2

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