Kaban ni Lino Labra: ANG UDTO SA TINGPAHULAY

Labor law was my favorite subject in the College of Law. The professor was great and my grades in 3 labor subjects were even greater than the rest. I dreamed of having labor lawyering as a carreer path before taking the bar. But my bar grade in my favorite subject was neither my favorite to reminisce. Nevertheless, it did not hound me to quit my dream until one day, a winning labor case that I first handled few months after taking my oath was lost not in a decision but to the desire of my clients to settle for cost instead of fighting their cause of action against their abusive employers .

Since then, I promised not to handle labor cases anymore until three days ago a relative came to my office for help after he was being terminated from his job as a factory worker. He would have settled for a negotiated separation pay but the issue on LUNCHBREAK was a pain on the ass of the parties why the company would not pay the time where they were supposed to take their lunch outside or inside without necessarily working in the middle of the day.   We call it REST PERIOD in labor law where employers were supposed to take their break for lunch that is why we call it LUNCHBREAK. You are deemed paid even if you are not working during this period. In short, it is your official time in the workplace.

I investigated why my relative and his co-workers were required to work even during LUNCHBREAK by their employers. The logic of their boss was very apparent in the statistics that most of the petty crimes committed in the factory site happened during the LUNCHBREAK where the eyes and ears of the company were also close for taking their break too.

It brought my feet off the ground in reaction to this revelation because I heard of so many stories from colleagues in legal profession who also have their official LUNCHBREAK even if they are not supposed to have as private practitioners and employees without having daily time record in their law firm. LUNCHBREAK for them is their unofficial business during official time.

It started with a story of a group of young lawyers in their early 30's who were buddies in law school days. Three were married and two were bachelors but one of them is already of a father but not a husband. They work in the same office of a local government unit in the city. One evening, a birthday celebration of a friend brought them to a bikini bar in a place where I am not familiar with. In a private room, they ordered ladies drinks and the ladies who drink for each one of them as partners. I don't know what happened to the ladies and the drink that they totally forgot having passed due their curfew hours in their conjugal abode.

At past 12:00 o'clock in the evening three cell phones simultaneous rang allegely calls coming from their respective partners in life legally intervening their outside marital affairs in the bar. Without hesitation, the married ones rushed outside without a leave of the group allegedly to avoid having entangled from unnecessary legal troubles with their respective wives. The story ended up without one getting into the hot seat on the ground that the outing was legitimate to celebrate a birhtday of a buddy.

But the married ones missed the ladies and the drink for withdrawing the motion on timely call for objections. Out of necessity, the same group invented the story and the action of "LUNCHBREAK." This time, a partner is the story teller because allegedly, he joined this group once for a reconnaisance survey of the venue of the story in a place somewhere in Guadalupe.

 Call it hearsay in legal parlance, these group of young lawyers usually went to this place for a "LUNCHBREAK" with ladies without drinks not in the bikini bar but in a massage parlor of pretty angels. After hearing these morbid stories, I cautioned them not to ignite the wrath of their respective wives. For one, they are still young and pretty. Secondly, most of them are financially independent to these young lawyer-husbands. Three, their marriage is still young and there is not much emotional investment in it to withstand the rigors of times. Fourth, their wives are likewise intelligent that they knew the easy way out of their marriage without the second thought.

Call it LUNCHBREAK or by any name but just the same, it sounds breaking your nerves of your young marriages at this early. Before, I decided to handle back a labor case, I asked my relative-client to sign an undertaking not to settle with his employer for a cost that would spoil our cause of action in this case. I told my client that LUNCHBREAK OR REST PERIOD is official and legal. I may add that it should not be used by anyone lawyers or not for unofficial or illegal activities such as LUNCHBREAK . . . "NOT" in the office but to somewhere else. He he he.

(Bug-os ang  pasalamat sa KAHAYAG ngadto sa nagsulat niining  artikulo  nga si ATTY. PAULINO  B. LABRADO, Senior Partner sa P.B. LABRADO  and PARTNERS. Magsusulat  ug magpaambitan siya sa iyang mga  hunahuna mahitungod sa  nagkalain-laing hisgotanan nga makita sa  maukiton niyang mata ug mga kasikas nga madungog sa  iyang maabtikong dunggan.)