ii. Recovery and Adjudicatory Power

Recovery and Adjudicatory Power - Requisites for RD to Decide Small Money Claims

• The claim is for wages or other monetary benefits owing to an employee or a person employed in domestic or household service, upon complaint of an interested party;
• The claim arises from an EER;
• The claimant does not seek reinstatement; and
• The aggregate money claim of each claimant does not exceed PhP 5,000

Notes: If any of the above requisites is absent, jurisdiction must be determined under the applicable law; the LA has jurisdiction only if the claim falls within ART. 224 [217] or another grant of jurisdiction.

The claimant need not be an employee at the time the complaint has been filed; it is enough that the claim arises from employment.

Jurisdiction to Determine EER

The NLRC has jurisdiction to determine, preliminarily, the parties’ rights over a property, when it is necessary to determine an issue related to rights or claims arising from a EER (Milan v. NLRC, G.R. No. 202961, 2015)