17 Dec 2024 – SC: Unmarried teachers can’t be suspended for being pregnant

Daphne Galvez – The Philippine Star
December 17, 2024 | 12:00am

In an 18-page ruling, the SC First Division said sexual relations between two consenting adults who have no legal impediment to marry is not deemed immoral.

MANILA, Philippines — Consensual sexual relations between unmarried people that result in pregnancy are not immoral and not a valid ground for suspension from work of the pregnant woman, the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled.

In an 18-page ruling, the SC First Division said sexual relations between two consenting adults who have no legal impediment to marry is not deemed immoral.

“No law forbids such, and said conduct does not contravene any fundamental state policy enshrined in the Constitution,” the SC decision, penned by Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario, read.

The high tribunal has declared illegal the 2016 suspension by a Christian school in Bohol of a teacher who became pregnant before marrying her boyfriend.

In September 2016, when she was two months pregnant, the teacher informed the school principal about her pregnancy and her scheduled marriage to her boyfriend.

The teacher was “verbally suspended” indefinitely until her marriage to the father of her child for violating the school’s policy.

She also received a written notice, stating that she was suspended indefinitely without pay due to immorality until she gets married.

She filed a complaint for illegal suspension. The labor arbiter held that she was constructively dismissed, but the National Labor Relations Commission reversed the decision.

The Court of Appeals (CA) ruled that there was no constructive dismissal, and found the teacher’s suspension illegal.

The appellate court said it did not find the teacher’s conduct immoral as she did not have sexual relations with a married man and neither was she married at the time.

The CA ordered the school to pay the teacher the salaries and benefits she did not receive during her suspension.