The Magna Carta for Women [MCW] is a comprehensive women’s human rights law that seeks to eliminate discrimination through the recognition, protection, fulfillment, and promotion of the rights of Filipino women, especially those belonging to marginalized sectors of society. Republic Act No. 9710 is the local translation of the CEDAW – Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women defining gender discrimination, state obligations, substantive equality, and temporary special measures. One feature of MCW is in Section 13 [c] that expulsion and non-readmission of women faculty due to pregnancy; outside of marriage shall be outlawed. No school shall turn out or refuse admission to a female student solely on the account of her having contracted pregnancy outside of marriage. The MCW protects women against discrimination in all matters relating to marriage and family relations, including the right to choose freely a spouse or to marry. The Labor Code provides in Article 16 that it shall be unlawful for an employer to require as a condition or continuation of employment that a woman employee shall not get married, or to stipulate that upon getting married, woman employee shall be deemed resigned or separated, or to dismiss, discharge, discriminate or prejudice a woman employee merely by reason of her marriage.
The doctrine of management prerogatives gives employer the right to regulate, according to its own discretion and judgment, all aspects of employment: hiring, transfer, lay-off, discipline and dismissal. May a woman-employee be suspended due to pregnancy and require her to marry as condition for re-admission? Our Honorable Supreme Court answered the issue in Bohol Wisdom School, et.al. v. Mabao, G.R. No. 252124, 23 July 2024. In this case, Miraflor was a single grade school teacher in a Christian school. The school principal suspended her for being two months pregnant and would remain suspended until she married the father of the child she was carrying. A notice that she was suspended indefinitely without pay due to immorality until she married her boyfriend. She filed a labor case for illegal suspension. The Labor Arbiter held that she was constructively dismissed, which the National Labor Relations Commission reversed. The Court of Appeals ruled that no constructive dismissal, but illegal suspension. The school appealed.
Our Supreme Court ruled that there is a standard of morality in the eyes of the law that binds all those who come before it, which is public and secular, not religious. Miraflor was suspended for engaging in premarital sexual relations, resulting in being pregnant out of wedlock. The Court has previously ruled that premarital sexual relations resulting in pregnancy out of wedlock cannot be considered immoral. In Leus v. St. Scholastica’s College Westgrove, it found no circumstance to conclude that disgraceful or immoral conduct was committed since at the time they conceived a child, the woman and man had no legal impediment to marry. There is no law which penalizes an unmarried mother by reason of her sexual conduct or proscribes the consensual sexual activity between two unmarried persons; neither does such situation contravene state policy in the Constitution. She is employed in an educational institution where the teachings and doctrines of the church where pre-marital sexual relations, is strictly upheld and taught to the students. Her indiscretion leading to pregnancy out of wedlock, is anathema to the church doctrines but it cannot be considered as disgraceful or immoral; such conduct is not denounced by public and secular morality. It may be an unusual arrangement, but it certainly is not disgraceful or immoral within the contemplation of the law. BWS’ idea of “religious morality runs counter with the State’s idea of “secular morality.”
Jurisprudence has already set the standard of immorality with which an act should be measured [gauged] – it is public and secular, not religious. The fact that a particular act does not conform to the traditional moral views of a certain sectarian institution is not sufficient reason to qualify such act as immoral unless it, likewise, does not conform to public and secular standards.
On a secular level, premarital sex is not immoral per se. She has no sexual relations with a married man; neither was she married at the time. Using the Supreme Court’s gauge of morality, Miraflor’s conduct is not immoral. As such, her suspension is illegal and without basis. Her suspension for engaging in premarital sexual relations resulting in pregnancy out of wedlock is therefore illegal.
