Resignation is the voluntary act of an employee who is in a situation where one believes that personal. Reasons cannot be sacrificed in favor of the exigency of the service, and has no other choice but to dissociate from employment. To determine whether the employee indeed intended to relinquish such employment, the act of the employee before and after the alleged resignation must be considered.
In termination cases, burden of proof rests upon the employer to show that the dismissal is for a just and valid cause, and failure to do so would necessarily mean that the dismissal was illegal.
Furthermore, in an illegal dismissal case, the onus probandi rests on the employer to prove that the dismissal of an employee is for a valid cause. Having based its defense on resignation, it is incumbent upon respondent, as employer, to prove that petitioner voluntarily resigned.
Under Article 279 of the Labor Code, an employee unjustly dismissed from work is entitled to reinstatement and backwages, among others. Reinstatement restores the employee who was unjustly dismissed to the position from which he was removed, that is, to his status quo ante dismissal, while the grant of backwages allows the same employee to recover from the employer that which he had lost by way of wages as a result of his dismissal.
LAW WEEKLY (PHILIPPINES)