Dear PAO,

I need your advice urgently. My Korean employer refuses to give me a certificate of employment (COE). I need it for my government teaching job application. I was supposed to submit the COE last Friday. I have followed up many times, but they just ignored my messages. Until now, they still have not replied. Their delay might really cost me the position. Please tell me what I can do legally. Can I force them to release the COE?

Ms. De Ville

Dear Ms. De Ville,

Book V, Rule 14, Section 10 of the Omnibus Rules implementing the Labor Code specifically states that an employee has the right to be issued, upon his request, a certificate of employment (COE):

“A dismissed worker shall be entitled to receive, on request, a certificate from the employer specifying the dates of his engagement and termination of his employment and the type or types of work on which he is employed.”

Under Labor Advisory No. 06, dated 31 January 2020, otherwise known as the Guidelines on the Payment of Final Pay and Issuance of Certificate of Employment, a COE is defined as “a certificate from the employer specifying the dates of an employee’s engagement and the termination of his/her employment and the type or types of work in which he/she is employed.” It also explicitly states that the “[e]mployers shall issue a certificate of employment within three (3) days from the time of the request of the employee.”

Based on the foregoing, your previous employer’s refusal to issue your COE constitutes a violation of our labor laws and rules. The above-mentioned labor advisory requires your previous employer to issue the COE within three days from the time you asked. This is a clear and non-negotiable obligation, and ignoring your messages is a violation thereof.

To enforce your right to a COE, the same labor advisory provides that any case arising out of the refusal of an employer to issue a COE shall be filed before the nearest DOLE Regional/Provincial/Field Office which has jurisdiction over the workplace, conciliation and subject to DOLE’s enforcement mechanism.

Thus, your next course of action is to file a complaint against your previous employer before the DOLE office which has jurisdiction over your workplace. Following the DOLE’s existing enforcement mechanism, your complaint will undergo mandatory conciliation-mediation intervention under the Single Entry Approach (SEnA). If your previous employer will still refuse to issue your COE, your complaint will be escalated to a full labor case and raffled to a labor arbiter who will have the power to direct your previous employer to issue a COE upon finding that you are entitled to it, after proper notice and hearing.

Please note that this piece of advice was based only on the facts you have given and our appreciation of the same. Our opinion may change given more details.

We appreciate your trust and support.