As cameramen/editors and reporters, petitioners were undoubtedly performing functions necessary and essential to ABS-CBN’s business of broadcasting television and radio content. It matters little that petitioners’ services were engaged for specified periods for TV Patrol Bicol and that they were paid according to the budget allocated therefor. Aside from the fact that said program is a regular weekday fare of the ABS-CBN’s Regional Network Group in Naga City, the record shows that, from their initial engagement in the aforesaid capacities, petitioners were continuously re-hired by respondents over the years.

To the mind of the Court, respondents’ repeated hiring of petitioners for its long-running news program positively indicates that the latter were ABS-CBN’s regular employees. If the employee has been performing the job for at least one year, even if the performance is not continuous or merely intermittent, the law deems the repeated or continuing performance as sufficient evidence of the necessity, if not indispensability of that activity in the business. Indeed, an employment stops being co-terminous with specific projects where the employee is continuously re-hired due to the demands of the employer’s business. When circumstances show, moreover, that contractually stipulated periods of employment have been imposed to preclude the acquisition of tenurial security by the employee, this Court has not hesitated in striking down such arrangements as contrary to public policy, morals, good customs or public order. The nature of the employment depends, after all, on the nature of the activities to be performed by the employee, considering the nature of the employer’s business, the duration and scope to be done, and, in some cases, even the length of time of the performance and its continued existence.32 In the same manner that the practice of having fixed-term contracts in the industry does not automatically make all talent contracts valid and compliant with labor law, it has, consequently, been ruled that the assertion that a talent contract exists does not necessarily prevent a regular employment status. (Nelson V. Begino v. ABS-CBN Corporation (Benigno), G.R. No. 199166, April 20, 2015.)

This ruling was Later echoed in Dumpit-Murillo v. Court of Appeals, this Court has rejected the application of the ruling in the Sonza case to employees similarly situated as petitioners in ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation v. Nazareno.
RE: Distinction; Sonza case vs. An ordinary employee (such as an employee in the case at bar).

The following [distinctions] were significantly observed between employees (like the employee in this case) and television or radio personalities like Sonza, to wit:
[First]. In the selection and engagement of respondents, no peculiar or unique skill, talent or celebrity status was required from them because they were merely hired through petitioner’s personnel department just like any ordinary employee.

[Second]. The so-called "talent fees" of respondents (employees) correspond to wages given as a result of an employer-employee relationship.  Respondents did not have the [power to bargain] for huge talent fees, a circumstance negating independent contractual relationship.
[Third]. Petitioner (employer) could always discharge respondents (employee) should it find their work unsatisfactory, and respondents (employee ) are highly dependent on the petitioner (employer) for continued work.
[Fourth]. The degree of control and supervision exercised by petitioner (employer) over respondents (employee) through its supervisors negates the allegation that respondents (employee) are independent contractors.

RE: REGULAR EMPLOYEE |
The presumption is that when the work done is an integral part of the regular business of the employer and when the worker, relative to the employer, [does not] furnish an independent business or professional service, such work is a [regular employment] of such employee and not an independent contractor.

The Court will peruse beyond any such agreement to examine the facts that typify the parties’ actual relationship.

Accordingly, Article 280 of the Labor Code provides:

"The provisions of written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and [regardless] of the oral agreement of the parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer."

(CARMELA C. TIANGCO VS. ABS-CBN Corp. ,G.R. No. 200434. December 06, 2021
Citing Dumpit-Murillo v. Court of Appeals).

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