BY ATTY. JULIUS GREGORY B. DELGADO
FLOATING NO MORE: THE SIX-MONTH LINE FOR SECURITY GUARDS
A security guard cannot be left waiting by the phone forever. In ABC-RMO Security & Investigation Agency, Inc. v. Court of Appeals and Bautista, G.R. No. E-00411, August 12, 2026, the Supreme Court’s First Division reminded security agencies that “floating status” is a privilege of management with an expiry date — and that the paperwork meant to prove otherwise must be real, specific, and actually received.
It began with an ordinary story in the industry. Louiejie Bautista had served as a security guard since October 2017, posted at the old Seedling Bank Foundation in Quezon City. When his agency lost the contract at the end of January 2021, he and three fellow guards were told there was no work for them — and, by their account, that they should simply resign.
They waited. No new post came. When one of them sought help from the labor department through the Single-Entry Approach (SEnA), the agency suddenly produced an office order reassigning Bautista, followed by a delinquency report, notices to report, and finally a recommendation to terminate him for going absent without leave.
The Labor Arbiter sided with the agency. The NLRC found the three co-workers constructively dismissed but threw out Bautista’s claim on a technicality because he was not supposedly able to include claim for illegal dismissal during the filing of the complaint and only during the filing of the Position Papers. The Court of Appeals reversed that, and the Supreme Court has now affirmed the Court of Appeals. Four lessons stand out for agencies and guards alike.
First lesson: six months is the outer limit
The security business runs on service contracts, and contracts end. The law recognizes this. When a client terminates or does not renew, an agency may place its guards on “floating status” or “off-detail” while it looks for a new post. This is a legitimate exercise of management prerogative.
But the prerogative is temporary. Drawing by analogy from Article 301 (formerly Article 286) of the Labor Code, which allows the bona fide suspension of operations for up to six months, the Supreme Court has long held that a guard’s floating status cannot exceed six months. The Court restated the rule here, citing Hamid v. Gervasio Security and Investigation Agency, Inc. G.R. No. 230968, July 27, 2022, placing guards off-detail is valid only if it does not go beyond six months; past that, the guard is deemed constructively dismissed.
Constructive dismissal, the Court explained, is a “dismissal in disguise.” Following Lagamayo v. Cullinan Group, Inc., G.R. No. 227718, November 11, 2021, and Torreda v. Investment and Capital Corporation of the Philippines, September 5, 2018, it is a form of illegal dismissal even though the employer never openly says “you’re fired.” Leaving a guard without a post and without pay beyond the allowable period accomplishes the same result.
The practical consequence is plain. The six-month clock starts when the last assignment ends. Before it runs out, the agency must actually redeploy the guard. Hoping that the guard will drift away, or quietly resign, is not an option.
Second lesson: a building is not an assignment
The agency’s main defense was Office Order No. 21-245, which read in full: Bautista “is hereby reassigned at High Street South Corporate Plaza Towers, BGC, Taguig City, effective March 31, 2021.” That looks specific enough. The Court disagreed. Relying on Hamid and on the more recent Sagarino v. Toplis Solution, Inc., G.R. No. 267379, October 15, 2025, it held that a valid redeployment must be to a specific client. A general return-to-work order, or a mere recall to the agency’s office, does not stop the six-month clock.
The order named a tower, not a principal. A corporate plaza in Bonifacio Global City may house dozens of companies, each with its own security arrangements. A guard handed such an order would not know whom he was guarding, to whom he would report, or what his post actually was. Without that specificity, the Court ruled, the order is nothing more than a general return-to-work notice — and therefore insufficient.
For agencies, the fix is simple: a reassignment order should name the client, the exact post or detail, the reporting officer, the shift, and the effective date.
Third lesson: the employer must prove receipt — and notices cannot be afterthoughts
Even a perfectly worded order is worthless if it never reaches the guard. Here the agency could not show that Bautista ever received Office Order No. 21-245 or the April 5, 2021 Delinquency Report. There was no proof of dispatch and no proof of receipt, whether by personal service or by mail.
The two Notices to Report fared no better. The first, dated April 6, 2021, was mailed only on May 5, 2021. The second was mailed only on May 26, 2021. The Court adopted the appellate court’s view that this delay made it “impossible, unreasonable, or unlikely” for Bautista to report back at all.
Worse, the flurry of papers appeared only after March 24, 2021 — the day the agency received a co-worker’s SEnA request for assistance. The NLRC and the Court of Appeals found it suspicious that new posts materialized only once the guards had complained. The Supreme Court agreed, treating the notices as a belated attempt to give a semblance of legitimacy to what had already happened.
The Court also drew a sharp distinction in kind. A delinquency report or a notice to explain is a disciplinary document. It presupposes that the guard already knows his assignment and failed to show up. It is not, and cannot substitute for, the notice of a new assignment the law requires.
The agency offered two more excuses. It blamed COVID-19 quarantine for the mailing delays but presented no evidence of how the lockdown actually prevented prompt service. It claimed it had texted Bautista and pointed to a sworn statement and a verified report — yet neither document was attached to its petition. Citing Tan Brothers Corp. of Basilan City v. Escudero, G.R. No. 188711, July 8, 2013, , the Court repeated a basic rule: mere allegation is not evidence. A party asserting a critical fact must prove it with substantial evidence. The lesson for employers: the burden is yours. Keep registry receipts, courier tracking, signed acknowledgments, and screenshots of messages, and serve notices promptly.
Fourth lesson: you cannot abandon a job you are suing to keep
The agency insisted that Bautista was not dismissed at all; he had abandoned his work. The Court rejected this. Abandonment is a just cause for dismissal, but it is hard to prove. Under Cornworld Breeding Systems Corp. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 204075, August 17, 2022, the employer must establish two things: first, that the employee failed to report for work without valid reason; and second, that the employee clearly intended to sever the employment relationship, as shown by overt acts. Abandonment is a matter of intention and cannot be lightly presumed from equivocal acts.
More to the point, as Hamid teaches, a charge of abandonment is wholly inconsistent with the filing of a complaint for illegal dismissal. An employee who goes to the labor tribunal to protest his separation is demonstrating that he wants his job back, not that he wants to walk away from it.
Bautista filed his complaint and consistently insisted he had been constructively dismissed. That alone negated any claim of abandonment. And as the Court of Appeals observed, a guard cannot be faulted for failing to report to a post he was never shown to have been told about.
The Court also disposed of the technical objection that Bautista’s original complaint did not allege illegal dismissal. He later amended it, and in any event, under Burnea v. Security Trading Corp., G.R. No. 231038, April 26, 2021, NLRC complaints are essentially checklist forms; it is the position paper, not the initial complaint, that sets out the employee’s causes of action.
A closing word
For security agencies, the message is to treat the six-month period as a hard deadline, to issue reassignment orders that name a real client and post, and to document every notice from dispatch to receipt. Paperwork generated only after a complaint is filed will be seen for what it is.
For security guards, the message is equally clear. If your post ends and months pass without a genuine, specific assignment, the law is on your side. Keep records, respond to legitimate notices, and seek assistance early.
Floating status was meant as a bridge between contracts, not a waiting room with no exit.