Talents of the GMA network secured a legal victory.
In the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the labor case between talents and GMA Network, the dismissed talents are ordered to be reinstated.
The Talents Association of GMA (TAG) declared on Saturday that the Supreme Court (SC) ruled in their favor regarding the 11-year-old labor case against the GMA Network. They were recognized as regular employees, who are entitled to security and statutory benefits.
It put an end to the 11-year legal battle and granted relief to those illegally terminated.
In a 33-page resolution dated July 16, 2025, which was made public over the weekend, the SC’s Third Division denied GMA’s petition that challenged a 2019 Court of Appeals decision that regularized employees hired between 2003 and 2013. The high court underscored a key element of independent contracting: “freedom from control from the principal over the means and method of their work.”
The Court, in the same decision, also ordered the reinstatement of illegally dismissed GMA talents without loss of seniority rights and other privileges. They are entitled to full backwages, including allowances and “other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time their compensation was withheld from them up to the time of their actual reinstatement.”
“Plain as day, there exists an employer-employee relationship between GMA and respondents. Respondents are regular employees of GMA,”
a part of the SC ruling read. While GMA may still seek reconsideration, TAG said the High Court’s ruling already marks a hard-fought victory that helps protect future media workers in the country.
National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
(NUJP) welcomed the SC ruling and urged GMA to stop opposing it and instead fulfill its obligations to media workers. According to this, this is vindication for those who were not recognized as employees.