Benefit of the doubt

Dear Atty. Vlad,

I own several restaurants in the province of Laguna. Two weeks ago, when I visited our Calamba Branch, the restaurant manager, Mr. Santos, was absent. I met with the restaurant staff and when I asked them how is Mr. Santos as a restaurant manager, they told me negative things regarding the management style of Mr. Santos. However, to support their claims, I requested them to formalize everything in writing and I even asked them to execute affidavits and to provide documents. I also looked at the books of the restaurant to check the entries and found suspicious entries. After gathering all the affidavits and supporting documents, I issued a Notice to Explain to Mr. Santos. When he received the Notice to Explain, he called me and told me that what I did made his working environment, hostile. In other words, he is claiming that he is being constructively dismissed. I hope you can help me.

 Jenny

Dear Jenny,

Mr. Santos cannot claim that he is being eased out of his work or that his working environment is being made hostile. Before issuing the Notice to Explain to Mr. Santos, you first asked your restaurant staff how he is as a restaurant manager. You also asked them to formalize everything in writing and even requested them to execute Affidavits in support of their claims. Apart from this, you personally looked at the books of the restaurant and found some suspicious entries.

 Your act of issuing a Notice to Explain falls well within your management prerogatives as the employer. In the case of Uniwide Sales Warehouse Club vs. NLRC and Amalia P. Kawada, G.R. 154503, 29 February 2008, the Supreme Court stated:

 “The Court finds that private respondent’s allegation of harassment is a specious statement which contains nothing but empty imputation of a fact that could hardly be given any evidentiary weight by this Court. Private respondent’s bare allegations of constructive dismissal, when uncorroborated by the evidence on record, cannot be given credence.”

“The sending of several memoranda addressed to a managerial or supervisory employee concerning various violations of company rules and regulations, committed on different occasions, are not unusual. The alleged February to June 1998 series of memoranda given by petitioners to private respondent asking the latter to explain the alleged irregular acts should not be construed as a form of harassment but merely an exercise of management’s prerogative to discipline its employees.”

Mr. Santos should therefore, answer the charges against him instead of claiming that he is being harassed or his working environment is being made unbearable or hostile. The issuance of a Notice to Explain is not an end in itself, but merely an opportunity given to employees to answer the charges against them.

I hope that I was able to help you based on the facts you shared.

  Atty. Vlad del Rosario