Beyond the boundaries of love, workplace immorality and illicit sex

In my online seminar yesterday and in the two volumes of hardbound books I wrote, I discussed more than 20 cases of improper employee behavior in the workplace, including sexual harassment, teachers' immorality inside the academe, and illicit relationships involving judges, regional directors, municipal assessors, and other public officials and government personnel. They were all fired and their complaints for illegal dismissals were dismissed.

After sharing with the participants and readers many cases where the Supreme Court ruled that there was nothing wrong with fellow employees getting in love as long as they express their affections in the proper place, at the proper time and with the proper partners. The employers have no right whatsoever to interfere with private relationships when lovers do their things in private outside company premises and not during working hours. Management cannot even discipline lady employees who get pregnant without marriage even if such pre-marital pregnancy is explicitly prohibited in the company manual or code of discipline. Even Catholic schools are declared guilty of illegal dismissal for firing pregnant personnel.

But in this column today, I shall focus on workplace immorality and illicit sex among coemployees. In the Stanford Microsystem case, management fired an in-house Security Coordinator who had sex with an agency lady guard. The sexual intercourse was done on top of the table of the manager of the company, during working time at graveyard shift and in the presence of another agency guard who pretended to be sleeping while the sex act was commenced and consummated. The security coordinator and the girl were both married to their respective spouses. The coordinator brought liquor, they drank and then had sex. That reprehensible act was deemed unforgivable. Justice Narvasa who penned the Supreme Court decision did not mince words in condemning it.

The same decision was made by Justice Brion in the Imasen case where two lovers, co-employees had sexual intercourse inside the workplace also during graveyard shift. The security guards discovered the incident and made an incident report. That caused their dismissal which was declared valid by the highest court. In Hagonoy Institute, two teachers who were married but not to each other, caused shame and scandal in the school where they were caught in many instances in intimate and romantic acts. The school fired the male teacher because the female took a leave upon pressure from management. Their coteachers signed a manifesto to support the lovers. But the school fired them. Justice Flerida Ruth Romero wrote a beautiful decision denouncing the indecent acts of the teachers.

There was a regional director assigned in Cebu, a municipal assessor in Diadi, Nueva Vizcaya, a regional judge in Cebu City and another judge in Surigao. They were all fired for immorality and many of them were involved with married women whose husbands were OFWs. Justice Isaias Dicdican, my good friend from Dalaguete, visited his sala on a holiday and found two naked court personnel making love inside his court. He fired the two who were incidentally both married to other persons. The good judge berated the two: "Do not make my court a virtual motel.” And his words ring with truth and wisdom.

He was a very upright and God-fearing man. He was paraphrasing the Lord: Do not make the House of My Father a den of rascals". The bottomline is clear: Love cannot be made a sin by expressing it with the wrong partner in the wrong place at the wrong time. Love indeed should be never having to say you are sorry. So, do it properly.