Resignation Without Two Week Notice - Question About Damages

Hi,

I work in a BPO company for almost a year and submitted an immediate resignation last Friday, August 16.

I was already in talk with my supervisor since Thursday, August 15, but she told me I need to stay for 30 days as stated in my contract. I told her I would negotiate with my new company if they can wait that long since I am already slated to sign my contract tomorrow, August 19, but they really needed me that early so I really needed to go. By Friday, August 16, I was informed by my manager that they are going to hold my clearance and final pay due to liability/damages. They told me that my back pay would be negative.

My questions are:
1. Am I correct in thinking that they can only charge me for liability  equal to the 30-days I did not render (ie 1month worth of salary)? Because if so, then my pro-rated 13th month pay, uncollected salary and tax refund should exceed any damage they can come up with. I also have no bond in my contract and 30-days was the notice period stated there too.

2. I had an office mate who filed for an immediate resignation before and was let off without any question. He was notorious and a non-performer and I am thinking that maybe I could use that precedent, especially that I am a consistent performer in the company. Maybe I could prove malice given that premise.

3. If I retract my resignation and go on AWOL instead, can they still charge me for damages?

Any advise? Thank you.

1. what the law says is damages, not 30 days worth
2. you can try, but it is not binding
3. that'll be same or even worse

Thank you for the reply AttyLLL.

I'm thinking that another recourse would be this. We had a new supervisor (Australian) fly in and she started July 14. She was very tactless, swears a lot and threatened our tenure with performance management. It was actually one of the reasons I opted to look for greener pastures.

Around first week of August, a friend of mine filed a formal complaint in HR regarding her demeanor. Actually, the whole team was in disarray and upset in the way she handled us.

After the complaint was brought up, she eased up a little and was nice to us suddenly though we know it wasn't sincere. This was the week before I got the job in the other company.

My question is this:

Can I use this as basis to file for constructive dismissal for the reason that the working environment has already became unbearable to be in?

I am currently in negotiations with them to waive the damages they are going to file and I am thinking of using this as a counter argument if negotiations turn sour. Do you think it will stand?

***another point of interest, in my 11 months in the company, it was only in July and August that I had a coaching session with anyone and had a formal discussion regarding our scorecards. We only started getting scorecards for April and up to now it is still not finished. Also, the scorecard presented to us for July proved to be full of mistakes and had to be revised. Take note that it was already discussed to us and signed before they discovered the discrepancies. Does this add credence to my case?

until when can one file for constructive dismissal (employee left company 2 years ago)

2 years is a long time already and might not hold in court.. you should have filed immediately..