EVEN IF the enhanced community quarantine is lifted on May 15, the guidelines set for the succeeding general community quarantine by May 16 would still require the closure of tourism and hospitality businesses. This would of course include my own resort – G Beach Resort – in Bolinao, Pangasinan. Until when the resort would remain closed, the government has not announced. Probably, it could be until a vaccine is discovered and approved. At the latest, it could be after a year – April 2021.
The closure of the resort on March 16, 2020 due to ECQ caused the cancellation of around P18–million worth of bookings for the peak season (March to July 2020). Just last December 2019, I even told my wife that with all the construction and expansion fully accomplished in November 2019, we no longer have any capital expenses and can now count on to hold our real income in cash. My December 2019 conservative estimate of P25 million gross income for 2020 suddenly became just on paper. Of course, this can no longer be realized. I need to accept that.
After the ECQ was announced last March 14, I assured my 25 employees that they will be receiving their regular salaries in advance until April 30. I do not want them to be worrying of how they would sustain their families during this time of crisis. We grouped them into four groups with each group reporting for work for straight seven days until the end of the quarantine period. Their regular monthly salary accounts to P324,000. However, quarantine was extended until May 15, 2020. This would mean salary for 2 months, or P648,000. Without any income coming from the resort, I need to slash my savings from my law office and other sources of income.
Today, April 28, the government announced the policy of closure of tourism and hospitality businesses even under GCQ. I also do not expect bookings this year even if that is lifted. The pandemic has made life so hard for all of us and I do not expect that people would be spending more on leisure and travel rather than on basic necessities. This made me draft a Memorandum to all my employees that I need to retrench. I asked my resort manager to select six employees out of 25 who shall remain to man the resort during the period of closure. I told myself that it would be a big loss to the resort to pay them for the next succeeding sevenmonths a salary of P2,268,000, not to mention the provisions for their food and accommodations.
I read my retrenchment memo and saved it in my folder ready to be sent to the resort manager for implementation. Then I went to the garden outside the house and felt the humid mid-afternoon temperature. I sat on our azotea and started thinking about my memorandum. Flashback to 2012 when the resort was under construction, I remembered some of my employees who were then construction workers at the resort. One by one, I remembered their names and how they were hired. They are not even high school or college graduates. They did not have any experience in hospitality services when I hired them. Patiently, with their willingness to learn, we trained them. Honesty in work and willingness to learn were my only criteria for hiring. We treated them as our children. Nurtured them to become efficient and respectable in their own fields. They are our family. And that word: FAMILY, pierced my heart. My heart cannot abandon my family at this time of crisis.
My employees are my strength all these years. Through their efforts, G Beach Resort was awarded by TripAdvisor with Travellers’ Choice Award for 2019 and Certificates of Excellence for 2018 and 2019. Our guests also loved their services, honesty, hospitality,and diligence as can be seen from the guests’ reactions, post and comments on our FB page. And most importantly, our employees made my life and that of my family very comfortable since we opened the resort and went on full operations in 2013. They are also the reason why we were able to expand the resort from 35 pax capacity in 2013 to 185 pax capacity in 2019, without incurring loans or mortgages. Without them, G Beach Resort will not be where it is now.
Then I went back to my computer, opened my Memorandum and deleted it. I was a fool for even drafting that one. Come to think of it, the resort already earned income invested on expansions from 2013 to 2019, more than enough to sustain my 25 employees for a year. It may be hard. But like a good father of the family, I do not want to abandon my children at this time that they needed me. This is indeed the warmest assurance and embrace that I can give them this summer.
