When a corporation issues a check which is later dishonored, who is criminally liable? To whom should the notice of dishonor be sent?

The person who signed the check, not the corporate president, director, secretary or any other non-signatory, is the one held criminally liable under B.P. 22. This is clear from the third paragraph of Section 1, B.P. 22, which states that “where the check is drawn by a corporation, company or entity, the person or persons who actually signed the check in behalf of the drawer shall be liable...”

Since liability is personal in under B.P. 22, the notice of dishonor must be served, not on the corporation or any of its officers or employees, but upon the signatory himself. Absent personal service or personal knowledge of the notice of dishonor by the accused-signatory, the prima facie presumption under Section 2 of B.P. 22 does not apply and the accused cannot be held liable thereunder. This was precisely the ruling in Lao v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 119178, 20 June 1997, where the Supreme Court acquitted Lao of B.P. 22 charges on the ground, among others, that she had no personal knowledge of the dishonor of the checks she signed in blank.

(Note, however, that in Lao, the Supreme Court noted that the accused was merely a minor employee of the corporation, who had no participation whatsoever in the funding and negotiation of the transactions which led to the issuance of the checks. The accused was likewise shown to have no knowledge that the checks were unfunded, at the time they were signed and fill-up by her superior)