Employee Benefits

Ordinarily, an employee would have no right to demand benefits that the employer was not obligated by law or contract to give. However, it is the jurisprudential rule that where there is an established employer practice of regularly, knowingly and voluntarily granting benefits to employees over a significant period of time, despite the lack of a legal or contractual obligation on the part of the employer to do so, the grant of such benefits ripens into a vested right of the employees and can no longer be unilaterally reduced or withdrawn by the employer. (Metrobank v. NLRC, G.R. No. 152928, June 18, 2009)