How to count number of days for purposes of computing the ‘4-month service requirement’?

We always encounter the “4-month service requirement” when granting bonuses and allowances.

For instance, the grant of Year-End Bonus and Cash Gifts requires, among other conditions, that “personnel must have rendered at least a total or an aggregate of four (4) months of service from January 1 to October 31 of the current year.”

[Read: Guidelines on the grant of Year-End Bonus and Cash Gift]

Likewise, the grant of Mid-Year Bonus requires, among other conditions, that “personnel has rendered at least a total or an aggregate of four (4) months of service from July 1 of the immediately preceding year to May 15 of the current year.”

[Download: Guidelines on the grant of Mid-Year Bonus]

The same requirement is also required in granting Productivity Enhancement Incentive (PEI). To be entitled to the PEI, the employees must have rendered at least a total or an aggregate of four (4) months of at least satisfactory service as of November 30 of the current year, including leaves of absence with pay.

[Read: Guidelines on the grant of PEI]

There will be no problem when the employee is already in the Agency for many years. All things equal, there’s no need to compute whether he/she rendered the required four (4) months of government service.

The problem arises when there are newly-hired employees prior to the grant of bonus, or there are employees who were separated or have retired prior to the grant of bonus.

So the question is, how to properly compute the number of days rendered by an employee for purposes of computing the 4-month service requirement?

Pursuant to EO 292, otherwise known as the Administrative Code of 1987, legal periods are defined as follows:

Section 31. Legal Periods. – “Year” shall be understood to be twelve calendar months; “month” of thirty days, unless it refers to a specific calendar month in which case it shall be computed according to the number of days the specific month contains; “day,” to a day of twenty-four hours; and “night,” from sunset to sunrise.

Thus, if a month is equivalent to 30 days, then a “4-month service requirement” is equivalent to 120 days (i.e., 4 x 30 = 120)

Generally, the number of days for each month of every year is computed as follows:

January — 31 days

February — 28 days (29 if leap year)

March — 31 days

April — 30 days

May — 31 days

June — 30 days

July — 31 days

August — 31 days

September — 30 days

October — 31 days

November — 30 days

December — 31 days

Let’s apply the counting for clarity. For intance, if an employee was hired on February 7 (not a leap year), is he entitled to the Mid-Year Bonus, considering that he must have rendered at least a total or an aggregate of four (4) months of service from July 1 of the immediately preceding year to May 15 of the current year?

Let’s count:

February 7 to 28 = 21 days

March = 31 days

April = 30 days

May = 15 days

Total: 21 + 31 + 30 + 15 days = 97 days

Thus, the employee concerned is not entitled to the Mid-Year Bonus inasmuch as he did not meet the service requirement of 120 days.

However, he may be entitled to the Year-End Bonus and PEI, since he met the service requirement of 120 days, as shown below:

February 7 to 28 = 21 days

March = 31 days

April = 30 days

May = 31 days

June = 30 days

July = 31 days

August = 31 days

September = 30 days

October = 31 days

Total = 266 days

In sum, the employee concerned is not entitled to the Mid-Year Bonus but he may be entitled to the Year-End Bonus and Cash Gift, including Productivity Enhancement Incentive, provided he also met the other conditions for the grant of the same.

Read: Guidelines on the Grant of Salary Increase in 2019