I. Core Principle: Holiday Pay Is a Statutory Right, Not a Reward for Prior Attendance

In the Philippines, holiday pay is primarily a labor-standards entitlement granted by law and implementing rules. As a rule, it is not conditioned on being present the day immediately preceding the holiday. The widespread practice of requiring “day before holiday” attendance is often rooted in company policy and anti-absenteeism controls, but it must still yield to statutory rules on holiday pay, wage deductions, and permissible disciplinary measures.

The real legal questions are:

Which kind of day is it? (regular holiday vs special day)
What is the employee’s pay status and schedule? (monthly-paid vs daily-paid; with/without work on that day; rest day; day is within the employee’s workweek)
Why was the employee absent the day before? (authorized leave, sick leave, suspension, AWOL, etc.)
What is the lawful consequence? (loss of holiday pay in limited cases; or no loss of holiday pay but possible discipline)

Understanding these distinctions prevents illegal withholding of benefits.

II. The Philippine Holiday Pay Framework (High-Level)

Philippine law distinguishes between:

A. Regular Holidays

These are the holidays that generally carry holiday pay even if no work is done, subject to rules on eligibility.

Typical pay rules for covered employees:

Not worked: 100% of the daily basic wage (holiday pay)
Worked: 200% of the daily basic wage (holiday premium), plus additional premiums if it also falls on a rest day

B. Special Days (Special Non-Working Days / Special Working Days)

These are treated differently. A common simplification:

If not worked: generally “no work, no pay,” unless there is a company policy/CBAs granting pay
If worked: premium pay applies (commonly an additional percentage over the basic rate, depending on the classification)

Because the legal treatment differs, employers sometimes mistakenly apply “day before” rules from one category to another.

III. What People Mean by “Day Before Holiday” Rule

Workplace talk often frames it like this:

“If you are absent the day before the holiday, you don’t get paid for the holiday.”

Legally, that statement is sometimes true in narrow situations and often false as a blanket rule.

There are two separate issues that often get conflated:

Eligibility for holiday pay (a pay entitlement question)
Attendance discipline (a conduct/performance question)

An employer may, in proper cases, impose disciplinary action for unauthorized absences. But it does not automatically follow that the employer may also withhold statutory holiday pay, especially where the rules entitle the employee to it or where the employee is monthly-paid.

IV. Who Is Covered by Holiday Pay Rules

Holiday pay rules generally apply to rank-and-file employees covered by labor standards. Some categories may be excluded or treated differently based on longstanding labor standards concepts, such as:

Certain government employees governed by civil service rules
Certain managerial employees and other excluded categories under labor standards (depending on role and applicable rules)
Workers paid purely by results in some contexts, and specific industry arrangements, subject to legal tests
Employees of establishments exempted under specific rules (rare and technical)

Because coverage can be technical, disputes usually arise in rank-and-file settings: retail, services, manufacturing, BPO, logistics, etc.

V. The Legal Heart of the Topic: When Can Absence on the Day Before Affect Holiday Pay?

A. The general rule for daily-paid employees: “Present on the workday immediately preceding the regular holiday”

For daily-paid employees, eligibility for regular holiday pay commonly depends on whether the employee is on paid status or present/has not incurred an unexcused absence on the workday immediately preceding the holiday.

But the critical qualifiers are:

It is about the workday immediately preceding the holiday (not necessarily “the calendar day before,” since the employee may not have been scheduled to work that day).
It is about status (paid leave, authorized leave, excused absence) and not mere physical presence.
It is not intended to penalize legitimate leave use or lawful absences.

B. Key distinction: “Absent” is not always disqualifying

An employee may be “absent” but still be on a status that preserves holiday pay, such as:

Approved vacation leave under company policy/CBA
Sick leave properly reported/covered by medical documentation per policy
Paid leave credits used for that day
Authorized absence (e.g., official business, union leave where recognized, etc., depending on policy/CBA)

In these scenarios, the employee is not treated as having a disqualifying absence for holiday pay purposes.

C. Unauthorized absence (AWOL) is where disqualification usually arises

The day-before rule is most often legally relevant when the employee had an unauthorized absence without pay on the workday immediately preceding the regular holiday.

In practice, employers treat this as:

No holiday pay for that regular holiday, because the employee was not “on pay status” the preceding workday.

However, employers must still apply due process for discipline, and they must be consistent in rules, documentation, and classifications.

D. The “sandwich” concept and why it causes confusion

In Philippine workplaces, “sandwich leave” refers to charging leave credits for holidays that fall between absences (e.g., absent before and after, and the holiday gets treated as leave without pay). As a labor standards matter:

Regular holidays are not generally supposed to be converted into leave-without-pay simply by adjacency if the employee is otherwise entitled to holiday pay.
Employers may address abuse through attendance policies and discipline, but statutory holiday pay cannot be waived by unilateral policy.

Some employers attempt to enforce “sandwich” rules by stating: “Absent before = no holiday pay; absent after = no holiday pay; absent both sides = definitely no holiday pay.” That is not universally correct and must be tested against lawful eligibility rules and the employee’s pay status.

VI. Monthly-Paid vs Daily-Paid: The Practical Difference

A. Monthly-paid employees

Monthly-paid employees are typically paid for all days of the month, including holidays, rest days, and non-working days, subject to their pay scheme. As a result:

Withholding “holiday pay” as a separate item may be misleading, because the holiday is usually embedded in monthly pay.
If an employer docks pay for a holiday embedded in a monthly salary because of day-before absence, it risks becoming an improper deduction unless the deduction is justified under lawful grounds and consistent with how monthly pay is structured.

Monthly-paid employees can still be disciplined for absences. But salary deductions must follow lawful rules on wage deductions and the employer’s pay scheme.

B. Daily-paid employees

Daily-paid employees are more directly affected by day-to-day eligibility rules:

They may lose holiday pay if they were absent without pay on the preceding workday, depending on the specific circumstances and the holiday type.

Because of this, many disputes arise among daily-paid workers in shifting schedules, where the “day before” is not obvious.

VII. “Day Before” Must Mean “Workday Immediately Preceding,” Not the Calendar Day

A common error is using the calendar day before the holiday (e.g., December 24) even when the employee:

Was not scheduled to work that day (rest day/off day), or
Was on a schedule where the preceding workday was earlier (e.g., December 23)

Legally and practically, the relevant reference is the employee’s work schedule. The test typically looks at the workday immediately preceding the holiday, not the date immediately preceding it on the calendar.

This matters for:

Compressed workweeks
Rotating schedules (e.g., 4x12)
BPO/graveyard shifts where the “day” crosses midnight
Employees with midweek rest days

VIII. What If the Employee Is Absent Because the Establishment Is Closed?

If there is no work because the employer is closed or operations are suspended on a scheduled workday before the holiday, that is not “employee absence.” An employee cannot be faulted for not reporting to a workplace that is not operating, unless there is a lawful directive to work.

Holiday pay eligibility should not be denied by labeling an operational closure as an employee’s failure to report.

IX. What If the Employee Is on Preventive Suspension or Serving a Penalty?

This is an area where employers often overreach.

Preventive suspension is typically not a penalty; it is a temporary measure pending investigation. Treating preventive suspension as a ground to automatically deny statutory benefits without careful legal basis can be risky.
Suspension as a penalty usually means no work and no pay during the suspension period. Whether holiday pay falls within that period and is payable depends on how the suspension intersects with holiday pay rules and whether the employee is considered “on pay status” for that day.

Because preventive suspension and penalties carry due process requirements, employers should avoid mechanical “day before” deductions without legal grounding.

X. Special Days: Why “Day Before Attendance” Is Usually the Wrong Lens

For special non-working days, the usual starting point is:

No work, no pay, unless there is a favorable policy, practice, or CBA.

So the more relevant question is typically:

Did the employee work on that special day?
Does the company policy grant pay even if not worked?
Is the employee monthly-paid such that pay is already inclusive?

A “day before” attendance condition is frequently unnecessary and can be confusing. If a company voluntarily grants pay on special days, it may set reasonable conditions, but it must apply them fairly and consistently and must not violate basic labor standards, non-diminution rules, or anti-discrimination principles.

XI. Company Policies and CBAs: Allowed, But Only Upward (or Neutral), Not Below the Law

Employers may adopt attendance policies, but they cannot:

Reduce statutory holiday pay below legal minimums,
Impose conditions that effectively waive a statutory entitlement, or
Use policy language to disguise an illegal wage deduction.

However, policies and CBAs can:

Provide better benefits (e.g., paid special days, higher premiums, broader eligibility)
Clarify procedures (documentation for sick leave, reporting rules)
Impose discipline for absenteeism (subject to due process)

When disputes occur, the key is determining whether the policy is:

A legitimate disciplinary/administrative rule, or
An unlawful device to deny pay that the law requires.

XII. Burden and Proof Issues in Disputes

In labor disputes involving denied holiday pay due to “day before” absence, typical evidence issues include:

Time records and schedules (to prove what the preceding workday actually was)
Leave approvals and leave credit deductions (to show “paid status”)
Company policy text and dissemination (to show whether the rule is known, fair, consistently applied)
Payroll computation (to show whether employee is monthly-paid inclusive or daily-paid)
Past practice (to assess non-diminution of benefits where the employer historically paid despite absences)

XIII. Practical Scenarios and How the Rules Usually Apply

Scenario 1: Daily-paid employee, unauthorized absence on preceding workday

Likely result: holiday pay for the regular holiday may be denied, subject to proper classification and consistent application.

Scenario 2: Daily-paid employee, on approved paid leave on preceding workday

Likely result: still eligible for regular holiday pay.

Scenario 3: Employee’s preceding calendar day is an off day/rest day

Likely result: “day before” rule should reference the preceding scheduled workday, not the off day.

Scenario 4: Monthly-paid employee, unauthorized absence on preceding workday

Likely result: discipline may apply; salary deduction must be consistent with lawful wage-docking rules and the monthly pay scheme. Automatic holiday pay denial is often not the right mechanism.

Scenario 5: Special non-working day not worked

Likely result: generally unpaid unless company policy/CBA/practice provides otherwise; “day before” attendance is often irrelevant unless tied to a voluntary benefit.

XIV. Enforcement and Compliance Risks for Employers

Employers who broadly enforce “absent day before = no holiday pay” without checking the legal and factual qualifiers risk:

Underpayment of wages/benefits (holiday pay is a labor standards benefit)
Illegal deduction claims, especially for monthly-paid schemes
Non-diminution issues if holiday pay has been historically granted regardless of such absences
Discrimination or unfair labor practice allegations if selectively applied
Record-keeping failures if schedules and approvals are unclear

XV. Drafting a Lawful Policy: What a Compliance-Oriented Rule Should Look Like

A compliant attendance-related policy should:

Define “preceding workday” based on schedules, not calendar days
Distinguish regular holidays vs special days
Clarify that approved leaves and authorized absences do not disqualify statutory benefits
Treat the policy primarily as a disciplinary framework, not a wage-withholding shortcut
Provide procedural safeguards (reporting, documentation, notice, and due process)
Align payroll computations with whether employees are monthly-paid or daily-paid

XVI. Takeaways

The “day before holiday attendance” idea is not a universal legal rule; it is a limited eligibility concept most relevant to daily-paid employees and regular holiday pay when the preceding workday is missed without pay and without authorization.
Approved leave or paid status generally preserves entitlement; employers should not deny statutory holiday pay simply because the employee did not physically report.
For special days, the analysis is different: pay often depends on whether the day is worked or on a favorable policy/CBA/practice.
Monthly-paid schemes require extra caution: docking embedded holiday pay can become an illegal deduction if done mechanically.
Employers can fight absenteeism through discipline and policy, but statutory benefits must be administered according to law, not as leverage for attendance.