Company Practice or Tradition of Grant of Retirement Benefits

To be considered a company practice, the giving of retirement benefits should have been done over a long period of time, and must be shown to have been consistent and deliberate. In a case, the Supreme Court held that the grant of these benefits has ripened into company practice or policy which cannot be peremptorily withdrawn.

It is a 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so, the grant of such benefits ripens into a vested right of the employees and can no longer be unilaterally reduced or withdrawn by the employer. (G.R. No. 163924. June 18, 2009)