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Bereavement leave
Bereavement leave is paid or unpaid time off for a death in the family when the company or a CBA grants it. The Labor Code does not give a general statutory bereavement bank the way it gives SIL.
How it works
Write the policy: which relatives, how many days, paid or unpaid, what proof. Filipino family obligations around death and burial are heavy and often involve travel. A two-day U.S. bereavement copy-paste will fail a provincial funeral. You can be generous without pretending the Code forced the number. For a U.S. company hiring one Filipino teammate, write this into the brief, the employment contract, and the peso payroll file before the start date. Slack habits do not override the Labor Code, BIR, or NPC. If the local employer of record holds the paper, they run the statutory step; you still owe a clean operating definition so the seat does not fail in week three. Put a number on the example when you budget loaded cost, because a nameless allowance always returns as a December surprise or a missed SLA.
Example: policy: five paid days for immediate family. Worker travels Cebu to Ilocos. You do not dock SIL first unless they ask to extend.
How it differs
SIL can cover extra days. Holiday calendar may already include All Saints’ / All Souls’ around November.
Common errors
Denying any time because ‘it’s not in the Labor Code.’ Forcing cameras on during the wake week.
In practice
Treat Bereavement leave as a week-one operating object. Look at the next peso payslip and the next remittance file. If this word does not show up there, the quote from the sales call is incomplete. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have bereavement leave yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.