Regular Employment

The appellate court's premise that regular employees are those who perform activities which are desirable and necessary for the business of the employer is not determinative in this case. In fact, any agreement may provide that one party shall render services for and in behalf of another, no matter how necessary for the latter's business, even without being hired as an employee. Hence, respondent's length of service and petitioner's repeated act of assigning respondent some tasks to be performed did not result to respondent's entitlement to the rights and privileges of a regular employee.

Furthermore, despite the fact that petitioner made use of the services of respondent for eleven years, he still cannot be considered as a regular employee of petitioner. Article 280 of the Labor Code, in which the lower court used to buttress its findings that respondent became a regular employee of the petitioner, is not applicable in the case at bar. Indeed, the Court has ruled that said provision is not the yardstick for determining the existence of an employment relationship because it merely distinguishes between two kinds of employees, i.e., regular employees and casual employees, for purposes of determining the right of an employee to certain benefits, to join or form a union, or to security of tenure; it does not apply where the existence of an employment relationship is in dispute (Atok Big Wedge Company, Inc. Vs. Jesus P. Gison, G.R. No. 169510. August 8, 2011).