Short answer. Yes. The Labor Code says any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether that service is continuous or broken, is considered a regular employee with respect to the activity they are employed in. Gaps in your engagement do not reset the clock the way an employer might claim they do.
What the law says
Provided, That any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such activity exists.
Labor Code, Article 280 — Regular And Casual Employment. Read the full provision →
The one-year threshold does not require an unbroken streak
Article 280 settles this directly, in its own words: an employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether such service is continuous or broken, is considered regular with respect to the activity they are employed in. The statute anticipated exactly the situation you are describing — gaps between engagements — and answered it by name. Cumulative service of a year, added up across separate stints, counts the same as one uninterrupted year for this purpose.
What being regular 'with respect to the activity' means
The regular status this provision confers is tied to the activity in which the employee is employed, and it continues while such activity exists. This connects back to the article's broader rule that employment is deemed regular where you perform activities usually necessary or desirable to the employer's usual business or trade. So the year of broken service establishes regular status specifically for that kind of work, for as long as the employer continues to need that activity performed.
Why an employer cannot simply engineer around this with gaps
Article 280 opens by overriding contrary agreements: it applies notwithstanding the provisions of a written agreement and regardless of any oral agreement between the parties. That language matters here — an employer cannot draft around this rule by structuring your engagements with breaks specifically to prevent the one-year threshold from being reached, or by labeling repeated short-term engagements as something other than what they functionally are. The statute looks at the actual accumulated service, not how the paperwork describes it.
What to add up before you raise this
Go back through your engagement history and total the actual days or months worked across every stint, including the gaps in between, to see whether your cumulative service reaches one year performing the same or a closely related activity. Keep copies of every contract, engagement letter, or assignment order covering each period, along with payslips or attendance records, since that documentation is what will establish the total and the continuity of the activity itself when you raise your regularization with your employer.