Short answer. Yes. Article 108 of the Labor Code allows an employer or indirect employer to require its contractor or subcontractor to furnish a bond equal to the cost of labor under the contract, conditioned on answering for the wages due to the contractor's employees if the contractor fails to pay them.
What the law says
An employer or indirect employer may require the contractor or subcontractor to furnish a bond equal to the cost of labor under contract, on condition that the bond will answer for the wages due the employees should the contractor or subcontractor, as the case may be, fail to pay the same.
Labor Code, Article 108 — Posting Of Bond. Read the full provision →
What the bond is for
Article 108 lets an employer or indirect employer require the contractor or subcontractor to furnish a bond equal to the cost of labor under contract. The bond's purpose is stated in the same breath: it exists on condition that the bond will answer for the wages due the employees should the contractor or subcontractor... fail to pay the same. It is a security specifically tied to wage payment, sized to match the cost of the labor engaged.
This power belongs to the engaging party, not the workers
The article grants this option to the employer or indirect employer — the party engaging the contractor — not to the contractor's own workers directly. It sits within a set of provisions that make the engaging party responsible, together with the contractor, for wages under the Labor Code, so requiring a bond is a way for that party to manage its own exposure before any failure to pay occurs.
The word is may, and that matters in both directions. No employer is obliged to ask for a bond, and none of the responsibilities the Chapter imposes depend on one having been posted. Article 109 makes the indirect employer responsible with the contractor for violations of the Code whether or not any security exists, so a bond is protection for the party that required it rather than a condition of the workers' rights.
Why an employer would use this option
Because the engaging party can already be held jointly and severally liable for unpaid wages owed by its contractor's employees, requiring a bond up front reduces the risk of having to cover that liability out of its own funds later. It is a preventive measure written into the same chapter of the Labor Code that makes the engaging party answerable in the first place, rather than a separate or unrelated protection.
If wages remain unpaid despite a bond
A bond does not resolve a wage claim automatically — it is a fund that can be drawn on. Workers owed wages, and the parties involved, should keep records of the contract, the bond if one exists, and the unpaid amounts. Where a dispute arises over whether or how the bond applies, a lawyer can help work out how it fits into recovering what is owed.
Note the measure the article uses as well: a bond equal to the cost of labor under contract, not the contract price as a whole, and answering for wages rather than for every claim an employee might have. A bond sized to the labour cost may therefore fall short of what is ultimately owed, and its existence does not put a ceiling on the claim. It is one fund available toward it, with the contractor and the engaging party still answerable for the rest.