Short answer. Yes. Article 92 of the Labor Code lets an employer require rest-day work in case of actual or impending emergencies caused by serious accident, fire, flood, typhoon, earthquake, epidemic, or other disaster or calamity, to prevent loss of life and property or imminent danger to public safety.
What the law says
In case of actual or impending emergencies caused by serious accident, fire, flood, typhoon, earthquake, epidemic or other disaster or calamity to prevent loss of life and property, or imminent danger to public safety
Labor Code, Article 92 — Work On A Rest Day. Read the full provision →
The emergency ground and what it covers
Article 92 lets an employer require work on a rest day in case of actual or impending emergencies caused by serious accident, fire, flood, typhoon, earthquake, epidemic or other disaster or calamity to prevent loss of life and property, or imminent danger to public safety. A fire or flood at your workplace, or a comparable disaster, sits squarely within this ground, which is the broadest of the situations the article recognizes.
Why the purpose matters, not just the event
The article does not authorize rest-day work merely because a disaster happened somewhere nearby; it ties the requirement to a purpose — to prevent loss of life and property, or imminent danger to public safety. Work required under this ground is meant to respond to the emergency itself: containing damage, protecting people, or addressing the danger the disaster created, not ordinary business activity that happens to follow a disaster.
'Actual or impending' covers more than a disaster already in progress
The ground applies to emergencies that are actual or impending, meaning your employer does not have to wait until the fire or flood has already struck before requiring rest-day work in response. A genuinely imminent emergency — one that has not yet fully materialized but is about to — is covered as well, which matters for situations like an approaching typhoon or a fire actively spreading nearby.
Where this ground stops
This ground is specific to genuine emergencies of the kind listed — serious accidents, fires, floods, and comparable disasters or calamities — tied to protecting life, property, or public safety. It does not extend to ordinary rest-day work requests that are unconnected to an actual or impending emergency of that specific nature, even if the request happens to come shortly after a disaster has already been fully resolved. The ground binds any employer covered by Article 92, regardless of industry, and it does not depend on how the workplace is organized — what matters is whether a real emergency of the kind listed actually existed. An employer who invokes this ground without a genuine emergency has not satisfied Article 92, whatever urgency it claims.