what is actually the allowed total working hours of every employee?

I've been working for more than 5 years now. My working schedule during that years starts from 7:30am in the morning to 5:00pm in the afternoon. We do have a 30mins coffee break and also a one hour lunch break.
Then in this very year the HR Manager suddenly decided to change the working schedule to 8:00am to 5:00pm, with same 30mins coffee break and also same one hour lunch break. Now I'm a little bit confused, why the sudden change of schedule? The HR said it is for the benefits of employees welfare but I think it's the other way around.
And now I've been thinking, 7:30am to 5:00pm work schedule is a 9 hours and 30 mins work. less the 1 hour lunch break, so we will still have a 8hours and 30 mins working schedule. I do know coffee breaks is included in the working hours and it is paid. So why the excess 30 mins more? Can someone explains it to me? please...

because under the old sched, you were already entitled to OT premium for the extra 30 mins, and the HR head wants to correct the mistake.

the said 30minutes is not considered as paid overtime to us. it just so happen that we are working more than 8 hours a day. correct me if i were wrong coffee breaks is considered with in the 8 hours duty so why the extra 30 minutes? They said we have signed that kind of condition, yes we do have signed something like that but we over looked that part and they did not clarified the work schedule. so i'm asking did they violate the working schedule set by the DOLE? if so can we get that 30 minutes back?

yes, you can file a complaint at dole.

Suen84, it is possible that in your old sched the extra 30 mins is not being compensated because under the law rest periods of short duration or coffee breaks which are not more than 20 mins are considered hours worked, and since your coffee break is more than 20 mins, then it may not be considered hours worked. And your old HR may have added additional non-compensable 30 mins instead of giving you a compensable 20 mins break. Now, this may be the reason why your new HR told you that it is for your own benefit because they retained the 30 mins break and yet they are now treating it as included in your hours worked.

Thanks for the reply AttyLLL I do appreciate it a lot.