2 years worth of Overpayment

Hi! I'd like to seek legal advise on this matter. Last week, I was informed by our Finance Department that when they increased my salary in 2013, they made an error in computing for the base pay. Simply put, instead of the salary increase that I signed, I was getting a much higher salary for almost 2 years.

They have now reverted my salary back to its "agreed upon" rate (which is around 1/3 less than what I was "erronously" enjoying) AND they are also asking me to pay for almost P600k worth of overpayments. (This includes around P200k worth of taxes that they said will be returned to me...)

Given that this mistake was not one that I made, what are my legal options? I have already asked them to reconsider decreasing my salary and making me pay for the excess payments and our HR responded that they'll discuss it but I have yet to hear anything and more importantly, my salary has already been decreased. (No deductions have been made against the past overpayments.)

Do i have any legal standing/options not to pay for the overpayment? What happens if I just resign?

Thanks.

Suddenly-in-debt

How did you avoid noticing you got much more than the agreement?

Lunkan wrote:How did you avoid noticing you got much more than the agreement?  

I honestly never looked at my payslip -- (we had an electronic payslip and the password was our account number.. didn't really know what my account number was). The only time I looked at my payslip in 4 years of employment was AFTER they told me about the incident.

But didn't you ever notice you had unexpected much money at your acount?

Lunkan wrote:But didn't you ever notice you had unexpected much money at your acount?  

No. I just thought it was my increase already. So do I have a legal recourse not to pay the over payment?

I don't know what the law say in the Philippines.
(In my home country money can be demanded back, BUT with a max TIME limit how far back they can demand. 1 year? It's done like that, because it isn't fair to get much to much without needing to pay back, but with time limit to reduce problem to pay it back, and give the company enough time to notice it. The total salary sum is counted ANYWAY at least once a year, so it's bad the company didn't notice the error at least after ONE year.)
When I started being employee, I counted how much I had earned all the time, so I noticed DIRECT when I got wrong pay once...

So I don't find it fair you keep ALL, when BOTH of you have made error not notising it was wrong

invictus_soars wrote:

Lunkan wrote:How did you avoid noticing you got much more than the agreement?  

I honestly never looked at my payslip -- (we had an electronic payslip and the password was our account number.. didn't really know what my account number was). The only time I looked at my payslip in 4 years of employment was AFTER they told me about the incident.

That won't hold up if either party goes to court.

How would you know, for example, that you were getting the correct salary, or worse, that the company was UNDERpaying you, if you never looked at your payslip at all?