E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 12/19/21, 1:28 PM allowable period of three years. This Court is mindful of the fact that as soon as Imelda came to know about the missing status of her husband on August 2, 1994, she went to Korphil to file her claim for the payment of death benefits. However, the latter informed her that it was still premature to claim the same and advised her instead to wait four more years before her husband could be presumed dead thereby entitling his heirs to death benefits. Korphil is therefore guilty of estoppel. "Under the doctrine of estoppel, an admission or representation is rendered conclusive upon the person making it, and cannot be denied or disproved as against the person relying thereon. A party may not go back on his own acts and representations to the prejudice of the other party who relied upon them. In the law of evidence, whenever a party has, by his own declaration, act, or omission, intentionally and deliberately led another to believe a particular thing true, to act upon such belief, he cannot, in any litigation arising out of such declaration, act, or omission, be permitted to falsify it."[29] Imelda 's cause of action accrued only on August 2,1998 and not on August 2, 1994. According to Korphil, Article 291 of the Labor Code is applicable in this case as it provides: ART. 291. Money Claims. - All money claims arising from employeremployee relations accruing during the effectivity of this Code shall be filed within three (3) years from the time the cause of action accrued; otherwise they shall be forever barred. xxxx Korphil posits that the three-year prescriptive period referred to in Article 291 shall commence to run from the time the cause of action accrued, i.e., at the time Vedasto died on August 2, 1994. Hence, when Imelda filed her claim on May 29,2000, the same has already prescribed. We are not persuaded. On August 2, 1994, it cannot as yet be presumed that Vedasto is already dead. "The boat was not lost. This opens up a number of possibilities, x x x [N]othing is certain. Nobody knows what has happened to him. He could have transferred to another vessel or watercraft. He could even have swum to safety. Or he could have died. Or worse, he could have taken his own life. Legal implications - such as right to compensation, succession, the legal status of the wife - are so important that courts should not so easily be carried to the conclusion that the man is dead. The result is that death cannot be taken as a fact."[30] A person missing under the circumstances as those of Vedasto may not legally be considered as dead until the lapse of the period fixed by law on presumption of death, and consequently Imelda cannot yet be considered as a widow entitled to compensation under the law. On August 2, 1994, when Vedasto was reported missing, Imelda cannot as yet file https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/37942 Page 7 of 10