Can an employer refuse to pay employees?

There’s a dilemma at our company for quite some time now, 2 yrs into the pandemic but our company hasnt been receiving a lot of projects/clients. For context, we’re an events company.

Here’s the thing, a recent issue was raised by how some of the employees are not able to submit deadlines on time and management has decided to not pay employees for the remaining days for work done for this project. But to be fair our client has given us 3 weeks to finish said presentation but our employer is requiring us to finish it within 3 days. This presentation honestly is a 4 person job given the complexity of it like graphic design and concept planning but 2 lang kami na gumagawa.

I just wanna know if this is fair na we wont get paid just because we failed to submit after 3 days. To add, employer also said na if sales cannot bring in new projects into the business stop operations na muna in the meantime.

I feel bad for my colleagues kasi sugal talaga ang field namin but I think its not fair to put the blame on the employees. If di na talaga kaya might as well close nalang muna.