Mr. President, my esteemed colleagues:
We join the Sponsor, Senator Marcos, in expressing our sincerest gratitude to our colleagues for the Senate’s swift concurrence with the ratification of ILO Convention No. 81 on Labor Inspection in Industry and Commerce.
Finally, after more than seven decades, we have taken this decisive and important step towards more decent and humane working conditions for our people. Ito po ay isang napakalaking panalo para sa bawat manggagawang Pilipino.
We are envisioning that through the ratification of ILO Convention No. 81, we will have a more substantial monitoring of the realization of basic principles of decent work for all while also educating workers and employers on their duties towards sustainable compliance and maintaining harmonious employee-employer relations. In 2017, when we started the deliberations on the OSH bill, there were only 574 labor inspectors. Now, this figure has increased two-fold with 1,210 labor inspectors.[1] From 2017 to June 2024, our labor inspectors were able to cover a total of 476,364 establishments. We hope that we will further increase this number in the coming years.
As we concur to the ratification of ILO Convention No. 81 this afternoon, we reaffirm our commitment to resolve the existing gaps in our current labor policies.
Thank you, Mr. President, and may God bless us all.
