HRL Reference 2

Rodrigo Duterte took office as president of the Philippines on June 30, 2016. Duterte
campaigned on an explicit platform to “kill all of you who make the lives of Filipinos
miserable,” including criminal suspects, as part of his vow to “solve drugs, criminality,
and corruption in three to six months.” At his inauguration, he pledged that his
administration would “be sensitive to the state’s obligations to promote, and protect,
fulfill the human rights of our citizens … even as the rule of law shall at all times
prevail.” During the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, however, Duterte has
publicly praised the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug dealers and drug users.

Philippine human rights groups have linked the campaign and Duterte’s often-fiery
rhetoric to a surge of killings by police and unidentified gunmen since he took office,
with nearly 4,800 people killed at time of writing. Police say that individuals targeted by
police were killed only after they “resisted arrest and shot at police officers,” but have
provided no evidence to support the claim. The killings have highlighted the country’s
long-standing problem of impunity for abusive state security forces.

Other key issues confronting the Philippines this past year include the rights of
indigenous peoples, violations of reproductive health rights, child labor, and stigma and
discrimination related to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Extrajudicial Killings
The Philippines has seen an unprecedented level of killing by law enforcement since Duterte
took office. Police statistics show that from July 1 to November 3, 2016, police killed an
estimated 1,790 suspected “drug pushers and users.” That death toll constitutes a nearly 20-fold
jump over the 68 such police killings recorded between January 1 and June 15, 2016. Police
statistics attribute an additional 3,001 killings of alleged drug dealers and drug users to unknown
vigilantes from July 1 to September 4. The police categorize those killings as “deaths under
investigation,” but there is no evidence that police are actively probing the circumstances in
which they occurred.

In August, Philippine National Police Director-General Ronald Dela Rosa stated that he did not
“condone” extrajudicial killings. In September, Police Internal Affairs Service sources said they
were “overwhelmed” by the scale of police killings and could only probe “a fraction” of the
deaths.

Duterte has ignored calls for an official probe into these killings. Instead, he has said the killings
show the “success” of his anti-drug campaign and urged police to “seize the momentum.” Key
senior officials have endorsed this view. Duterte’s top judicial official, Solicitor-General Jose
Calida, defended the legality of the police killings and opined that the number of such deaths was
“not enough.”
Attacks on Indigenous Peoples
In March 2016, some 6,000 protesters, primarily indigenous peoples, farmers, and their
supporters from drought-stricken areas in North Cotabato and Bukidnon provinces gathered in
Kidapawan City in Mindanao to call for government food aid and other assistance. The police
response included shooting live ammunition into the crowd, killing two people. At time of
writing, neither the Senate nor police have released the results of their respective investigations
into the incident.

Reproductive Health Rights

In his July 25 State of the Nation Address, President Duterte pledged to “put into full force and
effect” the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law (the RH Law). Such support is
greatly needed because on January 8, 2016, the Philippine Congress eliminated funding in the
2016 national budget for contraception guaranteed under the RH Law, cutting vital support for
lower-income individuals. Millions of Filipinos rely on state-provided contraceptive services and
supplies for protection from sexually transmitted infections, and for safe birth-spacing and
family planning. The United Nations Population Fund has criticized the congressional action as a
threat to “the basic human right to health as well as the right to reproductive choices.”

Human Rights Watch has also documented policies implemented by local governments designed
to derail full enforcement of the RH Law. In Sorsogon City in the Bicol region, Mayor Sally Lee
issued an executive order in February 2015 that declared the city a “pro-life city.” Although the
order does not explicitly prohibit family planning services and contraceptive supplies, health
workers, and advocates said that the city government gave oral guidelines to the city’s public
clinics to cease the distribution of family planning supplies and instead promote only “natural”
family planning methods such as the Catholic Church-approved “rhythm method.”

In Balanga City, the municipal government banned local public health officials and clinics from
procuring or distributing contraceptives. That interruption compelled low-income people to
either buy them from pharmacies or clandestinely from local government-employed midwives at
relatively high cost.

Children’s Rights
In November 2015, the Philippine government detained more than 140 children in advance of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila. The arbitrary detentions were
part of so-called clearing operations aimed at beautifying the city ahead of the summit. Police
detained the children under guard in government facilities for the homeless and orphans and then
released them without charge when the summit concluded.

Child labor in small-scale gold mines remains a serious problem. Children work in unstable 25-
meter-deep pits, dive underwater to mine, and process gold with mercury. Small steps taken by
authorities to tackle child labor—such as vocational training for former child miners in one
mining town—have been undermined by continued lack of regulation of the small-scale gold
mining sector, and by the government's failure to address child labor systematically.

HIV Epidemic
Although national prevalence is still low, the country has experienced a sharp rise in new HIV
infections in recent years. Prevalence among men who have sex with men (MSM) has increased
10-fold since 2010. In 2015, the Department of Health reported that at least 11 cities registered
HIV prevalence rates among MSM of more than 5 percent, with one—Cebu City, the second
largest city—recording a 15 percent prevalence rate in 2015. That compares to a 0.2 percent HIV
prevalence rate for the Asia-Pacific region and a 4.7 percent HIV prevalence rate in Sub-Saharan
Africa, which has the most serious HIV epidemic in the world.

There has also been an increase in Cebu City in HIV prevalance among pregnant women, and in
newly recorded infections among people who inject drugs in Cebu City, where the prevalence
rate among such people has been recorded at between 40 and 50 percent. Many of these new
infections among people who inject drugs are due to sharing contaminated needles.

The growing HIV epidemic is driven by a legal and policy environment hostile to evidence-
based policies and interventions that could help prevent HIV transmission. Such restrictions are
found in national, provincial, and local government policies, and are compounded by the
resistance of the Catholic Church to sexual health education and condom use. Government
policies create obstacles to condom access and HIV testing, limit educational efforts on HIV
prevention, and have ended harm reduction programs in Cebu City that were previously
distributing sterile injecting equipment to people who inject drugs.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The House of Representatives began consideration of House Bill 267, the “Anti SOGI (Sexual
Orientation or Gender Identity) Discrimination Act” in June 2016. If approved, it will
criminalize discrimination in the employment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
individuals, and prohibit schools from refusing to register or expelling students on the basis of
sexual orientation or gender identity. The Senate has introduced companion legislation, Senate
Bill No. 935, otherwise known as the Anti-Discrimination Bill (ADB), which had its first hearing
in August.

House Bill 267 will also sensitize police and law enforcement officers on LGBT issues and train
them to attend to complaints. These initiatives are essential given that LGBT rights advocacy
groups have warned that hate crimes against LGBT people are on the rise and that the
Philippines has recorded the highest number of murders of transgender individuals in Southeast
Asia since 2008. The bill would also prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in access to health care.

Key International Actors

The United States remains a key source of military financial assistance, with the Obama
administration allotting US$120 million for 2016. Earlier military financing was conditioned on
improvements of the human rights situation in the Philippines, but this conditionality has been
lifted as part of the Obama administration’s so-called “Asia pivot.” President Duterte has
expressed dissatisfaction with US-Philippines relations, even saying he is willing to expel US
military personnel stationed in the Philippines, but conceded that the country still needs US
military help because of the South China Sea dispute with China.

Other countries such as Canada and Australia, as well as the European Union, continue to
provide assistance to the Philippines for, among other things, capacity-building programs to
improve the human rights situation. Spain has given funds and resources to the national
Philippine Commission on Human Rights.

In November, the US State Department announced that it had suspended the sale of 26,000
military assault rifles to the Philippine National Police due to human rights concerns raised by
Duterte’s abusive “war on drugs.” The EU has transitioned its rule of law program called
EPJUST II, which involved training the police and other law enforcement agencies, into
GOJUST, which is tasked with instituting justice sector reforms.

--------------------------------------

HRL Reference 2.1

Right to an adequate standard of living, education and

justice
The UN CESCR condemned the failure to pay the minimum wage for all but 13% of the workforce,
and the fact that several sectors were exempt from benefiting from the minimum wage.

---------------------------------------

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. PLDT) and Philippine Airlines (PAL) have
been violating various labor standards, particularly in relation to the contractualization
of its employees, according to Labor Secretary Bello III

“At PLDT, we found violations, mostly among its sub-contractors and majority of
which are not even registered or with expired registrations,” Bello said at a news
conference.
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He said these irregularities were discovered through the Special Assessment/Visit of

Establishment (SAVE) conducted in 2016 by the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE).
In reaction, PLDT issued a statement, saying it had not received any order from the
DOLE. But it promised to “fully cooperate” with the department’s ongoing audit of its
labor practices.

READ: PLDT vows to ‘fully cooperate’ in DOLE audit of labor

practices
“PAL and PAL Express, including their contractors and sub-contractors – we also noted
violations of general labor standards and occupational safety and health standards,” he
went on.

Bello said he would direct the regularization of around 10,000 employees of PLDT
after finding out that they had been performing functions necessary to the company.

DOLE allows the contracting of labor that is not part of the key functions of a company
via manpower agencies registered with them.

“I will order the regularization of close to 10,000 workers under contracting and
subcontracting arrangement but are performing jobs that are directly related to PLDT
business,” he said.

Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod, who heads the labor compliance inspection,
added that DOLE expects more PLDT employees who could be regularized as they
pursue a nationwide evaluation of the telco company.

“The 10,000 is just from Metro Manila and nearby provinces,” Maglunsod said. “We
could find more if we include other areas in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.”
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He added that labor officials had already met with PLDT in the first quarter of the year
to inform it of its violations.

DOLE also found out through SAVE that Philippine Airlines and its budget carrier
PAL Express had been contracting out workers performing core functions for the
company.
“We have no figures yet as we still have to complete our inspection and assessment of
PAL,” Maglunsod said. “These are just initial findings.”

He said they assessment of PAL could be completed around May 1.

The labor department also found PAL violating general labor standards, such as
underpayment of wages, overtime pay, and service incentive leaves. It also found PAL
falling short of occupational safety standards. Among other thing,s PAL had no valid
fire safety inspection certificate and had no trained safety and health officer.

John Caniete, director of the National Capital Region (NCR) office of DOLE, said the
two giant firms were identified firs because they were included in the department’s
“priority establishments” list.

According to Bello, DOLE would not hesitate in imposing penalties on companies

found to be violating labor laws.

“We found these violations and we will slap them with the appropriate penalty if they
refuse to comply,” Bello said.

Meanwhile, he bared that 45,605 workers had been regularized as of the first quarter of
2017.

“Majority have been voluntarily regularized while the rest were through regular
assessment,” he said.

The regions with the most number of regularized workers are the NCR, Central Luzon,
Northern Mindanao, Davao, and Caraga.

On the other hand, regions that most frequently regularize their workers after the
regular assessment are NCR, Calabarzon, and the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Bello said that DOLE was expecting more workers to be regularized with the
implementation of Department Order 174, which sets out amended guidelines on labor
contracting and subcontracting or hiring through a manpower agency.
Labor groups have criticized the new policy, saying this is no different from the
previous orders on contracting. They argued that this will only perpetuate
contractualization since workers are regularized through agencies. /atm

----------------------------------------------------

Ending contractualization in government will be the priority of incoming Labor

Secretary Silvestre Bello III before training his sights on big private
companies.

Bello, currently the congressional representative of 1-BAP party-list, said

government should take the lead in following labor laws.

“‘Yun (contractualization in government) ang una nating titingnan. You cannot

expect the private sector to follow our law if the government isn’t willing to
observe the law,” he told Super Radyo dzBB on Sunday.

While government employees should be given security of tenure, Bello said

agencies’ hiring abilities must also be considered in crafting a plan to end
contractualization.

“[W]e also have to be conscious of the limitations of our government agencies.

Kailangan nila ng manggagawa pero wala silang budget kaya they resolve to
this kind of malpractice,” he said.

Contractualization, commonly called 'endo' in the Philippines (short for "end of

contract") is a labor practice where companies hire workers for a limited
period of six months or less, without providing them with benefits.

The law requires employers to regularize workers who have been employed
for six months or lay them off from work completely.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte made a campaign promise to end

contractualization if he wins in the May 9 elections.

[Read: No more endo in the next administration]

With the incoming administration set to begin its work in less than three
weeks’ time, Bello said Duterte has given him marching orders to strictly
enforce the laws against labor contractualization, and ensure corporations do
not circumvent them.

“Maliwanag ang kanyang kautusan na ipatupad ang anti-contractualization

[laws], meaning we have to enforce them strictly kasi ngayon maraming
kumpanya, business groups na di sumusunod doon,” he said.

In addition to the strict enforcement of labor laws, Bello said Duterte has also
ordered him to rid the Department of Labor of Employment of corruption and
underperforming officials.

The lawmaker said the President-elect specifically wants lazy labor attaches,
and labor arbiters and commissioners who sit on their jobs, out of the
government. — APG, GMA News

------------------------------------------------------

Senator Ralph Recto agreed with Duterte’s stance but pleaded that he
should ‘practice what he preaches’ by doing the same to the
government
- As of 2010, there are around 120,000 contractual government
employees, ranging from casual to hired via job order
President Rodrigo Duterte has found another solon to support his cause, but
this time with a bigger scope of responsibility.
Senator Ralph Recto on Tuesday raised Duterte’s statement that
contractualization, or ‘endo’, should be stopped, but that should also include
those in the government.
The president was referring to private companies during his speech on
Monday and threatened that he would shut them down if they would not
comply.
READ ALSO: What does Senator Ralph Recto have to say about Duterte’s
promises?
Recto reported that there are around 120,000 contractual government
employees and that they should be absorbed into their respective offices.
According to him, there should be a way that ‘thousands of casuals who are
eligible for permanent civil service’ can become regular employees since it is
alarming that our own government is one of the largest buyers of outsourced
labor in the country.
Senator Ralph Recto has been consistently giving remarks on the president's plans.(photo credit:
newsinfolearn.com)

Two years prior to Duterte’s administration, a total of P9.6 billion was allotted
for contractual workers, while P11.6 billion was used for outsourced labor, in
particular, those in the janitorial, environmental, and sanitary and security
fields.
The local government spent even more, with a total of P13.832 billion for the
various types of contractual workers.
READ ALSO: LOOK: Roles of Senate and House of Representatives posts
Those who are ‘endo’, a shortcut for ‘end of contract’, were not able to reap
the rewards of their regular peers such as benefits from various government
agencies as well as bonuses. Contractualization has become more imminent
due to cost-cutting, as it is easier to renew the contracts of these workers than
have all of them immediately as regular employees.
The senator has noted that majority of workers in the government, which
consist of both casual and contractual, are ‘as big as the Army’, and therefore
also needs to be looked at.

Health workers have also protested against contractualization.

(photo credit: bulatlat.com)

He suggested that these workers should be grouped accordingly first: ‘job
order’, ‘emergency hiring’ and ‘memorandum of agreement’. If they have been
categorized under one of the three choices, there is a huge chance that they
might not be regularized.
READ ALSO: Duterte warns contractual companies
For those who are casual employees, meaning that they are paid higher than
their contractual peers but they do not have other benefits, they might be
given a chance to be a regular employee if they have served for more than
five years, are civil service eligible, and has shown excellent work.
Despite the statistics Recto stated, it is not updated – he claimed that his
information was collected by the Civil Service Commission six years ago. The
numbers still do not include those who were hired through job orders,
subcontracted individuals like maintenance staff and security guards as well
as those paid via maintenance and other operating expenses of state
agencies.-Kami Media
-------------------------------------------------

MANILA - Workers of the National Housing Authority (NHA) on Wednesday

urged the Duterte administration to look into the practice of labor
contractualization, which remains rampant not just in private firms, but
government agencies as well.
The NHA Consolidated Union of Employees, in a rally outside their office in
Quezon City, noted that the NHA has 1,200 contractual workers and only 800
regular employees.
Among the agency's contractual workers is Rosemarie Maglimas, an
emergency hire who has been working as an Estate Management Assistant
for almost 13 years.
Maglimas lamented that she has yet to receive the benefits that regular
workers enjoy, despite the years of service she has rendered to the
government.
"Mayroon kaming contracts na pinirmahan na nagsabi na 'no employer-
employee relationship.' Anumang mangyari sa amin, wala kaming
matatanggap na benepisyo. No work, no pay din kami," Maglimas said.
[We signed contracts stating 'no employer-employee relationship.' Whatever
happens to us, we will not receive any benefits. The 'no work, no pay' rule
also applies to us.]
Aristotle Miranda, a contractual Data Encoder for five years now, said he
hopes that a pending rationalization plan for the agency would be approved so
that he can have a chance at regularization.
"Ang tunay na meaning ng emergency hire 'yung kapag kailangan na
kailangan. Pero parang na-e-extend na nang na-e-extend po kami," he added.
"Sana ngayong Pasko pasayahin din kaming mga emergency hire, kasi may
mga pamilya din kaming umaasa sa amin."
[Emergency hiring means there there is an immediate need. But we have
been extended (as emergency hires) again and again. I hope we could have
something to be happy about this Christmas, because we have families who
also rely on us.]
Rosalinda Nartates, president of the NHA workers' union, also pointed our that
the issue of contractualization is not only confined to the NHA.
Citing Civil Service Commission (CSC) data, she said roughly half of the 1.4
million total government workers are contractual employees.
Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, who attended a briefing at the NHA,
agreed it is high time for the government to address the issue.
Taguiwalo recently took measures to address the situation of about 25,000 of
contractual workers within her department.
"Ayaw naman natin na 'yung gobyerno mismo ang taga-violate ng sarili n'yang
batas. Sa akin ang ginawa ko immediately ay pinatignan ko ang plantilla
items, ilan ang filled ilan ang unfilled. Tapos sa unfilled na plantilla items
punuan na natin sa existing na contractual," Taguiwalo said.
[We don't want government to violate its own laws. On my part, I immediately
ordered a review of plantilla items, how many are filled, how many are unfilled.
We filled the vacant plantilla items with existing contractual employees.]
The secretary explained that since unfilled plantilla positions only number
about 200, she has already asked Congress for additional plantilla items.
"Bumuo rin kami ng task force ng unyon at management para mapag-usapan
ano ang tulong na mabibigay sa kanila habang hindi pa sila nareregular,"
Taguiwalo added.
[We have also formed a task force of the union and management so we could
talk about the help we could give them while they are not yet regularized]
"Ito ay usapin talaga ng social justice. Ang solution ay pag-assert ng mga
kawani sa karapatan nila at yun naman ang pagiging bukas ng gobyerno."
[This is really an issue of a social justice. The solution is for employees to
assert their rights and for the government to be open ]
The Senate Committee on Labor on Tuesday said it is set to study the
situation with the CSC in the next scheduled hearing on contractualization.