Reso urging Marcos to ratify ILO treaty vs. workplace violence filed in Senate

A resolution urging President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to ratify International Labour Organization Convention 190 (ILO C190), which seeks to protect workers from violence and harassment, has been filed in the Senate.

Senator Risa Hontiveros filed proposed Senate Resolution 726, citing the Department of Migrant Workers’ report indicating that there were more than 24,000 cases of abuse against overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait in 2022, including 823 who experienced physical maltreatment, 99 who were sexually abused, and 26 were raped.

She also noted the case of Jullebee Ranara, whose charred remains were found beside a road in the desert and is believed to have been killed by her employer’s son, with the autopsy showing that her skull had been smashed and that she was raped and pregnant at the time of her death.

“Considering the Philippine adoption of ILO Convention No. 190 in June 2019, the urgent calls for ratification from the [Department of Labor and Employment], workers, employers, and the [Commission on Human Rights], and the dire need to afford protection to all Filipino workers, especially OFWs and women, it is imperative that President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. promptly ratify the same,” Hontiveros said.

The lawmaker explained that the ratification of ILO Convention No. 190 would not only enhance the Philippines’ institutional framework for preventing and addressing violence and harassment of workers in the country, but also spur the international community to assure reciprocal protections for all workers.

Further, Hontiveros highlighted the State’s constitutional and moral duty to enact all measures to guarantee that all Filipino workers, especially women, local and overseas, remain safe from brutality, violence, and harassment.

In 2019, then-Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III voted to adopt ILO Convention No. 190 and explained its importance, especially with the significant number of Filipino migrant workers in “precarious working conditions.”

In March 2022, representatives of the DOLE, workers, and employers also came up with a Tripartite Industrial Peace Council Resolution NO. 2, Series of 2022 which supports the ratification of the treaty.

Similarly, the Commission on Human Rights, in March this year, declared support for the ILO Convention NO. 190, saying that “since the 1970s, the country’s labor market has been driven by export-oriented economic policies that employ women [and] women workers continue to experience diverse forms of discrimination in the workplace.”

ILO Convention 190 defines violence and harassment as “a range of unacceptable behaviors and practices, or threats thereof, whether a single occurrence or repeated, that aim at, result in, or likely to result in physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm, and includes gender-based violence and harassment.”

Apart from Hontiveros, several unions have also called on Marcos to ratify ILO Convention 190. —Hana Bordey/KBK, GMA Integrated News