Message of support at the ILO SafeYouth@Work Project Stakeholders Forum

Director Khalid Hassan of ILO-Manila; leaders and members of workers’ organizations; leaders and members or employers’ organizations; fellow workers in government; guests and friends, a pleasant afternoon to all!

I congratulate the International Labour Organization for the successful engagement and conclusion of the SafeYouth@Work project. This project helped advance our government’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) policies. This project facilitated in raising the awareness on the workers’ rights to know, to refuse unsafe work, and to report accidents.

We strengthened our OSH policies through Republic Act No. 11058 (Strengthening OSH Compliance Act), the Implementing Rules and Regulations of which became effective on 24 January 2019.

Our government, through the Department of Labor and Employment, continues to heighten its enforcement of both General Labor Standards and OSH standards. We do this by reinforcing our inspection and audit capabilities to ensure compliance by establishments throughout the country.

Also, the Department has been working towards the ratification by our government of the Promotional Framework on Occupational Safety and Health (ILO Convention No. 187).

But even against the backdrop of these positive initiatives, more remains to be done. Compliance is a recurring problem in the implementation of all these OSH policies and programs.

And with the onset of the Administration’s Build, Build, Build Programme, OSH practices will all the more be a major concern.

Hence, there is a need for measures to help ensure the sustainability of what we have jointly undertaken. We foresee better prospects for safety and health especially for our young workers with these steps which we will take:

1. The development and inclusion of Occupational Safety and Health in basic education curriculum; and
2. The use of online games in the continuing OSH awareness campaign of the government. One such game is readily available at our Bureau of Working Conditions website.

Our bureaus and regional offices are instructed to tighten their implementation of the General Labour Standard and OSH laws, and violations will not be tolerated.

Allow me to thank everyone, as we look forward to more future collaborations with the ILO and our Tripartite partners.

Mabuhay tayong lahat! Thank you!


Funding is provided by the United States Department of Labor under cooperative agreement number IL-26690-14-75-K-11.

This material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the United States Government. One hundred percentage of the total costs of the project or programme is financed with Federal funds, for a total of 11,443,156 dollars.