(Greetings)
?Iisa lang ang superstar. At ito ay ang manggagawang Pilipino.? This was how the President described the Filipino workers during last Labor Day. And I believe that this is how the Rotary Club of Manila also looks at the Filipino workers. Your TOWER awards is evidence enough that gives your secret away.
I congratulate the officers and members of the Rotary Club of Manila (RCM), most especially to its esteemed incumbent president, Ed Tumangan, and to the presiding Chairman of this year?s TOWER Awards, Mr. Delfin Hallare. The whole nation, again salutes you for the unwavering dedication and hardwork you have put into sustaining the life of the TEN OUTSTANDING WORKERS OF THE REPUBLIC AWARDS for almost two decades now.
Today marks another milestone in the Centennial Celebration of the Labor Movement as we bear witness in honoring the finest OF OUR SKILLED BLUE AND WHITE COLLAR WORKERS who have dedicated their lives in the pursuit of excellence and perfection in their respective fields and crafts while at the same time, uplifting the culture of quality and productivity in their places of work. Indeed, this year?s crop of awardees is a testimony to the Filipino worker, renowned not only domestically even globally, for its competence, diligence, perseverance, innovativeness, flexibility, reliability and strength of character.
In fact there are several studies attesting to the fact that the Philippines is home to great workers. In a 1999 study conducted by the Political and Risk Consultancy Ltd., Hongkong, the Filipino skilled workers are among the best in Asia. We are rank as number one in quality, availability and cost. In terms of quality, Filipinos placed 4th after the Japanese, Taiwanese, and Singaporeans. This indicates that our skilled workers are of higher quality than those in eight other Asian countries. As regards availability of skilled labor, the Philippines topped the list. As regards cost, the nation with the lowest cost skilled workers was India, and next to India was the Philippines.
In the 2001 Corporate Survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit among its members, out of the 10 criteria picked out by the CEOs as the most outstanding operating attributes, 6 were manpower-related, while 3 dealt with the country as a place where expats enjoyed working. The last criterion was the cost of other non-raw materials inputs.
The top answers were: English language proficiency (88% of no / minor problem responses); worker education level (83%); labor cost (80%); comfortable local lifestyle (78%); labor reliability (76%); quantity and quality of middle management and technical people (73%); availability of requisite skilled and semi-skilled labor (71%); attitude to foreigners by business associates (66%); other input cost (66%); attitude to foreigners by the public (61%); and labor productivity (58%).
The survey noted that most of these are perennial top answers but what is new in this survey is that the MNC?s seemed to be placing more premium on highly-educated manpower -- the education-related criteria were the top 2 answers -- as the competitive edge is now shifting to knowledge-based industries.
The Philippines also topped the job knowledge index of 47 countries of the Meta Group?s Global Economy Index 2000. This index is about the availability of workers with information technology skills, senior management competence and tertiary education. According to Meta Group, information processing capability is currently the better indicator of national competitive advantage.
The Philippine labor is not competing on low wages anymore. It has graduated to a higher level of competition and that is quality of the workforce.
Without taking away the limelight from our most deserving awardees tonight, let me take my hats off, anew, to the Rotary Club of Manila for continuing the tradition of sponsoring this Award that recognizes the qualities of our workers and their contributions to their companies and society at large. With this recognition, you have undoubtedly made our workforce more productive and conscious of their responsibilities to themselves, their employers and the nation.
Let me reassure you that we in government are also not oblivious of our critical role in assisting our workers harness their skills and potentials, in advancing their work path and in improving the quality of their work life. The entire government bureaucracy, led by our untiring President, Her Excellency, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has been intensifying its efforts to stimulate the economy to bring forth not only more jobs and higher incomes, but jobs that are also more secure, productive and humane.
The urgency of such task has been unescapable. During the first 100 days of the President in Office, she called for a National Employment Summit (NES) urging the leaders and representatives of key sectors of society to join the fight against unemployment and underemployment by taking part in a social caveat -- 1) for employers to exhaust all possible means of surviving the business without laying-off workers or only as a last resort, 2) for workers to exhaust amicable modes of settling disputes before going to the streets, and 3) for the civil society groups to closely monitor the progress of the agreements, and safeguard the democratic processes by which these were framed.
In a turnabout, she believed that these pronouncements should be matched by a strong commitment from the government. And as such, she instructed her entire cabinet to drum up the implementation of economic programs and projects to stimulate the economy without compromising the employment security of the workers.
This commitment was again echoed in her first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July 2002 and during the National Socio-Economic Summit last December 2001 where she reiterated her determination to combat poverty by generating much-needed employment. This, she emphasized can only be done, by banking on the private sector?s valuable cooperation and support -- as the economy?s engine of growth.
On a positive note, the collaborative efforts and resources funneled to achieve such a tough task seem to be gradually gaining ground as evidenced by the considerable improvement in our country?s labor and employment situation.
The January 2002 Labor Force Survey shows that employment grew by 5.7 percent, indeed an impressive leap from last year?s performance of only 1.3 percent. In concrete terms, this means 1.61 million additional jobs were generated during the reference period.
Parallel to this, the unemployment rate, or the proportion of the unemployed to the total labor force, fell by 1 percent, from 11.3 percent in January last year to 10.3 percent of the same period this year. Likewise, the incidence of emplioyed persons seeking additional work and income went down by 1 percent, from 16.9 percent in January 2001 to 15.9 percent in January this year.
These encouraging trends, somehow, provide some affirmation that we are on the right track, that we are adopting a labor and employment strategy framework that is both sound and doable.
At this point, allow me to share with you the program of action on Decent Work that we just launched last Monday. The program espouses five core principles, namely: 1) creation of decent and gainful jobs, 2) improving labor standards, 3) social protection, 4) social dialogue, and 5) tripartism.
The processes of social dialogue and tripartism are no longer new to us for these mechanisms of consultations have long been practised in threshing out issues and conflicts with our social partners and in identifying corresponding policy and program remedies. In the same manner, making headways in improving the volume and quality of jobs being generated remain our long-standing goals, and which we have been working on religiously.
In short, we are not really starting from nowhere, in terms of putting these principles into action. We already have specific projects and activities in place, backed-up, no less, by directives from the President. These include: expanding the computerized linkaging of its labor market information networks by including more employer and worker organizations and local government units to ensure wide and better access to employment opportunities and services; allotment of 27 million pesos from the State Insurance Fund to the various social protection schemes intended for the displaced workers; and another 27 million socio-economic assistance for sugar workers and their families. Not forgetting the plight of the informal sector, efforts are also being worked out to address the legal ramifications impeding the sector?s access to social security.
Aside from this, we have also launched the Poverty Free Zone Program, a Department?s initiative in support of the national government?s anti-poverty program with the goal of transforming target poor communities to become self-reliant through the provision of capability building activities aimed at generating community-based livelihood and entrepreneurial opportunities.
I have earlier noted that the Department is currently looking seriously into the plight of informal sector workers, how they can be better provided access to programs and services that are readily available to their counterparts in the formal sector -- access not only to social security but more so, to productive resources such as training, credit, marketing assistance and information. Our informal sector workers directly need to be empowered to be able to improve their conditions, and hence, better contribute to society.
In this light, please allow me at this point to just wish aloud. How I wish we coul also extend the same recognition and award to workers from the informal sector, who have outstandingly succeeded and made a niche for themselves from an initially disadvantaged position and environment to a highly productive and competitive one. Such recognition, I believe, would be very empowering and would have a motivating effect on the informal sector workers to strive harder to succeed.
Final Note
Much has been said about the Tower Awards and I am sure, many more good things will be attributed to it in the future. I have no doubt that the prestige and dignity associated with the awards will continue to motivate the present and previous awardees to constantly strive to better themselves as well as inspire others to do the same. To this, I say, we owe you much, the Rotary Club of Manila, for the exemplary social consciousness you have shown toward the end goal of economic development and nation-building.
And to the awardees, again our warmest congratulations. You are our country?s pride and hope for a better Philippines!
Thank you and good evening. |