Dignity to work

Magna Carta seeks more benefits,
higher pay, etc. for maids

Increased minimum wage, a 13th month pay, SSS, health insurance, and assured days off are but few but long-deserved entitlements to finally professionalize a neglected, underpaid, and often abusive job -- being just a maid.

Batas Kasambahay, or HB 8862 was filed by Cagayan solon Juan "Jack" Ponce Enrile Jr. last December 7, 1999, receiving warm and candid support by both majority and minority leaders in the lower house who recognized that "domestic work is among the country's biggest form of employment, yet the most neglected."

More than 300 marchers organized by the Visayan Forum (VF) braved rains to rally behind the bill. Carrying placards "Kasambahay: kasama sa bahay, hindi alipin sa bahay," "Dignity plus respect equals loyalty and productivity," and "Batas Kasambahay: para sa katulong, para sa amo, para sa bayan!" they presented to the solon 4,000 signatures initially gathered from across the country.

Taking on the cudgels for maids, Enrile said in his privilege speech that the bill seeks to benefit both maids and their amos by setting minimum standards that would govern their employer-employee relationship. "Other significant policies, probably even pertaining to resource allocation, would be best tackled in supplemental legislations," he said in answer to an interpellation.

The magna carta also proposes fairer standards for normal work hours, regular working days, paid leaves, and providing maternity benefits. "Just and humane treatment," a clause normally cited in contracts, is also clearly defined as providing enough food, rest, medical coverage, privacy, outside contact, rules for just termination, and help from lawful third parties.

The magna carta would affect at least an estimated 766,000 domestic workers nationwide, 36-percent of whom are between 15 and 19 years old.

Dripping wet from the afternoon rains, VF president Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, in an interview with reporters, said that "since the number of very young housemaids is ever increasing as a result of the increased demand for overseas domestic workers, the magna cartas's special provisions for househelps of minority age is very timely and significant."

VF is an accredited non-governmental organization providing temporary shelter, legal help and family repatriation for abused housemaids. Based in Manila, it also offers outreach and telephone counseling in Batangas, Bacolod and Davao, cities highly concentrated with maids, through the participation of local members of SUMAPI (Samahan at Ugnayan ng mga Mangagawang Pantahanan sa Pilipinas).

New SUMAPI secretary-general elect, Maribel Pantajo, a 15-year old real-life survivor of physical and verbal abuses who started to work as a housemaid since the age of thirteen, said that her group vows to continue gathering solid signature support from other SUMAPI chapters, teachers, employers, college students and school children.

The 5,000-strong nationwide association of mostly child domestic workers, fresh from its 5th officers' congress last October 26, also vowed to seek the immediate and early ratification of the worst forms of child labor convention ILO 182, which they say, would bring urgency to other related bills including the magna carta.

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