Conclusion
From the foregoing, one can immediately conclude that the IS/IE is not homogenous, occupation-wise. But one area of commonality is that the IS/IE workers and families are people living on the margin. The exceptions are a few; those with special skills who render unique but unregistered business services to different homes such as expert electricians and plumbers are compensated well. However, the overwhelming majority of the informals—self-employed, unpaid family workers and non-formal wage workers—are poor. The poorest among them end up as “informal settlers”, who build makeshift houses (around 2×2-meter) made of light materials on vacant private and government lands and dangerous spaces such as river embankments, canals, etc. such as the homeless members of Kadamay who took over the government’s housing project in Pandi, Bulacan.
In 2011, the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines or CCCP (2011) identified the following as among the poorest IS/IE households:
- “Kariton” households (people living on pushcarts, which double as tools for informal economic activities such as scavenging),
- Seawall households,
- Under-the-bridge and footbridge households,
- Dumpsite households,
- Hillside and mountaintop households, which are usually engaged in slash-and-burn farming and charcoal-making,
- Small-scale mining households doing gold panning or “camote” mining,
- Hagdaw households, whose children come in after a harvest to collect fallen rice stalks,
- Alm-seeking households,
- Cemetery households,
- Luneta households, and
- Varied street households, which move from one alley to another.
The big question is: Are the IS/IE workers covered by the Labor Code of the Philippines? The big answer is: They are not.
And yet, the 1987 Philippine Constitution mandates the State to guarantee the universal observance of the basic rights of all workers. In Section 3, Article XIII, the charter intones:
“Section 3. The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.
“It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with the law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.”
The facts, however, are glaring: there is no established system of recognizing and registering IS/IE workers organizations, there is no established system acknowledging the right of IS/IE workers to engage in concerted activities and bargain collectively to press for their collective interests (in India, the IS/IE organizations formally negotiate with the state governments for housing and other basic community needs), and there is no established system of consultation on policies and programs that affect them (in contrast, in the unionized segment of the formal sector, the Labor Code provides for tripartite consultation). In short, the IS/IE workers are workers in limbo or in purgatory insofar as their rights are concerned. The IS/IE workers do not enjoy any State guarantees on the observance of workers’ basic rights because the enabling laws and programs are either missing or silent on how such rights can be applied to these workers.
This is the reason why IS/IE workers organizations have banded together to form an alliance called MAGCAISA to push for the passage of the MCWIE bill. The bill seeks to address concerns on the registration of IS/IE workers organizations, representation in policy formulation on issues affecting the IS/IE, enjoyment of the basic freedoms of workers such as freedom of assembly, social protection for the disadvantaged IS/IE workers and so on.
Unfortunately, the bill has been languishing in Congress for over a decade already. Hopefully, under the leadership of enlightened Senators and Representatives in the present 17th Congress, the MCWIE bill can finally be signed into law. What is at stake here is the interest of the IS/IE workers, who happen to constitute two-thirds of the Philippine labor force.