Five-year ASEAN work program to be adopted

THE PHILIPPINES is backing an updated Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) work program aimed at increasing competitiveness, with the country wanting to increase deployment of skilled workers.

Rebecca J. Calzado, assistant secretary for policy, programs and international affairs of the Department of Labor and Employment, said the five-year work program, adopted in Hanoi, Vietnam last week by labor ministers, backed the goal of establishing an ASEAN Community by 2015.

She said the Philippines would want to tap into an integrated labor market database, one of the program’s priorities, as an opportunity to deploy skilled labor to the region.

“[I]t will include movement of skilled labor and mutual recognition arrangements [for professionals],” she said.

The Labor department, said Ms. Calzado, will be coming up with steps to implement the work program, which will be included in a transition blueprint for the next administration.

Employers Confederation of the Philippines President Edgardo G. Lacson called the initiative “laudable” even as he noted that “All of these [objectives] are still in the document stage… There are no specifics yet.”

Aside from data sharing, other priorities of the work program are the protection of labor rights and work conditions, enforcement of labor laws and regulations, and social dialogue. –Businessworld