Agenda on health, safety for Mindanao workers adopted

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) reported the adoption of an 18-point agenda on health and safety for Mindanao workers during the the two-day 3rd Mindanao Occupational Safety and Health Summit held in Zamboanga del Norte through a joint resolution recently.

According to the report of DoLE Region 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula) Director Ponciano Ligutom, the summit with the theme “1 Net MindaNOW for Safety and Health”was a significant step toward reducing the work-related accidents, illnesses, and deaths in all places of employment in Mindanao.

He said the summit is line with the reforms enunciated in the 22-point labor and employment agenda of President Aquino, particularly on enhancing social protection programs for workers.

The summit brought together 259 participants from the public, private, and non-government organization (NGOs) sectors, with 205 coming from the service sector, 34 participants from the agricultural sector, while the remaining 23 from the large manufacturing industries, Ligutom said.

The two-day summit had four (4) plenary sessions, fourteen (14) paper presentations, research findings and best practices affecting the world of work in all establishments presented and has provided the participants model programs that they may adopt to improve working environment.

Ligutom said that during the summit, a core group composed of the different presidents of the OSH networks of Mindanao, including the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was formalized in principle as the first step to stimulate multi-disciplinary collaboration in identifying future direction with the culture of health and safety as an underlying agreement.

He said that aside from the insights gained and lessons learned, a joint resolution and multi-disciplinary collaboration for advancing the 18-point health and safety agenda, and integrating all the major agreements, discussions and initiatives in the plenary had been adopted.

“The summit gave a chance for the participants to learn more about collective engagements and the opportunity to advance their respective health and safety concerns, adding that it also served as a venue to benchmark, share experiences and best practices and expansion of networks to work together in the management of OSH for moving forward with one passion and driving force,” he added. –Mina Diaz, Daily Tribune