GOVERNMENT has been told to parlay its P420 billion infrastructure budget this year into grassroots jobs in order to trim the 27.5 percent joblessness rate.
One way of doing this, according to Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, is to implement a 1988 law which requires a contractor of a public works project to source half of their unskilled and 30 percent of skilled labor needs from the area where it will be built.
Angara was referring to Republic Act 6685 which makes it mandatory for contractors to hire a part of their workforce from among the “actual residents” of the province, city and town where the taxpayer-funded infrastructure will be constructed.
He pointed out that by tapping local labor, government infrastructure projects will not only reduce unemployment but will also increase the transparency in their implementation as the people hired, being direct beneficiaries of the projects, would see to it that they are built according to specifications.
“In short, the manpower recruited can double as a monitoring team,” Angara said.
The neophyte senator noted that the 2014 national budget includes P420 billion for infrastructure “and from these billions we can create thousands of jobs.”
“Because the said amount covers only national government spending, the total ‘public sector infrastructure’ budget will be higher, if the expenditure for capital outlays of local governments and government corporations are to be included,” he exclaimed.
RA 6685, Angara explained, covers all agencies “so whether it’s an local government unit building a sidewalk or the Department of Agriculture constructing an irrigation canal, the requirement to hire locally applies.”
Angara stressed that under the law, agencies are required to post “help wanted” notices in places where the public works are scheduled to be built.
“The law states that the contractor must post in conspicuous areas a notice in either Filipino, English or the local dialect, that local residents are needed for the project,” Angara said.
“If we can post these notices during summer, when construction is in full swing to take advantage of the good weather, then we can also attract college students who are looking for summer jobs for tuition money,” he added.
The lawmaker even suggested that this recruitment approach can prove beneficial to disaster-hit areas like the Visayas towns destroyed by Typhoon Yolanda and by the powerful earthquake which epicentered in Bohol.
“The best form of government aid does not come in grocery bags but in the form of a decent pay for a day’s work. Disaster areas should not only be shovel-ready but more importantly, should be worker-ready,” he said.
Looking at the bigger picture, the chair of the powerful Senate ways and means committee said the challenge to put more men and women to work really extends to the entire country, as he cited both the official figures from the labor department and the results of a survey made by a polling firm which estimate that one in four employable Filipinos is looking for work.
In its October 2013 Labor Force Survey, the Department of Labor and Employment pegged the unemployment rate at 6.5 percent and the underemployment rate at 17.9 percent.
The Social Weather Stations, on the other hand, measured the national joblessness rate at 27.5 percent, representing 12.1 million Filipinos, based on its December 2013 survey.
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