By Kesshamminne Krimzei Carreon
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, almost 3.8 million Filipinos were reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to be jobless. This has consequently pushed a lot of children into child labor to help their jobless parents earn money to survive the pandemic.
In Isabela, during school break this year, some children worked by stretching lines of electric cable for P500 a day.
At a young age, these youngsters have been forced to find strategies to earn money; but while most of us may find this commendable, it also highlights the worsening status of child labor in the Philipinnes. Based on the 2018 findings of the US Department of Labor, more or less 3.2 million Filipino children aged five to 17 are engaged in child labor, and 93.75% of them are involved in hazardous work conditions such as stretching long lines of cable wires for telecommunication companies.
BJ* , a 15-year-old boy from Tumauini, Isabela who does this shares, “noong bakasyon yun yung trabaho ko, taga-guggun ng kable. Yung kable po eh nasa three kilometers po siya, tapos yun eh ii-straight namin adde saan po makarating. Sobrang hirap ate, kitettaki sa kamay.”
(During the vacation that was my job, to pull cable wires. The cable wires are around 3 kilometers long, we will straight it out until the farthest it can go. It is very difficult, it leaves my hands in pain.)
What’s even more alarming is the active threat of COVID-19 that looms while these kids are working.
According to Marilen Fugaban, Municipal Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) officer of the Municipality of Tumauini, child labor is the combined product of many factors such as social norm, lack of decent work opportunities, but the most common is poverty. It is no question that the pandemic has plunged the Philippines knee-deep in economic fallout, which makes the rise of child labor precented, but still appalling.
When asked why he keeps pursuing this kind of work knowing the physical pain it does him, BJ answered, “Si mama diyan lang po siya sa bahay, kung minsan naglalabandera siya. Si papa nagbabaklay, ‘di pa permanent. Paano na lang vu kami ni ading ko ‘te?”
(My mother only works in our house, she does dirty laundry (of their neighbors) sometimes. My father is working as a lifter (of sacks of corn), and it’s not even permanent. What will happen to me and my sister then?)
Regardless of the laws created to protect these children and prohibit them from performing hazardous work, many of them still seek employment in informal jobs, including dangerous ones, because they do not have a choice. It’s work or starvation for them and their families.
To choose to take upon their shoulders the responsibilities of their elders is laudable, but children should not even find themselves in such a position in the first place. Kids should be safe inside their homes, not pulling cable wires in the face of a raging pandemic. This should not be an individual issue either, but a public one that we must all take part to solve.
We always say that children are the hope of the future, but their present is just as important. Filipino children should never be conditioned to work because their families are mired so deep in poverty. Children are children, no matter how willing they are to get their hands dirty for a few hundred pesos. They deserve a life free of responsibilities as heavy as providing for their family members.
As adults, we should help to protect their childhood from many unjustifiable conditions such as hazardous child labor. Stretching three kilometers worth of cable wires a day will probably be enough to put food on the table for a few days, but will it be enough to guarantee a good future for the ‘pag-asa ng bayan’? I don’t think so.
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