DOMESTIC WORK AND FREEDOM

It was a couple of hours before dawn but the woman of 30 years got up early. She laid her head the previous night to an overused pillow and rested her tired body on a worn out mat on the floor in one corner of the living room. It was not her house and the child she carried to her bosom yesterday was not her own. She is a nursemaid (yaya) in another town. Her own two little boys she left to her mother in their barrio so she could send money for their needs at home.

Today will be no different from the past three months that shed been working for her employer. Before dawn, she should have finished cleaning the house and the surroundings so she can prepare the familys breakfast before everyone wakes up. After all the household members have finished their meals, she takes her breakfast and then washes the dishes. The lady employer is a busy woman so she is sent to the market and to prepare lunch. Just before that task, she needs to bathe her charge, a little boy of two years. Upon returning from the market and in between meal preparations, she attends to the child who expects no less than her undivided attention.

After lunch, the nursemaid cum housemaid has some quiet time with her charge to either play with him until the time for dinner preparation comes or when the little boy fall asleep, some personal time to do her laundry. At evening when all had their fill of the meals she prepared, she was once again in the kitchen, left alone to eat the days leftover food before doing the dishes and cleaning her last work station for the day. If she is lucky, she can retire to bed as early as 10 in the evening so she can have an uninterrupted rest of at least six hours. On the 30th of the month, she is ready to receive her monthly wage of P1,500.00. Effectively, all that she gets daily is P50.

The plight of this woman is typically experienced by thousands upon thousands of domestic workers in the country. Domestic labor abuses are not only manifested in the physical or verbal maltreatment of the worker but also in the quality of their living conditions and the amount of wage they receive in exchange for their services. There may be no physical or verbal abuses on the domestic worker but her lowliness in life was further exploited by her unwary employer. In this kind of situation, no matter how hard she works, she is not moving forward towards economic freedom. Her only hope is perhaps her employer will see her as a mother working for a living and to take pity on her to pay her at least the minimum wage. However, the more viable solution is institutional in character, that the Philippine society, through the government, will once and for all put an end to this kind of economic exploitation against domestic workers.

As an original signatory to the United Nations Charter, the Philippines is obliged to promote the universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms. The UNs subsequent document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) articulated the different human rights and freedoms that each member state should uphold at all cost. Article 4 of the UDHR seeks to eliminate slavery or servitude and slave trade in the world. Indeed, the end of the Second World War marked the beginning of massive and global effort to reject causes of enmity and hate among peoples and nations.

Twenty years after the UDHR, the UN General Assembly presented to the world its International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that further elucidates some particular human rights and freedoms. The ICCPR expanded the provision of UDHR on slavery and servitude by negatively defining what constitutes forced or compulsory labor. Article 8 limited the exceptions to forced labor to such work or service imposed as punishment for a crime by a competent court, those work required of a person under detention in consequence of a lawful court order and those rendered in military service. Any service rendered in cases of emergency or calamity as well as any work or service which forms part of normal civil obligations are also exempted from the definition of forced labor.

It was from the ICCPR that the framers of the 1987 Philippine Constitution reproduced in the Bill of Rights the provision that no involuntary servitude in any form shall exist except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. As part of the countrys commitment to UDHR, a separate and distinct social justice and human rights article was dedicated in the constitution. Article XIII which deals with this presents a guideline in the determination of just compensation for workers. Section 3 paragraph 4 provides that the state shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production xxx. It may be long overdue but the new Domestic Workers Act of 2013 (RA 10361) cemented the Philippines commitment to uphold the dignity, rights and freedom of this special segment of the labor force. It not only establishes a smoother working relation between the employer and the employee but more importantly, it provides a reasonable portion of the fruits of labor to domestic workers through decent wage and the social protection coverage of Philhealth, SSS and PagIBIG membership. At last, the long line of Philippine jurisprudence which consistently uphold the rights and freedoms of domestic workers is now concretized with the enactment of the Kasambahay Law. Today, there is much certainty that the large but marginalized section of the labor force is protected from unequal distribution of the fruits of labor.

To end, it is worthy to note that even before the global manifestation of international protection to labor from servitude, the Philippine Supreme Court, in the early days of its existence uphold the rights of the domestic worker. In the landmark case of Reyes v. Alojado, G.R No. L-5671 (August 24, 1910), where defendant rendered free domestic service to the plaintiff until she had enough money to pay off her debt to him, the court said xxx When legal regulations prohibit even a usurious contract and all abuses prejudicial to subordinates and servant, in connection with their salaries and wages, it will be understood at once that the compact whereby service rendered by a domestic servant in the house of any inhabitant of this country is to be gratuitous, is in all respects reprehensible and censurable; and consequently, the contention of the plaintiff, that until the defendant shall have paid him her debt she must serve him in his house gratuitously is absolutely inadmissible. The court used as basis the provision of the Old Civil Code in rendering judgment favorable to the domestic worker.

By: Ma. Concepcion L. Ordinario LLB I-B PSU 01 April 2013