MANILA —Three years after the implementation of the updated occupational safety and health law, the Department of Labor and Employment found nearly half of local businesses it inspected failed to observe OSH standards, the agency said Friday.

Many of those who failed compliance were micro, small, and medium enterprises, the DOLE said.

Labor Undersecretary Benjo Benavidez told the Senate finance committee tackling the DOLE’s proposed 2023 budget that they listed a 53% compliance rate among the over 69,000 businesses reviewed by labor inspectors as of September 2022.

Benavidez, who heads the DOLE workers’ welfare and protection cluster, said many small businesses failed to or could not designate trained first aid or safety personnel as required by the OSH law.

“’Yong usual deficiency sa occupational safety and health standards across sizes po ng enterprises, ito po ‘yong safety officer, first aider at ‘yong safety and health committee. Medyo bago po kasi yung batas,” he said.

Republic Act No. 11058 or An Act Strengthening Compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Standards and Providing Penalties for Violations Thereof, which updated the 1989 OSH standards law, was passed in August 2018.

Its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) came out at the end of that year.

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The law mandates employers to ensure their workers a workplace free from hazardous conditions, to orient them on hazards associated with their work, and to designate qualified OSH personnel.

Occupational safety and health seeks to protect workers from sickness, disease, and injury not just physically but mentally.

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OSH violators could face fines of up to P100,000 a day for non-compliance, according to the DOLE.

Proven violators, depending on the type and scale of violation, will be given a remediation period to voluntarily correct any deficiencies found by inspectors.

Benavidez said the agency will review their inspection data as well as the IRR of the OSH Law to see how the government can aid more small businesses in training and certifying their own first aiders and safety officers.

“Tinitingnan po namin ‘yong mga datos ng nakarang 3 taon, ano ba ‘yong pwede natin maitulong sa maliliit na negosyo. Employer din po sila. May manggagawa din po sila. Kailangan din po natin siguraduhin na ligtas ‘yong kanilang manggagawa. Pero kailangan din po tulungan ng pamahalaan kung paano po sila makakapag-comply,” he said.

The DOLE said it currently has 1,200 OSH inspectors, each of whom takes a day or more to inspect businesses’ compliance depending on the size of the company.

Benavidez said inspections continued with additional protocols in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Mandatory free training and conferences also shifted online since 2020, but are gradually returning to in-person sessions with the relaxing of restrictions, he said.

He added the pandemic made the DOLE compress the number of days needed to train OSH officers.

While a day’s training is enough for first aiders, construction safety training could take 4 to 5 days, he said.

Senate president pro-tempore Loren Legarda urged the DOLE to find more ways to extend OSH training for MSMEs, considering they are the backbone of the economy.

“Hindi tayo pwedeng sita nang sita, pasara nang pasara. Kailangan turuan natin. Hindi nila kasalanan na hindi po nila ‘yan alam dahil nandiyan sila nang matagal at bago lang ang ating pagkaistrikto ng batas,” she said.

“I-train nang libre, palaganapin natin nang mabilis, anyway online po ‘yan.”

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Nearly all or 99.51% of business enterprises in the Philippines are MSMEs, according to 2020 data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Micro enterprises comprise the majority or 88.77% of local MSMEs.

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