Bello suspends labor inspections in Dececember

MANILA, Philippines — Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has suspended labor inspections in December to avoid “temptations” to corruption during the Christmas season and dispose of pending labor cases.

Bello issued the order through Administrative Order No. 495, suspending all labor inspection activities starting Sunday and ordering the preparation of an inspection program for 2020.

“We have a ‘no gift policy’ here at Dole (Department of Labor and Employment). In order to avoid any gift giving to our labor inspectors, we are suspending the inspections,” Assistant Labor Secretary Dominique Tutay explained.

Special inspection of Pogos

But the order, Bello said, excluded the verification inspections of establishments employing foreign nationals because Dole had planned to complete such inspections by Dec. 15.

“We are doing the special inspection for the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogos) sector and other companies that applied for the alien employment permit (AEP) at this time. We will have to finish by Dec. 15 the inspection of these special cases of establishments hiring foreigners,” Tutay said.

More than 400 new labor inspectors were deployed last month to inspect establishments employing foreign nationals and verify the legitimacy of their employment.

During the inspection, the inspectors will ascertain the legitimacy of the company and verify its roster of local and foreign employees actually working at the time of inspection.

The inspectors, the Dole said, would also check the list of AEP applicants, if there were any, and the company should be able to certify that the company would indeed be hiring the foreign nationals.