House panel approves bill on bereavement leave
By Charmaine A. Tadalan, Reporter
THE House Committee on Labor and Employment has approved a bill granting a paid bereavement leave to employees, but settled with five days instead of the proposed five to 10 days.
“Five to ten days ‘yung proposed pero nag-agree kaming lahat together with the businessmen na three days,” committee chair Rep. Randolph S. Ting of the 3rd district of Cagayan told BusinessWorld in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Mr. Ting said the panel agreed to impose the three-day leave in consideration of the several leave benefits workers are already entitled to and the maternity leave bill, which will increase the granted leave to pregnant female workers to 105 days from 60 to 78 days.
The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) had argued that additional paid leaves will impact productivity and cost of doing business.
“This will have a huge adverse effect especially on the viability of micro and small enterprises which constitutes around 99% of enterprises in the formal sector,” the ECOP stated in its position paper submitted to the committee.
The employers group noted the present system already allows up to 34 days of possible paid leaves for male workers and up to 175 leaves for female workers.
This is aside from other non-working days due to the observance of around 22 regular and special holidays.
ECOP further said that pending legislation in Congress proposes to add 21 new holidays at the national level and to increase paid leaves by 141 days for men and 250 days for women.
Meanwhile, its counterpart measure, Senate Bill 1026, authored by Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares, proposing a 10-day paid bereavement leave is still pending at the committee level.
