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A broader look at today’s business Sunday, June 28, 2026 Vol. 21 No. 257
NO CHOICES FOR SOME CHILDREN n
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A YOUNG boy walks through a smoke-filled landfill in Baguio City, gathering plastic bottles and paper to sell for a few pesos—a stark reminder that for many Filipino children, survival comes before schooling. Like countless others trapped by poverty, he faces hazardous work that endangers his health, safety, and future. SJORS737 | DREAMSTIME.COM
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Multilayered approach
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
ARLON, 22, became emotional while driving his car with his nanny as he saw sugar cane laborers, including a few children, on the roadside of the southern part of Negros Occidental province. “I could have been one of them, but thank God, I was not deprived of education, ” Marlon uttered as he recalled the life-changing privilege given to him at a young age, after an affluent family offered to sponsor his education upon seeing his family’s severe poverty. Marlon’s parents, with six children, back then, were seasonal workers in a sugarcane plantation in Negros, known as the “Sugar Bowl” of the Philippines. Marlon considers the family who sent him to school as his “second parents.” As friends with the sugarcane landowner whom his parents were working for, they happened to see Marlon helping his parents during one of their visits. When he was nine years old, he was sent to school by his “second parents.” He stayed with them in their house in the city proper, and they would send him back home to his parents during weekends and holidays. They sent him to a private school when he was in elementary, complete with a nanny and a driv-
er. He is currently taking up an allied medical course and is about to graduate next year. While Marlon is blessed enough to have a good “second family” who provided him with the care, protection, and opportunities needed to build a secure future, Randy, 10, is the opposite picture. Vulnerable to the heat or the rain, Randy will roam around the streets in one of the cities of Negros province to sell native delicacies like puto and kakanin, every day. When asked why he is not in school, he answered, “Wala kami kwarta [We don’t have money].” Randy is staying with his grandmother who started sewing clothes after his parents separated and started their respective families. Marlon and Randy are just two examples of children engaged in child labor. “Child labor” refers to any work or economic activity performed by a child that subjects him/her to any form of exploitation or harmful to his/her health and safety or physical, mental or psychosocial development.
IN the rice fields of Kalinga, generations work side by side to put food on the table. For many poor families, children are expected to help out as an expression of utang na loob—a deeply ingrained sense of gratitude and family responsibility. But when that duty comes at the expense of education, health, and childhood, it becomes child labor. While helping the family is a cherished Filipino value, no child should have to sacrifice school and a brighter future just to ease the burden of poverty. SJORS737 | DREAMSTIME.COM
For decades, the scourge of child labor has been a blot on the Philippines’ campaign to protect child welfare. The government touts an interagency approach to make sure the thousands forced to work at a tender age have real, manageable choices to ensure a better future.
ACCORDING to Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Undersecretary Edu Punay, the Department employs a multilayered approach to combat child labor in the Philippines, focusing on withdrawal, prevention, and reintegration. The department’s Strategic Helpdesks for Information, Education, Livelihood, and other Developmental Interventions (SHIELD) is the primary program specifically designed to address child labor at the community level. It specifically targets the “worst forms” of child labor, such as mining, deep-sea fishing, and hazardous commercial agriculture. The following are the components of the program: · Child Labor Local Registry: Establishing a database at the barangay level to identify and profile child laborers and those at risk. · Barangay Helpdesks: Setting up physical helpdesks in local government units (LGUs) where cases can be reported and managed. · Organizing, Advocacy and Capability Building: Activities targeting child laborers, their families, employers (e.g., hacienderos, contractors, financiers) and service providers to raise their awareness on the issues, laws, hazards of child labor and proper case management of child laborers. In addition, Punay said, the DSWD leverages its existing social protection programs to address the main cause of child labor, which is poverty. Continued on A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 61.3890 n JAPAN 0.3795 n UK 81.0151 n HK 7.8305 n CHINA 9.0291 n SINGAPORE 47.3534 n AUSTRALIA 42.4075 n EU 69.8238 n KOREA 0.0398 n SAUDI ARABIA 16.3495 Source: BSP (June 26, 2026)