By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III had every one of us lost in semantics for more than a week. He has been putting on this face as a protector of your everyday worker during this pandemic, repeatedly reassuring them of security in their jobs even if they are not vaccinated. His undersecretary made it clear that terminating an employee who refuses vaccination is not only “discriminatory” but “illegal.”
His office has also gone on record, stating that it is within the right of an employee to choose not to be vaccinated and pointed out that neither government nor companies were imposing the mandatory vaccination of employees. In the same tenor, Bello warned that employers should not require job applicants to present vaccination cards for the same reason.
Yet, none of these assertions offer relief to what has been happening on the ground, such as the “no jab, no pay” policy. Again, Bello pacified the uproar by citing its previous Labor Advisory 03-21 last March, which states that the “no vaccine, no work policy shall not be allowed.”
The Filipino workforce took our Labor Secretary for his word only for him to clarify this weekend what he really meant – that employers in particular industries are actually allowed to rest an unvaccinated employee, require the same not to report for work and, therefore, disqualify that employee from receiving any salary for services not rendered.
In making this clarification, Bello hides behind the “exception to the rule” mandated by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), which listed dozens of establishments that may reopen under Alert Level 3, “provided that all employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.” It’s a long list of businesses that include restaurants, barbershops, salons, spas, cinemas, gyms, sports facilities, internet cafes, higher education institutions, film and television studios, hotels, tourist attractions, and other venues and the like.
We’re talking, therefore, of a long list of workers from cooks and waiters, to teachers and gym instructors, barbers, hairdressers and masseuses, actors, directors and production assistants, technicians, janitors, cashiers, office clerks and staff, and a whole lot more who would be considered in Bello’s words as an “exception to the rule.”
Given that Bello is correct that none of them will be terminated, by virtue of being unvaccinated they could be ordered not to report for duty and, therefore, be deprived of their wages. It’s as good as being unemployed, Mr. Secretary. How can this not be a problem? How can you just rest on your paper issuances that such practices will not be condoned, except when they happen to be the exception?
Instead of having us believe in those empty labor advisories, Sec. Bello should have just given these affected workers the truth and provided the necessary interventions. DOLE could have spearheaded a campaign against vaccine hesitancy along restaurant and hotel strips, tourist areas, malls, and commercial areas where unvaccinated workers would be affected. It could have come up with relief and livelihood assistance or even alternative employment options for workers who choose not to be vaccinated for one reason or another.
Being the labor chief, Bello could have done a lot of other things than confuse unvaccinated workers by concealing the truth that, as part of the government’s pandemic response, they would be deprived of their right to earn a living. Just spell it out: “No jab, no work, no pay.”
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