Senator Imelda "Imee" Marcos said on Tuesday, December 5, that the Philippines could be the first Asian country to ratify an international labor treaty that would give informal workers the same degree of protection as regular employees against physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse.

Marcos said this in a statement as she announced that the Senate is close to ratifying the treaty that was already approved by 36 countries.

Marcos, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the committee was ready to recommend International Labor Organization Convention 190 to the Senate plenary after the treaty received "unanimous concurrence" from key government agencies and non-governmental organizations during the committee's hearing last week.

"Informal workers comprise 42 percent of the country's labor force, many of them farmhands, house helps, and gig workers in the creative industries," she pointed out.

The senator added that the number could be higher if an accurate national inventory of informal workers was created.

Also known as the Violence and Harassment Convention of 2019, the ILO treaty "no longer refers to a territorial workplace but, more importantly, the entire world of work," Marcos explained.

The treaty expanded the protection of workers beyond the traditional workplace and now includes places where workers take a meal or rest break, sanitary and changing facilities, employer-provided accommodation, venues of work-related trips and social activities, as well as virtual spaces where work-related communications take place.

Besides informal workers, the treaty also protects trainees, interns, apprentices, volunteers, job applicants, and workers whose employment has been terminated.

Toward full compliance with the treaty, Marcos instructed the formation of two technical working groups to identify what domestic laws should be amended and to organize a reliable inventory of informal workers finally.