A.

High Unemployment Rate

1. https://www.rappler.com/nation/201462-duterte-unemployment-labor-day-2018
2. In the article that was gotten from the source, Aika Rey, the publisher, discussed
about the increasing rate of unemployment especially under our current president’s
watch. She wanted to share to the people the situation of the country’s unemployment
rate and how it can worsen.
Aika Rey presented data regarding unemployment which she got mostly from
PSA. One of which is the statistics of the government records that showed that the
country's average unemployment rate increased by 0.3% from 4.7% to 5%. Also part of
her gathered data was Ilocos having the highest unemployment rate among regions at
8.2%, a sharp rise from its 2016 rate of 5.4%, followed by Metro Manila at 6.1%, a small
increase from last year's 6%. Another statistics, part of this article, was about the total
number of unemployed Filipinos according to their educational attainment as of October
2017. The said statistics showed that 665,000 who are unemployed were Junior High
School finishers followed by college graduates at 449,000. Aika Rey also talked about
the president’s promises to create more jobs and end contractualization. But recently,
almost 36,000 workers were displaced due to the closing of Boracay as commanded by
the president. Also some 251,000 overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait are also in fear
for their future, amid the diplomatic row between the Philippine government and the Gulf
country. Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Renato Villa was declared "persona non
grata" for the embassy's rescue of abused OFWs. Labor groups are also still waiting for
the president to sign an EO in regards to ending contractualization but instead, Labor
Secretary Silvestre Bello III said there will no longer be an EO, and left it to Congress to
pass a law.
Aika Rey wants to make awareness on how our unemployment rate is
increasing. She wants to do this by sharing to the people the situation of our
unemployment rate especially under our current president. She also wanted to share to
us how it can worsen.
B.
End Contractualization and Strengthen Labor- Intensified Industries

1. Increase in unemployment rate can result to a lot, just like poverty, increase in
migration to other countries, etc. In the Philippines, the unemployment rate in January
2018 was estimated at 5.3 percent and among the regions, NCR (7.8%), Ilocos Region
(6.7%), and CALABARZON (6.7%) were the regions with the highest unemployment
rates. With the country expecting to reach 107 million by the end of 2018, we students,
can’t help to expect the possible increase of unemployment rate due to the population
count, which is very high. This is why us students decided to tackle this economic issue
to share our proposed solution.

2. We, students, want to propose an idea of ending contractualization in our

economy. At first encounter, you may see contractualization as beneficial but in the long
run it’s actually disadvantageous especially in our economy. According to Herbert
Docena, " Contractualization actually enables capitalists to pay workers less for the
same work, stunt economic development and therefore harm the interest of all Filipinos
including the capitalists themselves". It also enables the capitalists to weaken the working class'
ability to resist exploitation, organize collectively, and fight for a better society.

In our proposal, we wanted to strongly replace contractualization with the

implementation of more labor-intensified industry. Here in the Philippines, we are abundant
with land for agriculture. Most of these lands are just not managed properly and some of these
lands are slow in production. Our country needs new and advanced technology and machineries
to improve the agricultural sector in our country. With the improvement of the agricultural
sector, some people might find interest working in agriculture. The government should also
improve our manufacturing industries so that our country can minimize importing products
from other the country and start manufacturing our own products, and also by this way, the
manufacturing companies would be in demand of workers who will do the labor thus doing its
part in reducing tge economy's unemployment rate.

3. Therefore we conclude that unemployment is a really serious problem that our

country is facing. Our county should pay attention to this problem because many
Filipinos are suffering because of poverty. We want to replace contractualization with
the implementation of more labor-intesensified industry so that the workers will have
more opportunities and continuous jobs. If the government will provide machineries to
improve agricultural sector then it would lessen the number of unemployment.
Minimizing the imports would also play a part in reducing unemployment rate.