EDITORIAL — We should find out why

So just recently, the Philippines got placed at the bottom of two lists.

One list is the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Global Rights Index released the other day, which placed the Philippines as among the worst places for workers in the world.

The Philippines is near bottom Turkey, with Tunisia, Nigeria, Myanmar, Eswatini, Egypt, Ecuador, Belarus, and Bangladesh making up the rest of the list.

The other, a list published by Hellosafe Safety Index, actually lists the Philippines as the least safe country for tourists in the world in 2024 after Colombia, Mexico, India, Russia, Yemen, Indonesia, Somalia, Mozambique, and Pakistan.

Of course, our knee-jerk reaction here, especially for the employers, government officials, local executives, and tourism officials among us, may be to vehemently deny and then question the veracity of those results. This is understandable.

But before we spit fire and declare some ratings companies persona-non-grata, this should also make us wonder why we placed lowly in such lists in the first place.

The ITUC report based on their findings on reports of violated rights of workers, particularly the right to strike, the right to collective bargaining agreement, the right to establish or join unions, and the right to justice, citing high incidences of such violations.

Meanwhile, Hellosafe used the following criteria for their findings: occurrence of natural disasters, violence in society, involvement in internal or external armed conflicts, healthcare infrastructure, and militarization of the country.

It can also be argued that what we see around us every day contradicts those findings; our workers here aren’t openly hostile to their companies and there is no shortage of tourists coming in to visit our attractions.

Still, we showed low scores in two particular fields, with one being a major source of revenue, and we should find out why. We don’t see any ill motives from ITUC or Hellosafe in giving us low scores or benefitting from a third party that may want to give us a bad name, so they must have seen something that we don’t.