SENATORS on Tuesday lauded the passage on third and final reading of a measure that increases maternity leave from the existing 60 days to 120 days.
Voting 22-0 on Monday, the Senate passed on third and final reading the bill granting working women 120 days maternity leave and 150 days for solo mothers.
Senate Bill 1305 or the Expanded Maternity Leave Act, authored by Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros, seeks to revise Republic Act 1161 or the Social Security Act of 1997, which currently grants only a 60-day (for normal childbirth) to 78-day (for caesarean) maternity leave for women workers.
Hontiveros, chairperson of the Committee on Women, said the last time the number of maternity leave was increased was 25 years ago or in 1992.
“Amid the current climate of misogyny and sexism, the passage of this important measure in the Senate is a clear triumph of women over antiquated thinking and policies,” Hontiveros said.
Senator Nancy Binay, a co-author of the measure, was glad the measure was supported by her colleagues.
“This is truly a victory for the working Filipina,” said Binay, who had filed similar bills in the previous Congress.
The Senate voted 22-0 to approve SB 1305 which gives all covered female workers in both the public and private sectors 120 days of paid maternity leaves, regardless of civil status or legitimacy of the child.
The bill also gives them an option to extend for another 30 days of leave, but without pay.
She said many working mothers choose to work until the last three or two weeks before giving birth so they could maximize their leave benefits.
“And even then, they still do not have enough time to take care and fully bond with their babies,” Binay lamented.
Senator Francisco Pangilinan said this was a great gift on International Women’s Month.
Pangilinan was among the first senators to file a similar bill in this 17th Congress.
In his original proposed measure, Pangilinan wanted to increase the maternity leave by 150 percent from 60 days to 150 days.
In the bill he filed last July, Pangilinan cited the Public Health Reports from 2011, which said an increase in the length of paid maternity leave could reduce infant mortality by as much as 10 percent.
Paid maternity leave also increases the likelihood of infants getting well-baby care visits and vaccinations, and the rate and duration of breastfeeding which is known to be very beneficial to the health of mothers, the report said.
The expanded maternity leave proposal is among the first 10 bills filed by Pangilinan for the 17th Congress.
Some of the others are the Sagip Saka bill, the Free Wi-Fi bill, and the measure creating the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources
The bill, Pangilinan said, would give new mothers the time to rest and recover more fully from childbirth.
“The baby will also be well cared for,” Pangilinan said.
He noted that studies showed the positive health impacts of paid parental leave on the health of children and mothers.
The bill amends Republic Act 1161 or the Social Security Act of 1997, which currently grants a 60-day (for normal childbirth) to 78-day (for caesarean) maternity leave for employees in the private sector. The current law is below the international labor standard on maternal protection that recommends 14 weeks or 98 days of maternity leave.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said even men stand to gain from this bill expanding maternity benefits as it allows a mother to transfer to the father of the child up to 30 days of the 120 days of allowed maternity leave for child-care duties.
Recto said this was one of the reasons he voted for Senate Bill 1305, or the “Expanded Maternity Leave Law of 2017”.
But Recto noted that under Section 6 of the bill, a mother entitled to maternity leave benefits might opt to allocate up to 30 days of said leave credits to the father of the child, whether they are married or not.
“This is the best pasa-load app ever invented. And a fair one too, as it does not impose the burden of matrimony,” Recto pointed out, in explaining his vote on the Senate floor.
The “30-day pasa-load leave” is also transferrable to alternate caregivers such as “the current partner sharing the same household,” and relatives up to the fourth degree of consanguinity.
Giving fathers more time to take care of their wives and children, the senator said, would benefit not only the family but humanity as a whole.
“Any step that lightens the burden for women, and lights the path for the full development of their being, benefits humanity,” he said.
In his speech, Recto said the bill was “past its due date and should have been delivered a long time ago.”
He cited studies on how longer maternity leaves resulted in better school test scores for the child and cuts maternal deaths by 13 percent.
“On the macro level, longer maternity leaves do no harm to the economy. On the micro level, longer maternity leaves make both the baby and the mother healthy and happy,” Recto said.
He cited the statement of Hontiveros the measure would bring the country closer to compliance with the International Labor Organization’s standards on maternity protection, a field where Philippine law is alarmingly inadequate.
Studies show the Philippines’ maternity leave policy remains as one of the shortest among the member countries of the ILO.
The other co-authors of the bill are Binay, Pangilinan, Senators Sonny Angara, Loren Legarda, Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Trillanes IV.