Under Revilla’s Senate Bill No. 802, Section 135 of the Labor Code will be amended to include the following as an act of discrimination against women: giving preference to a male employee over a female employee in the hiring process.

Whether through notices, announcements or advertisements for employment and apprenticeship or in the actual recruitment, hiring or employment of workers where the particular job can be equally handled by a woman, and favoring a male employee over a female employee with respect to dismissal of personnel or the application of the first in, first-out or other retrenchment policy of the employer.

“It also prohibits the denial to any woman the benefits of employment of other statutory benefits under our laws by reason of her sex,” Revilla said.

He said there is an urgent need to amend the Labor Code to provide women workers with full protection.

He cited reports that workers recently laid off or facing layoff in for electronic companies at the Cavite Economic Zone, in Rosario, Cavite were mostly women.

“Discrimination against women generally still exists in the workplace. Filipino women continue to suffer indignities in the course of they employment merely because they are women,” he said.

For her part, Sen. Loren Legarda said the announcement by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that some million Asian women were at risk of losing their jobs because of the economic downturn affirmed the continuing workplace gender bias against women.

She also criticized the growing violence against women in the Philippines despite the passage of laws enhancing women’s rights.

According to Legarda, 2005 police statistics on violence against women noted a total of 6,505 cases, up six times from the 1,100 cases reported in 1996.

While the incidence of cases in 2005 was lower than the 10,345 cases reported in 2001, Legarda said this was because many women have refrained from reporting them to the police for fear of social humiliation.

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