MANILA — Amending economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution to attract more foreign investors could set aside labor protections in the charter and lead to more workers being exploited, a labor rights center warned over the weekend.

Charter change, which has been pushed in every administration since the Ramos presidency, has been revived this month through a People’s Initiative campaign and a resolution at the Senate to allow Congress to pass laws relaxing restrictions on foreign ownership in certain industries.

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“We fear that Cha-cha (charter change) will remove not only limits to foreign ownership of land and other essential sectors of the economy. We also fear that it will remove the provisions of the 1987 Constitution that guarantee labor rights,” the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights said in a release.

Among the rights guaranteed in the 1987 Constitution are that of self-organization and collective bargaining, the right to security of tenure and humane working conditions, and the right to “participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits.”

CTUHR said that relaxing ownership restrictions would lead to “more intense participation in the global race to the bottom, in which developing countries race among each other to offer labor that is cheapest, most repressed and therefore most denied of rights to big foreign employers.”

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FEF: TIME TO END ‘FILIPINO FIRST’, ‘FILIPINO ONLY’ PROVISIONS

The Foundation for Economic Freedom earlier this week argued for the removal of restrictions on foreign ownership in certain sectors, saying that, with these in place, “there is no incentive to innovate, to compete.”

FEF president Calixto Chikiamko said on ANC’s Market Edge on Friday said that the 1987 Constitution has given the state controls that have been “used to interfere in all aspects of the economy.”

In contrast, he said, the constitution of Chile, which was put in place in during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, was “very free market.”

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He said: “In other words, it was an open economy and because of that they became the richest country in Latin America… Of course, the problem there was, you know, it fostered a lot of inequality.”

A attempt to amend Chile’s constitution to be more inclusive, ensure more social rights and regulate exploitation of the environment failed at a referendum in 2022.

Chikiamko said the Philippines needs a similar constitutional amendment “toward more openness, less of rent-seeking,” or taking advantage of political and economic systems to increase income.

He said that “Filipino Only” and “Filipino First” provisions need to be removed to allow in foreign investors, but subject to guidelines and limits set by Congress.

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In an earlier statement, FEF said opening up the economy will “generate higher-quality, higher-paying jobs, boost incomes, and expedite economic development.”

CTUHR said that the Philippines should develop its own industries to create decent jobs.

“The country has been opening up to foreign investors since time immemorial, and it has not achieved any development," it also said.

"Countries [that] have attained development, and provided decent jobs to their people, are those that created industries."

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