The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will be conducting large-scale inspections of establishments to ensure compliance of workplaces with health safety standards to warrant the further downgrade of the National Capital Region (NCR) from Alert Level 2 to Alert Level 1.

In a virtual forum on Wednesday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said they would want the region to be placed under the most relaxed alert level “for business and employment to survive”.

“During a meeting with senior officials, I told them to conduct large-scale inspections. To improve workplaces, prevent transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), and to reduce cases in NCR to warrant the lowering to Alert Level 1,” Bello said.

He said the lowering of Metro Manila’s status from Alert Level 3 to Alert Level 2 was a good decision since more businesses resumed operations.

“When the business is alive, employment opportunities are alive. So I said, let’s monitor the situation first, and at least in NCR,” Bello added.

Metro Manila is under Alert Level 2 until February 15.

He is convinced when the situation improves and cases are down, it may result in the lowering of the alert level.

“For that purpose, I mobilized our labor law compliance officers (LLCO) and occupational safety and health (OSH) inspectors to inspect if all establishments compliant with labor laws including occupational safety and health standards so that we can have a good situation in Metro Manila, and bring down the Covid situation here. This will probably prompt IATF to lower (the alert level) from 2 to 1. That is what we need in order to revive our businesses. When we see improvements in businesses, we can expect employment will survive,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bello reported that they received more than 100,000 applications for the Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP), as of February 6.

He said of the 104,666 total applications received, 31,068 have been approved.

A total of 19,187 have been approved for disbursement or payrolls have been prepared for submission to banks/money remittance centers while 17,295 applications are still for evaluation. (PNA)