The DPWH implemented the provisions of RA 6685 and RA 9710, more known as the Magna Carta of Women with released of Department Order No. 130.
The DO urges the DPWH regional and district offices including contractors and subcontractors to make the minimum percentage of 50% of unskilled labor requirements and 30% of skilled labor requirements equally accessible to both women and men, with women comprising 20% of the required workforce.
Priority shall be recruited from unemployed, duly certified residents where the projects are being undertaken who are also willing and able to work. In cases when a project traverses two or more localities, the labor requirement shall be recruited proportionately from the places traversed by the project.
The Implementing Office, shall, upon publication of the Invitation for Prequalification to Bid, advise concerned LGU heads of the project and its labor requirements. They shall likewise advise them to submit a list of sex-disaggregated, able, qualified and willing laborers, both unskilled and skilled, in their respective localities. From which listing, the contractor shall select for employment the labor requirements of the project.
The Implementing Office shall then see to it that the Instructions to Bidders and Trader Documents include a provision for strict compliance with RA 6685 and that its penalty clause provision is included in the Conditions of the Contract to be entered into.
In the pre-bid conference, the Prequalification Bids and Awards Committee shall discuss and disseminate to all prequalified bidders the provisions of the said law and emphasize that the organization chart for the project under bid, which shall accompany the bid proposal, must indicate the total number of the skilled and unskilled labor requirements of the project, otherwise, appropriate sanctions as provided by law may be imposed.
Upon award of the contract, and after the contractor has accomplished all the requirements for its approval, they shall then inform the concerned DOLE and PESO offices of their manpower requirements for them to provide recruitment assistance. Prior coordination with the Philippine Commission on Women, DepEd, CHED and TESDA on training provisions and with the BLGUs to assist in the hiring of female workers, is also required.
According to Regional Director Mariano R. Alquiza, the DPWH has always been a proponent of gender equality in its projects and among its ranks. “We make it a point to integrate various gender activities in the implementation of our projects and it is my personal belief that all [genders] have the right to equal opportunities to achieve full and pleasing lives,” he added