More than 3.7 million children are working in
                 mines and sweatshops, and widespread poverty is
                 hampering efforts to reduce the number

                 By LUZ BAGUIORO
                      PHILIPPINES CORRESPONDENT

                 MANILA -- More than 3.7 million children between
                 five and 17 years old toil in mines, factories and
                 households throughout the country, but widespread
                 poverty and the collusion by some authorities frustrate
                 government efforts to reduce their number.

                 Despite a state policy prohibiting child labour, the
                 Philippines has remained one of five Asian countries
                 where the problem is most severe.

                 In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, it would appear
                 that it has worsened, Labour Undersecretary Rosalinda
                 Baldoz said in an interview.

                 The labour department reckoned that at least 2.2 million
                 children -- out of a total child population of 22.4 million
                 -- work in hazardous environments such as mine pits,
                 quarrying sites, pyrotechnic factories and construction
                 sites. And an estimated 29,000 work as domestic
                 helpers without pay. About 30 per cent are school
                 dropouts and 217,561 are between five and nine years
                 old.

                 Many of them are also among the 1.5 million street
                 children who are left to fend for themselves, officials
                 said. Of this number, an estimated 600,000 are child
                 prostitutes, whose number increases by at least 3,200
                 yearly.

                 Ms Baldoz said: "These children should be in school, not
                 in farms, at sea or in nightclubs."

                 But poverty has forced parents to put their own children
                 to work, depriving them of their childhood and stunting
                 their overall growth.

                 In the Philippines, the highly publicised form of child
                 labour is muro ami or deep-sea diving, which forces kids
                 without any protective gear except goggles to swim
                 more than 50 ft from the surface to pound corals with
                 leaded scarelines to drive fish toward the nets.

                 "We started raising concern about muro ami in 1988.
                 Yet, until now, it is still a problem," Ms Baldoz said.

                 Widespread poverty and illiteracy, particularly in the
                 countryside, conspire against government efforts,
                 according to Ms Baldoz.

                 "The answer is not punitive measures but moral
                 education and adequate income and livelihood support
                 for the family. Unless we can significantly reduce
                 poverty, it would be impossible to solve this problem."

                 About 26 million or a third of the Philippines' 74 million
                 population still wallow in poverty, while only 85 per cent
                 of Filipinos are functionally literate.

                 The government is also partly to blame, she said.

                 "Given existing social realities, the approach must be
                 long-term, and sustained. But our response so far has
                 been palliative, sporadic and short-term," she noted.

                 The collusion of some rogue policemen and local
                 officials also hamper prosecution efforts.

                 "Most parents refuse to testify, or agree to settle with the
                 employers, weakening our case. The children, on the
                 other hand, flee from halfway houses and go back to the
                 sweatshops," Ms Baldoz said.

                       Adapted from The Straits Times, 12 Feb 2000.