CEDAW/C/PHI/4 English Page 48 180. Republic Act 7305 or the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers, enacted in 1992, allows public health worker couples to be employed or assigned in the same municipality. This would ensure that married female public health workers, who are expected in the Philippine culture to give up their work to keep their family together, do not have to choose between their work and their family. 181. Republic Act 6725, which was mentioned in the third periodic report, gives definite form to a number of discriminatory practices such as payment of lesser compensation to a female employee against the male employee for work of equal value, favouring men in promotion, training opportunities etc. The elimination of discrimination requires dynamic and continuing effort, including the development of measures to implement the anti-discrimination law progressively if full implementation is not immediately possible. Examples of these measures could be the promotion of affirmative action in the workplace, penalizing violators of Republic Act 6725 and revision of the implementing rules and regulations of that Act to operationalize the law. 182. In compliance with Republic Act 6972, or the Barangay Day Care Law, which provides supportive social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities, a total of 27,540 day-care centres in 23,538 barangays out of 41,924 were established by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in cooperation with local government units and non-governmental organizations/concerned citizens. 183. Two bills on paternity leave were filed in the Ninth Congress. The passage of a law on this will somehow equalize the costs of employing married women and men. Meanwhile, paternity leave benefits are granted depending on the benevolence of employers or the ability of workers to advocate them in the collective bargaining agreement. There are already a few private corporations that grant paternity leave. Policies promoting women workers' protection 184. Republic Act 7688 (1994) gives representation to women in the Social Security Commission. 185. Republic Act 7655 (1993), an Act Increasing the Minimum Wage of Househelpers Amending for this Purpose Article 143 of Presidential Decree (PD) No. 442, as Amended, provides that househelpers (most of whom are women) receiving at least P 1,000.00 per month be covered by the Social Security System and are therefore entitled to all the benefits provided by the System. This law also upgrades the minimum wage rates of househelpers. 186. Legislation which has placed homeworkers under the coverage of existing social security and medical care benefits just like other wage earners still has to be operationalized. Homeworkers are those who do paid jobs at home, mainly for subcontractors. They are mostly women, since this type of economic activity still allows them to attend to family responsibilities. However, their terms of contract, which include low piece-rate payments, are generally inferior to those of regular wage earners and the extremely long work hours spent to meet quotas compound these women's multiple burdens. Further, the unclear employee-employer relationship in some instances makes the homeworker vulnerable to exploitation. /...