Over 12,000 child laborers monitored in Cordillera – PSA latest data

Tabuk City, Kalinga – There are over 12,000 child laborers in the Cordillera region, according to the 2023 data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), indicating that the issue is still a big problem in the region. 

Child labor, as defined by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), refers to work that a child is too young to execute or that – by its nature or conditions can be dangerous causing harm to a child’s well-being.

In the Philippines, poverty is seen as one of the contributory factors to child labor. It has been noted that because of financial difficulties, children as young as 5 years old had to do labor work to get them through the day and to help provide food on the table. 

In 2023, Philippines logged 1.09 million cases of working children, as revealed by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data. Of the total cases nationwide, 12,306 were monitored in Cordillera, lower than the 2022 monitored cases of 14, 200.

Since 2019, the Department of Labor and Employment CAR has profiled 8,259 child laborers – 3,521 in 2019; 583 in 2021; 2,799 in 2022; 88 in 2023; and 1,268 in 2024.

“In profiling child laborers, we need to know where these child laborers are so that we would be able to address and provide appropriate interventions to remove them from child labor,” stated Leonardo Doguil, Regional Focal Person of the Child Labor Prevention and Elimination Program of the DOLE -CAR, as cited by the Philippine Information Agency Cordillera.

When profiling is done, DOLE – CAR goes over the results and refers an identified child laborer to appropriate agencies for intervention.

For 2025, DOLE – CAR Regional Director Imelda Romanillos mentioned they target to profile more than 2,000 child laborers in the region.

Among the interventions done to combat child labor include the Sagip Batang Manggagawa program rolled out by DOLE, an inter-agency quick-action mechanism aiming to respond to cases of child labor. The program rescued 113 child laborers in the region in 2021. Moreover, there is the Project Angel Tree of DOLE which is a project that aims to provide various social services, giving out school supplies to child laborers in 2022.