Cavite
This zone has the highest number of firms with 254 presently operating within its 278.51 hectares located in the town of Rosario in the southern Luzon province of Cavite. Existing industries are those in tobacco product manufacturing, leather products, wood and wood products, clocks and watch parts, fiberglass products, plastic, rubber and glass products with majority of them in the textile and wearing apparel (garments) industries. This is logical since these textiles require a lot of sub-contracting work outside of the zone itself. Normally, washing and hemming of textiles is outsourced to excess labor in the nearby communities. Cavite province is contiguous with both the Laguna and Batangas provinces which have large populations themselves and provide the needed surplus labor required for embroidery work in the garments industry.
With a lot of firms inside, it is not surprising that the Cavite Economic Zone has the highest number of zone workers. At the latest count, it reached close to 78,000 (71,838 employees with 65% of them young and single women). Average annual population growth of Cavite province is higher than the entire country. It also has a higher unemployment rate (16%) compared to the national average of 11.20% only. Although the Cavite Economic Zone is the youngest of the 4 public ecozones, it is already experiencing the same housing problems of the Bataan Export Processing Zone some years earlier. The number of zone workers is already the equivalent populace of a small city and the deplorable housing conditions affect worker productivity.
This has attracted negative media attention and the ire of some international women’s organizations. The most negatively affected by poor housing facilities are women workers who form the backbone of the Cavite EPZ or CEPZ. Poor sanitation, poor lighting, inadequate ventilation, cramped conditions, and lack of running water contribute to off-peak performance and make workers accident prone. A recent study by the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women suggested putting up several co-managed but decent workers’ dormitories with day-care facilities and also multi-purpose areas for training and other uses. The commission went even further by advocating amending the law creating the PEZA to institutionalize and make mandatory the provision of housing for ecozone workers to be funded under the annual national budget.
Recently, some concerned Christian-minded businessmen proposed to improve on their own initiative the living and working conditions at CEPZ. A study or working paper by Ms. Elizabeth Remedio of the Economics Department of the University of San Carlos in Cebu City has focused on the working conditions of ecozone workers, in particular women workers who are sometimes subjected to sexual harassment. Her findings can be viewed by visiting the site below: