Manila, Philippines — The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) has started a series of initiatives to attract foreign and local companies to invest in the country.

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz discussed the four measures which will be utilized by the labor department to attract business during the signing of a memorandum of cooperation with the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce (JFC) on Monday.

Under the memorandum, the JFC will provide DoLE with topics and source persons for a five-week tripartite partnership in governance forum, which will draft the voluntary code of conduct to be implemented by private companies.

“With our memorandum of cooperation now in place, I am confident we can now jumpstart our forum and begin the groundwork. It is my hopethat through partnership in governance forum, we will attract more initiative like this that can mutually benefit both government and business,” Baldoz said.

“There will be less government intervention and more of industry self-regulation,” she added.

Among the members of the JFC who signed the memorandum were representatives from the United States of America, Canada, Japan, Australia-New Zealand, Europe, South Korea, and the Philippines.

Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Inc., President Julian Payne said the JFC welcomes DoLE’s move in involving private enterprises in regulation of businesses.

“Under-regulation must be avoided. The public and the private sector should work together to ensure the competitiveness of the Philippines workers,” Payne said.

Aside from the memorandum of cooperation, DoLE will also implement the 30-day mandatory conciliation and mediation of labor cases, which will be pilot-tested from October to December and be fully implemented by next year.

The initiative aims to lessen the cases filed at the National Labor and Relation Commission and hasten the settlement between companies and their employees.

DoLE will also post all of the pending case in its attached agencies to its website and create the National Efficiency and Integrity Board (NEIB), which will be moderated by the National Tripartite Peace Council.

The NEIB is a private initiative, which will monitor the efficiency of all of the DoLE’s offices and ensure its officers are free from corruption.

“This is in line with the principle of transparency this administration expects its offices to observe,” Baldoz said.