Republic Act No. 5901




[ REPUBLIC ACT NO. 5901, June 21, 1969 ] AN ACT PRESCRIBING FORTY HOURS A WEEK OF LABOR FOR GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE HOSPITALS OR CLINIC PERSONNEL. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled: Section 1. Government and private resident physicians, nurses, nutritionists, dietitians, pharmacists, social workers, laboratory technicians, para-medical technicians, psychologists, midwives, attendants and all other hospital or clinic personnel shall hold regular office hours for eight hours a day, for five days a week, or a total of forty hours a week, exclusive of time for lunch: Provided, That any of such employees or laborers who shall suffer a reduction of his weekly or daily wage or compensation because of a reduction of the number of days or hours of labor in a week, as provided herein, subject to the minimum daily or hourly wage or compensation already fixed by existing law, shall be given an automatic increase in his daily or hourly wage or compensation, whose amount in a week or a day or per piece shall be equal to the diminution which his daily or hourly or per piece wage shall on account of the reduction of days of labor to days a week: And provided, further, That the salaries of employees received on monthly basis shall not suffer any diminution on account of the reduction of the number of days of labor a week.1âшphi1 Section 2. This Act shall apply only to cities and municipalities with a population of one million or more and to hospitals and clinics with a bed capacity of at least one hundred. Section 3. All Acts or parts thereof inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed or modified accordingly. Section 4. Any violation of this Act by any official of the government, in case of government hospitals and clinics, shall be punished by separation from the service. If the violation is committed by any private hospital or clinic, said hospital or clinic shall pay a fine of not less than one thousand pesos, nor more than five thousand pesos, and for succeeding offenses each official responsible for the violation shall, in addition to the fine herein provided, suffer imprisonment for not less than one month and not more than one year. Section 5. This Act shall take effect upon its approval. Approved, June 21, 1969. The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation