The Philippines’ leading integrated telecommunications network PLDT Inc. (PLDT) ranked second in the world overall in the Global Child Forum (GCF) Benchmark Report 2024, in recognition of its leading practices in integrating children’s rights into the areas of governance, workplace, marketplace, community and environment.
PLDT achieved a near perfect 9.9/10 score – the highest globally among rated companies in the technology and telecommunications sector. This independent rating tracked the Philippine telco’s performance and progress reporting in line with the adoption of the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBP) framework and upholding children’s safety and welfare across its business operations.
“We’re proud to be among the top companies in the world in helping protect the rights of children. This recognition is a testament to the work our people have done in this regard—we congratulate them, and we commit to working even harder to create safe spaces for Filipino children online,” said Manuel V Pangilinan, PLDT Chairman and CEO.
Conducted in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, GCF’s benchmark report assessed over 1,800 firms globally across eight sectors in six regions and aimed at providing guidance to companies and investors in making children’s rights part of their business decisions and investments.
Championing children’s rights in business
The results of the GCF Benchmark Report 2024 demonstrated how PLDT has been respecting and supporting children’s rights through policies, programs, and collaborations within various facets of its operations.
PLDT recognizes children as a key stakeholder group and identifies child protection as part of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) materiality areas. In line with these, the implementation of relevant strategies, framework, programs, and policies support its ESG performance roadmap and are under the oversight of its Board of Directors through its Governance, Nomination, and Sustainability Committee.
To prevent child labor, PLDT imposes a minimum age requirement for employment and upholds a child safeguarding policy which integrates anti-child labor considerations into its talent recruitment, hiring procedures, and supplier management practices. In 2023, the company reported zero cases of child labor in its workplace and supply chain across country operations.
In the workplace, PLDT implements various family-friendly workplace policies and programs that support employees in their role as parents and caregivers. These include having lactation rooms for breastfeeding mothers, offering educational loan assistance and access to scholarship grants for employee children. The company also upholds a parental leave policy that complies with local regulations and goes beyond prescribed periods of the International Labor Organization. In line with these, PLDT has achieved a 99.83% parental leave return to work rate in 2023.
PLDT also continues to narrow the digital divide and offer products and services that enable children’s rights to learn, play, communicate, and have a safe online experience. The company promotes child protection as an inherent network security feature and deployed a child protection platform that has blocked more than 1.5 million URLs and content linked to child sexual abuse materials since June 2021. It has also tracked and reported zero cases of complaints on marketing, labeling, and product safety involving children in 2023.
To continuously assess and manage its impact in communities, the Philippine telco collaborates with global, regional, national, and multi-sectoral entities to tackle emerging issues on children’s rights and develop collaborative solutions to promote child safety, particularly in the context of Artificial Intelligence and other technologies that impact children.
In 2018, PLDT embarked on a partnership with UNICEF for the adoption of the CRBP. The company has also contributed to the development and piloted use of the second edition of UNICEF's Mobile Operators Child Rights Impact Self-Assessment tool in 2021.
These initiatives complement PLDT’s alignment with the ten principles of the UN Global Compact and commitment to helping the Philippines in contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
