THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said it plans to exempt administrative workers from the cap on work-from-home (WFH) jobs in economic zones (ecozones).
“Those with non-sensitive positions, like those in finance and administration, can do remote work,” PEZA Director General Tereso O. Panga said on the sidelines of the PEZA Water Forum 2025 on Tuesday.
“We will relax it so that the threshold can actually be increased more than the 50% because we will exclude from the threshold the administration and finance people,” he added.
Production workers at manufacturing plants and contact center agents were among those to be counted in the WFH cap.
“We pre-cleared that already with the FIRB to be safe about it. So we will issue guidelines on this,” he said, referring to the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB).
The FIRB regulates incentives granted by entities like PEZA. WFH arrangements emerged as an issue because ecozone locators benefiting from incentives are required by law to perform a certain percentage of work onsite.
Mr. Panga said the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the WFH policy could be released as early as this month.
“We are done with the consultations, but we are waiting for the inputs from the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP),” he said.
“We will try to release it within the month or early next month. It’s within the policy-making powers of the board. So, the general rule is not to exceed the 50% limit, but we have policy considerations,” he added.
Under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy (CREATE MORE) Act, registered business enterprises are allowed to implement WFH arrangements for up to 50% of the workforce and still receive incentives.
According to Mr. Panga, the CREATE MORE IRR allows even manufacturers to adopt WFH arrangements.
“It will now benefit not just information technology (IT) locators but also manufacturing companies. Because in the early stages of the CREATE law, it was exclusive only to IT,” he said. — Justine Irish D. Tabile