[ LETTER OF INSTRUCTION NO. 573, July 12, 1977 ]

TO: The Secretary of Labor
The Secretary of Tourism

WHEREAS, the hotel business is at present beset with problems attendant to an infant industry and aggravated by the effects of the problems facing the airlines industry;

WHEREAS, there is a need to support the hotel industry considering its potential earnings of foreign exchange and the financial investments of the government;

WHEREAS, the hotel industry should not, for the moment, be saddled with additional financial legal obligations until it shall have recovered from the difficulties it is now encountering;

Accordingly—
  1. The implementation of the additional emergency allowance of P60.00 per month provided for under Presidential Decree No. 1123 shall be held in abeyance until further ordered.
  2. The implementation of Circular No. 6 series of 1976 of the Department of Tourism relative to the stopping of the collection of service charge and the integration of the same into the salaries of hotel employees should be suspended until its total effects on the hotel industry shall have been finally determined by appropriate agencies However, any collective bargaining entered into during the suspension of the said DOT Circular, shall not include any provision on the collection of service charge until a final policy on the matter is decided.
Done in the City of Manila, this 12th day of July, in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-seven.

(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS
President of the Philippines