PRESIDENT DUTERTE, who promised to end the contractualization in his term, must be very careful and cautious in dealing, certifying as urgent or approving the current version of the so-called anti-Endo bill because it is infected with “coronavirus diseases”.
Instead of ending it, he might perpetuate it and expand its reach altogether.
Labor Secretary and aspiring Senatorial candidate Silvestre Bello III has revived the anti-Endo bill, a proposed legislative measure addressing the abusive labor practice of hiring workers on a five-month contract to evade regularizing them after six months.
However, the bill was vetoed by Duterte himself a few hours before it lapses in June 2019 following a strong lobby from local and foreign business and employers’ groups who scared the President by saying once it is approved into law it would create unemployment and business losses.
Hindi totoo na malulugi ang mga kumpanya o mawawalan ng trabaho ang mga manggagawa kapag inaprubahan ang anti-Endo bill. Sa halip, the economy and business will stabilize and grow steadily because enterprises will have a steady and motivated regular, permanent workers.
Kinokontra lang ito ng mga naglipana na mga middlemen like manpower agencies, labor service providers at abusive employers who don’t want to reduce their profits and keep the status quo. Meanwhile, the millions of contractualized workers are kept at low wages, inadequate benefits and have future because they are changing jobs every months.
We must warn the President that the current version of the bill did not go through the vetting process of labor groups. It, thus, may contain provisions that does not address abusive end of contract work scheme but rather may expand, open the floodgates and perpetuate forms of slave labor.
We urge the President to be careful and be judicious in endorsing any anti-Endo bill because he may end up immortalizing Endo rather than ending it as he had promised.
We warn workers to be very circumspect as well. It’s campaign season and some aspiring politicians may use the anti-Endo bill to solicit support among workers. However, the current anti-Endo bill version does not end Endo but perpetuates short-term job contracting further.
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