Duterte signs executive order on ‘endo’

President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed on Labor Day, May 1, the executive order (EO) that bans labor contracting and subcontracting.
“To those who march, [the EO] is not enough. I’m not a legislator. There are provisions that need to be amended. I am not allowed [to change], I can only implement. This executive order that I signed will help a lot in alleviating the problem,” the President said in his speech in Cebu City.
Mr. Duterte’s EO includes a “prohibition against contracting and subcontracting.”
Sought for comment, Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Undersecretary Jacinto V. Paras said the EO version that was signed was from the Office of the President.
“It’s the version of the President which is a balanced version consistent with existing law and the constitution to attain industrial peace,” Mr. Paras said in a text message to BusinessWorld on Tuesday morning.
In April, Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said the President will no longer sign the EO on ‘endo’, saying that it was “better to leave the matter of ‘endo’ to Congress.”
The bill being referred to is Senate Bill No. 1116 or the proposed End of Contractualization Act of 2016 introduced by Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva, chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development. The measure is currently in the committee level.
Its counterpart measure at the House of Representatives, House Bill No. 6908, was approved on third and final reading on Jan. 29.
The Senate bill seeks to tighten rules on contractualization and simplifies the classification of employees to regular and probationary. It also prohibits labor-only and manpower contracting and defines unfair labor practices in a contracting or subcontracting arrangement.
The Department of Trade and Industry had earlier said the government will face legal challenges in crafting a law that will end labor contractualization.
“There simply is difficulty in crafting an EO that will not violate the current law and still meet what the labor sector wants,” Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez told reporters on April 17 in a Viber group message.
An EO that will cease job contractualization, according to Mr. Lopez, will violate the current Labor Code which renders contracting a legitimate hiring practice. The law is implemented through the Department of Labor and Employment’s Department Order No. 174, Series of 2017. — Arjay L. Balinbin