PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte’s executive order (EO) signed on Labor Day, May 1, does not grant the labor unions’ wish to have total prohibition on all forms of contractualization by establishing direct hiring as the general norm of employment.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry L. Roque, Jr. defended that the President never promised to end all forms of contractualization.
“His promise was to end ‘endo’ (end-of-contract scheme). He did not promise to end all forms of contractualization, even if you review all of his speeches during the 2016 elections,” Mr. Roque, speaking in Filipino, said in his interview with Radyo Pilipinas on Wednesday morning.
Endo has been a longstanding practice that denies workers permanent employment and benefits by deliberately terminating or not renewing their contract before becoming eligible for such status.
Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate of the militant party-list Bayan Muna, in a statement, said that the President’s EO is “useless as its general provisions are already stipulated in the Labor Code.”
Section 2 of EO No. 51, which the Palace released on Wednesday, May 2, states that “contracting or subcontracting, when undertaken to circumvent the worker’s right to security of tenure, self-organization and collective bargaining, and peaceful concerted activities pursuant to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, is hereby strictly prohibited.”
Under the draft EO submitted to the Palace by labor groups, a copy of which was sent by the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) to the media, Section 2 on the “Prohibition Against Contracting or Subcontracting” includes the line: “Consistent with the policy of this government, direct hiring of the employee by the principal employers shall be the general norm in employment relations.”
It adds: “Security of tenure is hereby strengthened by the general norm of direct hiring.”
Both the draft and signed versions define Security of Tenure as “the right of employees not to be dismissed or removed without just or authorized cause and observance of procedural due process consistent with the constitution, labor code of the Philippines as amended, and prevailing jurisprudence.”
Mr. Zarate said what is needed now is to issue a policy to stop all “forms of job contracting,” as promised by Mr. Duterte during the 2016 presidential campaign.
SENATE
Meanwhile, Senate President Aquilino L. Pimentel III vowed to have the proposed ENDO law as the Senate’s priority measure when Congress resumes sessions in mid-May.
“The law on endo will have priority once Congress resumes its session on May 15, 2018. Ending endo will empower our workers and improve their quality of life,” he said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
“For my part, I will make sure that a law on the matter will be passed as soon as possible to make the gains of workers permanent,” he added.
Senate Bill No. 1116 or the proposed End of Endo or Contractualization Act of 2016 seeks to amend the Labor Code of the Philippines and prohibit labor-only and manpower contracting. It simplifies the classification of employees to regular and probationary and lists unfair labor practices in a contracting or subcontracting arrangement.
Its counterpart version at the House of Representatives was approved on third and final reading last January 29. — Arjay L. Balinbin and Camille A. Aguinaldo

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