By Camille A. Aguinaldo
PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte will certify a bill in Congress that will give workers greater security of tenure instead of issuing a controversial executive order (EO) that organized labor had hoped would ban all forms of contractual employment schemes, a Cabinet secretary said on Thursday.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said Mr. Duterte will certify a proposed security of tenure bill pending in the Senate, an act that will speed up enactment by allowing legislative approval on second and third reading in the same day.

“After going through the three proposed EO to be signed by the President, the consensus was that instead of the President signing an executive order on the issue of contractualization, he will instead certify as a priority bill the bill that is now pending in the Senate on security of tenure,” Mr. Bello said during a press briefing in Manila.
Mr. Bello said the decision was made at a meeting on Friday last week with Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea.
Also on Thursday, Malacañang confirmed that the President will no longer sign the EO, saying that it was “better to leave the matter of ‘endo’ (end of contractualization) to Congress.”
“The position of Secretary Bello now, which I think is the position of Malacañang as well… let’s see what kind of legislation Congress will finally be approved, noting that the matter is now pending in the Senate alone, because the House already passed its version,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry L. Roque, Jr. said in a regular press briefing.
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.
In a statement, Mr. Villanueva said: “We will release the committee report as soon as we finished circulating the draft to the senators for inputs.”
“The President’s certification will definitely help in the passage of a new law governing ‘endo.’”
Sought for comment, Employers Confederation of the Philippines President Donald G. Dee said the group has been studying the Senate bill.
“We’ll be discussing it among ourselves then with the senators once we have established what are the provisions that are objectionable to us,” he said in a phone interview.
Labor groups have been pressing Mr. Duterte to make good on his 2016 election campaign promise to ban all forms of contractual employment schemes, a move employers say would dissuade prospective investors and scare away those already here. Cabinet men have lately said that any EO can only amplify what is already in the law and that any substantial change — as sought by organized labor — can be achieved only through legislation.

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