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DOLE’s Bello asks Duterte to certify as urgent anti-endo bill


Less than a year before the term of President Rodrigo Duterte ends, the Department of Labor and Employment is still pushing to fulfill the chief executive’s 2016 campaign promise to end labor contractualization in the country.

During state-run PTV’s Laging Handa briefing on Wednesday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said he signed a letter addressed to the President, "recommending the issuance of certification as urgent ‘yung ating (our) anti-endo bill pending before the Senate.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said that Congress has already passed the anti-endo bill, but Duterte vetoed it in 2019. 

In July 2019, Duterte vetoed the Security of Tenure Bill (End of Endo Bill/Contractualization Bill), which was aimed to eliminate subcontracting of labor and limit job contracting to licensed and specialized services. 

Also, the measure sought to classify workers into regular and probationary employees and treat project and seasonal employees as regular employees.

In his veto message, Duterte said the bill “unduly broadens the scope and definition of prohibited labor-only contracting, effectively proscribing forms of contractualization that are not particularly unfavorable to the employees involved.”

Under the vetoed bill, labor-only contracting occurs where the job contractor, whether licensed or not, who merely recruits and supplies or places workers to a contractee has no substantial capital or investment in the form of tools, equipment, machineries, work premises, among others.

Labor-only contracting also applies in a situation where the workers recruited and supplied or placed by such person are performing activities that are directly related to the principal business of the contractee or are under the direct control and supervision of the contractee.

“Indeed, while labor-only contracting must be prohibited, legitimate job-contracting should be allowed, provided that the contractor is well capitalized, has sufficient investments, and affords its employees all the benefits provided for under the labor laws,” Duterte said.

Bello, meanwhile, claimed that labor groups’ protests compelled the President to veto the bill.

But pro-labor group Bayan Muna, then, slammed Duterte for the veto, accusing him of protecting the rights of capitalists.

On the contrary, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines cheered the veto, saying the bill, if passed, "will only lead to loss of jobs and investments."

Immediately after the veto, Senator Joel Villanueva refiled the anti-endo measure and is currently pending in the Senate

Despite the announcement from the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office that the anti-endo bill is not included in the President’s priority measures, Bello said that is not the case since Duterte made a campaign promise to end contractualization. —LBG, GMA News

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