Workers plan protests vs SOT bill veto

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte’s veto of the security of tenure (SOT) bill is only a temporary setback for laborers, Malacañang said on Sunday, giving assurance that his commitment to protecting workers’ rights is steadfast.

“It’s only a temporary setback on the part of the working class, because the President is also considering the side of management,” said presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo.

But workers are not buying the Palace line, saying the President’s “promise to end ‘endo’ (end of contract labor arrangement) is dead.”

Mass protests

On Monday, labor groups will stage simultaneous mass actions to protest the President’s veto of the SOT bill.

Noise barrages will be conducted in Quezon City and Lapu-Lapu City.

Partido Manggagawa said the coordinated protest actions would take place at 5 p.m. at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City and at Gate 1 of the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City.

“Mr. Duterte has revealed himself an enemy of the working class and the CEO of the capitalist class. Workers will not forget this betrayal of his promise to end ‘endo,’” the group’s spokesperson, Wilson Fortaleza, said on Sunday.

He pointed out that the President had been quite adamant in fulfilling his campaign promise to put an end to the end of contract practice of employers who keep their workers on short contracts of less than six months to avoid making them regular employees.

‘Lame capitalist alibi’

“Three months into his administration, Mr. Duterte forcefully warned employers that he [would] kill them for continuing with the practice of endo. Now, three years into his term, he is parroting the lame capitalist alibi that businesses will die if workers are made regular,” Fortaleza said.

Palace officials expressed confidence that the President’s promise to end contractualization would be a reality when he steps down in 2022, although they said it was up to Congress to turn it into a law.

In an interview over radio dzIQ, Panelo said many would lose jobs if companies closed down as a result of the SOT bill lapsing into law. “Then where will they go?”

Panelo made the remarks when asked if the President would still keep his campaign promise to end contractualization even as Mr. Duterte vetoed the SOT bill.

On Thursday, the President vetoed the much-awaited measure that would have ended contractualization.

Campaign promise

Business groups had been pushing for it, while workers held on to the measure as a campaign promise of the President.

The President said the consolidated enrolled 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.”

His veto message stressed that the “sweeping expansion of the definition of labor-only contracting destroys the delicate balance and will place capital and management at an impossibly difficult predicament with adverse consequences to the Filipinos in the long term.”

For the President, “businesses should be allowed to determine whether they should outsource certain activities or not, especially when job-contracting will result in economy and efficiency in their operations, with no detriment to the workers, regardless of whether this is directly related to their business.”

The President’s rejection of the SOT bill — a measure he certified as urgent in 2018 — disappointed not only lawmakers pushing for it, but millions of Filipino laborers banking on it.

On Sunday, the Palace maintained that the President had not wavered in his stand to protect and promote workers’ rights despite the veto.

Panelo cited the government’s efforts in ensuring that workers are regularized by their employers, noting that Executive Order No. 51, which the President issued last year, ordered the inspection of establishments for any prohibited forms of contractualization.

In an earlier statement, the Palace said 462,428 workers have been regularized from August 2016 to May 2019. —Reports from Julie M. Aurelio and Dona Z. Pazzibugan