Makabayan bloc files bill to prohibit ‘endo’ in gov’t

Reps. Arlene Brosas, Carlos Isagani Zarate, Sarah Jane Elago, France Castro and Ariel Casilao during a Makabayan bloc’s briefing. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The House of Representatives’ Makabayan bloc members on Monday filed a bill which seeks to prohibit all forms of labor contractualization in the public sector.

Representatives Carlos Isagani Zarate, Antonio Tinio, France Castro, Emmi De Jesus, Arlene Brosas, Ariel Casilao and Sarah Elago filed House Bill No. 7415 or Security of Tenure for Non-Regular Employees in Government Act of 2018, which seeks to provide security of tenure and civil service eligibility to all non-regular employees who have worked continuously for at least six months in government offices.

These government offices include national government agencies, local government units (LGUs), state universities and colleges (SUCs) and government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and all other government instrumentalities.

“Labor contractualization, in all its forms, goes against the Constitutional mandate to promote full employment for all,” Tinio said in a statement.

“There’s no way that the private sector will stop with endo and contractualization if the government sets such a bad example. It should therefore prohibit and penalize the abuse in the use of contracts of service and job orders and grant regular items all qualified contractual workers,” he added.

Tinio said the government has been the biggest user of “endo” or end of contract, with the number of casual employees and personnel on Contracts of Service (Cos) and Job Orders (JOs) ballooning up to 721,282 as of July 2016.

The majority of these workers, he said, were at the forefront of the delivery of social services like social workers and personnel for the distribution of the 4Ps under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and clerks and other administrative and support personnel under the Department of Education (DepEd).

“Hindi kaila sa atin hindi lang sa private sector ang napaka-mapagsamantalang patakaran na ito mismong sa loob ng bakuran ng gobyerno, nakakabahala ang bilan, almost 720,000 out of 2.3 million government employees or 1 out of every 3 ay non-regular,” Ferdinand Gaite, president of the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage), said after the bill’s filing.

The lawmakers also demanded the scrapping of Joint Circular 1, s. 2017 issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Commission on Audit (COA) which allows government agencies to hire JOs and Cos.

The solons said they are geared to join the upcoming “March of Contractuals: March for Regularization” on Tuesday morning, a protest action of the All GE Unity, a coalition of organizations of public school teachers, health workers and all civilian personnel nationwide.

The contractual employees in government will protest in front of DBM to call for the scrapping of the joint circular, the end to rationalization and the creation of sufficient plantilla items and their funding in the 2019 budget. /je