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Duterte signs EO on endo
FILE: As the country celebrates its 116th Labor Day, President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, May 1, signed an executive order (EO) that bans illegal contracting and sub-contracting in the Philippines. (RENE LUMAWAG/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)
As the country celebrates its 116th Labor Day, President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, May 1, signed an executive order (EO) that bans illegal contracting and sub-contracting in the Philippines.
The EO was signed by Duterte at the beginning of his speech during a Labor Day event in Cebu City. Malacañang has yet to release a copy of the order.
“More than a century has passed since the very first Labor Day was celebrated and yet the struggle for a better life our beloved workers continue. I assure you that this government will never cease to provide the Filipino worker with full, dignified, and meaningful employment,” Duterte said.
Duterte, who vowed during the campaign to stop “endo” or end of contract, stressed that these workers “deserve no less than decent and comfortable life.”
The EO also prohibits the “undertaking to circumvent the workers’ right to security of tenure.” This means that employers are not allowed to dismiss or remove workers “without just and authorized cause and observance of procedural due process constituent with the labor code as amended.”
“[I hope] that with all I can do legally, there will be an impact on your complaint on security of tenure,” Duterte said.
The President also ordered the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to submit a list of companies suspected to be engaging in illegal labor contracting.
“Your days are numbered. I have warned you before and I have warned you again. Stop ‘endo’ and illegal contracting. I will see to it that the laws are strongly enforced,” he noted.
Duterte also urged Congress to revisit and revise the “outdated” Labor Code as “an executive order is not enough.”
“I can only do so much and a mere executive order is not enough because you have to change or modify or abrogate some of the provisions… I cannot be a legislator, it is not allowed. I can only implement (the laws),” he stressed.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on April 19 said that issuing an EO on endo would be pointless if not enforced strictly.
“Mabigat lang ang issue ng penalty (The issue of penalty is grave) which could not be provided in the proposed EO because only Congress can propose penalty,” Bello said.
Malacañang also sides with Bello’s remark, saying that “an EO can only do so much.”
But while Bello and Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Jr. confirmed that the President had other plans other than signing an EO on endo, the Palace’s latest stand made the previous confirmation unclear.
“I can confirm [that] there might be an EO that may or may not be signed depending on their meeting tonight,” Roque said yesterday, April 30.
The EO was supposed to be signed by Duterte as early as April 16 after it was postponed last March.
