Labor sets protests vs security of tenure bill junking; refiling next

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LABOR groups will mount a mass demonstration on Monday to signal the start of a series of protest expected to culminate in a big indignation rally over the junking of the security of tenure (SOT) bill last week.

Partido Manggagawa (PM) said the first wave of protests will be held in Metro Manila and Cebu to show the outrage of workers over President Duterte’s decision to veto the bill, which took nearly two decades to go through the legislative mill before getting bicameral approval, only to be scuttled at the last minute as business groups mounted a last-ditch lobby against it.

“The security of tenure bill is the latest victim of killing under the Duterte regime. Workers vow to continue the fight to end ‘Endo,‘” declared Wilson Fortaleza, spokesman of Partido Manggagawa, referring to Duterte’s 2016 campaign promise to “end Endo [end of contract],” the catch-all term for illegal contractualization.

Dubbed the “Black Monday Protest,” the noise barrage in Metro Manila will be attended by members of PM, Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) and Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City at 5 p.m.

Sentro Secretary-General Joshua Mata said the militant labor group will also hold a small protest action in Mendiola, Manila, in the morning.

The Cebu protest will be held at the Gate 1 of the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City, also at 5 p.m. “After these events, labor groups will be meeting to discuss the big indignation rally,” Mata said.

During these demonstrations, Fortaleza said they will hold Duterte accountable for “killing” the SOT bill in favor of business interests.
Local and foreign business groups had campaigned against the SOT as crafted by the 17th Congress, despite observations the final version—the Senate bill as adopted by the House of Representatives—was “watered down.”

According to an exclusive BusinessMirror report, a briefing paper sent to Duterte by some employers estimated that in manufacturing alone, business will have to shell out P49 billion annually as additional cost to comply with the measure if it is signed into law.

“Workers will not forget this betrayal by Duterte of his promise to end Endo. He is parroting the lame capitalist alibi that businesses will die if workers are made regular. Duterte’s promise to end Endo is dead,” Fortaleza said.

Refiling next

The protests also aim to drum up public support for their renewed attempt to have the SOT bill refiled in the 18th Congress.

According to labor leaders, several lawmakers have already committed to file the SOT bill, including Senators Joel Villanueva and Risa Hontiveros, and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Party-list Representative Raymond Mendoza.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto prodded Malacañang at the weekend to convene a tripartite summit before it submits to Congress its version of another SOT bill, to avert another veto.

This, even as Villanueva ruled out a congressional override option to reverse the Palace veto.

“Override is an option but I don’t think it’s a viable solution,” Villanueva said over the weekend, adding that “some lawmakers are not comfortable with it.

Villanueva, however, confirmed his readiness to refile the vetoed measure.

“We will refile the bill because it is the right thing to do,” Villanueva vowed.

Palace told: Write own version

For his part, Recto signaled determination to push passage of the bill. “But this time, the Executive Branch should write its own version and send it to Congress with an attached presidential certification as to its urgency,” Recto said, adding: “If it has changed its mind, then the version it now wants must be in black and white, so nothing will be lost in translation.”

Recto explained this is needed because the Palace veto message did not cite the specific provisions that triggered the veto.

“Let the burden of proposition fall on them this time,” the Senate President Pro Tempore said. “But this will be for the information of Congress only, and should not mean that it must be the one passed en toto.”

Better still, Recto recommended that Malacañang convene a tripartite summit on endo, with business, labor and the government in a frank exchange of views.

“Last, this episode underscores once again the need to strengthen its liaison work with Congress. I sympathize with Senator Villanueva who had worked hard on this bill…This was not an easy bill to write. Joel made sure that it was a balanced one. It was a tightrope act under stormy conditions.

Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri recalled it was Duterte who reminded lawmakers about the Security of Tenure bill in his State of the Nation Address in 2018, only to veto it.

“The Cabinet should get their act together as it would make us legislators look stupid and embarrass the President as well, as he mentions these measures during the Sona,” Zubiri said. - By Samuel P. Medenilla & Butch Fernandez

‘Scare tactics’ by bizmen behind SOT bill veto

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MANILA – The usually moderate Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), touted as the country’s biggest labor union, squarely placed on businessmen’s shoulders the blame for the major setback in the enactment of the Security of Tenure Bill, also known as the “End Endo Bill”.

TUCP spokesman Allan Tanjusay said the labor group “blames the scare tactics and deception of capitalists, both local and foreign businesses, for misleading President Duterte in rejecting the bill because it would disincentivize business and investors.”

Permanently putting an end to the often-exploitative practice of labor only contractualization was one of the president’s campaign promises, he added.

The measure aims to outlaw the practice of labor-only contracting or endo (end of contract) which the employers’ sector have been known to perpetuate in order to limit the benefits extended to workers and allow for easy termination of services.

“Business groups threatened our government with frightening scenarios of capital flight, relocation, and increased costs. We remind the foreign chambers, the employers, and the economic managers that dirt cheap and exploitative labor policies are no longer come-ons for investments,” Tanjusay added.

Meantime, a statement released by Malacañang following the bill’s veto said that Duterte merely wants to see some revisions on the bill, to promote fairness and retain ease of doing business in the country, which he also works on to invite more investors to come into the country.

“Our goal has always been to target the abuse while leaving business free to engage in those practices beneficial to both management and workforce,” the president’s statement read.

With the bill expected to be filed again in the 18th Congress, the Palace has reportedly pointed out certain provisions in the measure that need to be changed by its proponents.

This includes allowing certain forms of contractualization that do not specifically do harm to employees, instead of legislating a wholesale ban on short-term labor contracts. The proposed law should also take into account that policies adopted to protect workers should not “oppress or destroy” capital. (PNA)

TUCP asks Duterte to consider workers affected by crackdown on PCSO games

Labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines appeals to President Rodrigo Duterte to institute reforms in the agency as soon as possible to avoid compromising workers' livelihoods

CLOSED. Members of the Philippine National Police, including NCR top cop Guillermo Eleazar (right most), immediately close PCSO establishments following President Rodrigo Duterte's order. NCRPO photo 

MANILA, Philippines – Labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) urged President Rodrigo Duterte to consider the thousands of workers who would be displaced following his order to stop all gaming schemes of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
TUCP said that while it "respects" Duterte's decision to suspend PCSO's operations due to "massive corruption," they hope the agency's attendants were considered in the process.

The group appealed to Duterte to institute reforms in the agency as soon as possible to avoid compromising workers' livelihoods.

"Nakikiusap ang mga manggagawa ng PCSO betting stations na nawalan ng trabaho na kung maaari bilisan ang panahon ng suspension of operations upang sila ay makapagpatuloy sa kanilang trabaho. Nangangamba kasi sila na baka tuluyan na silang mawalan ng trabaho at mawalan ng kabuhayan," TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said on Saturday, July 27. - Sofia Tomacruz

Workers’ groups, solons slam Duterte ‘betrayal’

File photo / Philstar

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines slammed foreign businessmen and their chambers of commerce for interfering in the country’s domestic policy following President Rodrigo Duterte’s veto of the proposed Security of Tenure bill.

“They are engaged in an unwarranted interference in the purely domestic affairs of the Filipino people. They are also infringing [on] our sovereignty. We remind these businessmen and chambers that while we welcome their investments, it should not be at the expense of denying what should rightly be regular jobs for Filipinos,” the group said in a statement Friday.

The TUCP said it took 19 years in Congress for the SOT bill to reach this stage, only to have it blocked by those who “stand in the way of the struggle of Filipino workers and their families’ struggle for decent work through secure and regular jobs.”

The Department of Labor and Employment and labor groups had thrown their full support for the bill.

On Friday, they said President Duterte’s veto would enable companies to keep hiring contractual workers who will be terminated after only five months and rehired on the same contractual basis, as a way to avoid regularizing their workers.

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines, on the other hand, welcomed the veto.

“We’re very glad that Malacañang has finally made up its mind that the security of tenure bill will only lead to loss of jobs and investments,” ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said.

He said ECOP would police its own ranks to end abusive contractual practices.

Duterte clearly turned his back on workers, the TUCP said.

“The most democratic and most peaceful struggle of ordinary workers out of their poverty trap to endo are shut by a man who promised to introduce genuine change and uplift them,” TUCP President Raymond Mendoza said in a statement.

“President Duterte certified the security of tenure bill as an urgent measure in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, saying he did not have the power to end endo and only Congress, which has the legislative power, could do this. Now that Congress has acted on his certification, why veto something he certified as an urgent national bill?”

The TUCP also said the bill was not a disincentive to businesses, who could still hire seasonal and contractual workers.

The Pagkakaisa ng Timog Katagalugan-Kilusang Mayo Uno denounced the President’s veto as a betrayal of his campaign promise to end contractualization.

“Duterte has only put the nail on the coffin on the workers’ call for regular jobs under his administration, Similarly, there remains no justice for the more than 30,000 workers in the Southern Tagalog region that have been declared regular workers but have not returned even for a single minute as regular workers,” Pamantik-KMU said in a statement.

“In light of his betrayal against the people, we enjoin the call to intensify the workers’ fights outside the walls of Congress,” the group said.

Senator Joel Villanueva on Friday led senators in expressing disappointment over the presidential veto, while vowing to refile and prioritize the bill for the 18th Congress.


“Unfortunately, profit wins again with the veto of the SOT bill,” said Villanueva, who chaired the Senate labor committee.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the upper chamber “will refile and prioritize [it]. We will find an acceptable version.”

In a separate text message to GMA News, Sotto said he was “crestfallen but that’s how democracy works, and Congress, being dynamic, can refile [and have the bill passed again].”


Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also said he was saddened with the President’s decision because the Senate worked hard for its passage, as it was certified as urgent.

He said the bill can be refiled but the executive branch “must first get its act together.”

“We have frontline departments [DOLE and NEDA] with opposing views. We are unclear as to what the policy is. The bill passed by Congress essentially mirrors DOLE’s position but apparently the NEDA has a different one—which was eventually concurred with by the President,” Drilon said in a statement.

In the House of Representatives, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas denounced the veto, calling it the President’s “biggest betrayal” of Filipino workers.

She said she and her fellow legislators would file a “stronger” anti-contractualization bill that would plug all the loopholes in the law that allow businesses to engage in job contracting.

“President Duterte’s veto of the security of tenure bill exposes his full allegiance to big businesses which lobbied hard against the measure,” Brosas said. “Despite certifying the measure as urgent and despite prominently vowing to end contractualization during the campaign period, the President pandered to the pleasure of business chambers by killing the anti-endo bill.”

Brosas accused Duterte of acting “in absolute compliance to the business sector’s demand not to sign the security of tenure law in utter disregard of his campaign promise. Duterte chose big business over workers and even over himself.”

“It is very clear in the veto message that the President wants to allow businesses to have the upper hand in outsourcing jobs “regardless of whether this is directly related to their business.”

“This essentially means unli-job contracting that will trap more workers in short-term, low-paying, and unsafe employment,” Brosas added.

Parañaque City Rep. Joy Tambunting said Congress would need to find “a better compromise between labor and management.”

Tambunting is the wife of former Parañaque City Rep. Gus Tambunting, who was the principal author of the measure at the House of Representatives during the 17th Congress. - Joel E. Zurbano and Maricel V. Cruz