MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo said Wednesday that she will certify the Security of Tenure Bill as urgent if she is elected president.
“Kailangan nang ipasa ng Kongreso na kapag nakaupo tayo ay gagawin nating, ise-certify as urgent natin. Iyong isa dito yung pagpasa ng Security of Tenure Bill sa Kongreso na long overdue,” Robredo said in an interview over Radyo Veritas.
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(Congress must pass these laws which if we get to sit in office, we will certify as urgent. One of these is the passage of the Security of Tenure Bill in Congress which is long overdue.)
Robredo added that she will also push to amend the Labor Code to clarify provisions on what types of contracting are allowed.
Workers’ groups have long been pushing for the passage of the Security of Tenure Bill, which seeks to end the practice of contractualization or “endo” where workers’ contracts end on the fifth month to avoid regularizing them.
This measure has been languishing in Congress for years, but a breakthrough appeared when President Rodrigo Duterte came into office with the promise of ending endo.
Duterte certified the measure as urgent, only to veto it when it reached his desk as it “unduly broadens the scope and definition of prohibited labor-only contracting, effectively proscribing forms of contractualization that are not particularly unfavorable to employees involved."
"I believe 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 Filipino workers in the long term," the president said in his veto message.