EDITORIAL - Broken promise

President Rodrigo Duterte has broken a major promise that served as a crucial factor in his surging popularity and eventual victory in the 2016 elections. And this has something to do with the labor sector.

Last Friday, Malacañang announced that the president vetoed a bill that seeks to ensure employment security in the country, saying the measure becoming a law would be unfair to the business sector.

The “End Endo bill,” which Duterte certified as urgent in September last year, seeks to put an end to the practice of many businesses of labor-only contracting, or the so-called “endo” or “end of contract.”

However, the proposed measure, Duterte told the House of Representatives in a letter, "unduly broadens the scope and definition of prohibited labor-only contracting" because it puts many businesses in a bad situation even if their contracts are "not particularly favorable to the employees involved."

Duterte’s move came after businessmen urged him to veto the bill. “Job contracting as an exercise of management prerogative and business judgment is anchored on two constitutional rights: right and freedom to contract and right to property,” a Philstar.com report read.

The president’s move will surely be a blow to the labor sector, as many have hoped that the Duterte administration will aggressively go after those abusive employers as what was promised during his campaign for the presidency.

Duterte has a lot of explaining to do to the labor sector about why he vetoed the “End Endo bill.” That is because it was his promise before he became president to end the longtime abusive practices against ordinary workers.

Many in the labor sector had high hopes that only this present administration can put an end to the practice of labor-only contracting. But by vetoing the proposed measure, many of them believe that Duterte succumbed to the will of the businessmen.