(Eagle News) – While he welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to certify as urgent a Senate bill that proposes an end to contractualization, Senator Joel Villanueva said that an executive order (EO) was necessary to craft a useful and effective law addressing “endo.”
According to Villanueva, who authored Senate Bill 1116, the President’s EO will “provide the framework and guidance for the implementation of a national policy on contractualization.”
Filed by Villanueva in September 2016, SB 1116 “seeks to provide stricter regulations on contractualization and simplifies the classification of employees to regular and probationary, and treats project and seasonal employees as regular employees.”
It also seeks to prohibit “labor-only or manpower contracting” and “what constitutes unfair labor practice in contracting/subcontracting arrangement,” reiterating the “right to security of tenure,” among others.
“We should know the clear position of the executive on this matter. We want to ensure that what we are legislating is useful and effective,” Villanueva said.
According to Villanueva, he “intends to call” the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for another “round of discussion” before the release of the bill committee report when Congress session resumes this May.
“We have been actively coordinating with the DOLE since we believe that their inputs are crucial to ensure that the proposed measure will adequately address the realities on the ground. As the implementing agency in-charge of enforcing the laws on contractualization, we believe that the DOLE’s participation in the policy-making process is crucial,” the senator explained.
“We will release the committee report as soon as we finished circulating the draft to the senators for inputs,” he added.