By Butch Fernandez & Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas
WITH President Duterte having certified as urgent the measure ending illegal contractualization and “end of contract” (endo) practices, the Senate leadership has committed to pass their version of what is billed the “Security of Tenure” (SOT) bill before the next session break in October, with hopes of ensuring enactment into law soon after.
This, as a member of the House of Representatives suggested that the Senate incorporate the House of the Representatives’s own SOT bill into their own version to fast-track the approval of a law by
shortcutting the bicameral conference committee process.
The Senate “will try before this break,” Senate President Vicente Sotto III said, in reply to a query from the BusinessMirror on whether, given Duterte’s September 21 certification, the senators will move to front-load its consideration for early
plenary deliberations.
Asked if he sees the Senate passing it before the long Christmas recess, he said they, in fact, want it done before the break from October 13 to November 11.
Sen. Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva, chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, and prime champion of the SOT bill, said their panel had scheduled it this week for plenary debates. “We hope and pray that we’ll be able to pass it before Christmas break, pamasko namin sa ating mga dakilang manggagawa [as our Christmas gift to our great workers].”
In late-May Villanueva released Committee Report 392, embodying Senate Bill 1826, or “An Act strengthening workers right to security of tenure, amending for the purpose articles 106, 107, 108 and 109 of Book III, and Articles 294 [279], 295 [280], 296, [281], and 297 [282] of Book VI of Presidential Decree 442, otherwise known as the Labor Code of the Philippines, as amended?”
For his part, Sen. Francis G. Escudero, who chairs the Banks committee and is an advocate of the SOT bill, was even more optimistic of early passage. “Definitely! In fact, probably even before we go on recess this October,” he told the BusinessMirror by way of SMS.
Escudero said he “talked to the Committee Chairman [Villanueva] and Majority Leader [Sen. Juan Miguel F. Zubiri] about this…and that is precisely what they already plan to do. We expect it on the floor by next week,” referring to the first week of October.
Sen. Aquilino L. Pimentel III promised the chamber’s “best effort,” adding, “but that has been a priority ever since” Duterte listed the end to endo as his administration’s priority for endorsement during his third State of the Nation Address (Sona) in July.
Duterte wrote the letter to Sotto dated September 21, requesting the “immediate enactment” of Senate Bill 1826.
Reacting to that letter, Villanueva said, “We laud the move of the President certifying our security of tenure bill as a priority measure. It is important that we pass this into law to finally put an end to work schemes like endo and labor-only contracting.”
According to Villanueva, the practice of contractualization affects more than 1.9 million workers in the private sector. Overall, about 3 out of 10 Filipino workers are not regular and 1 out of 2 nonregular workers are contractual.
Once passed into law, Villanueva said the measure would remove the ambiguities in the Labor Code, which is the source of circumventions, and: (a.) prohibit labor-only contracting, and provide penalties for violation; (b.) limit job contracting to licensed and specialized services; (c.) classify workers
into regular and probationary employees—and treat project and seasonal employees as regular employees; (d.) provide security of tenure; (e.) clarify standards on probationary employment; and (f.) provide “Transition Support Program” for employees while they are not at work or transitioning in between jobs.
“Senate Bill 1826 is clear enough to meet the interests of the labor sector and the interests of the business sector,” the
senator said.
The Security of Tenure bill is “pro-labor, pro-business and pro-Filipino,” he declared, while assuring businessmen and employers anxious about the impact on their bottomline that ending abusive work schemes will also benefit industries.
‘Merge House, Senate versions’
Meanwhile, Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy of Bagong Henerasyon Party-list said the incorporation of the House version into the Senate’s SOT version would speed up the process as it would no longer require convening a bicameral conference committee.
“To speed up the process, the Senate can incorporate the House version into their consolidated bill based on SB 1826, so that there would later be no need to convene a bicameral conference committee. All that would be needed is House concurrence to the approved Senate version because the effect of that is the same as ratification,” Dy said in a statement on Sunday.
Dy is a coauthor of House Bill 6908, which seeks to end contractualization in the country.
“Amending the Labor Code is just half the battle because there are at least 660,000 contractuals, job orders and casuals working in government now,” she said.