Palace: Duterte, Congress Need to Join Hands to Abolish ‘Endo’

President Rodrigo R. Duterte is still bent on fulfilling his campaign promise to end labor contractualization or “endo,” after Malacanang said the President could coordinate and discuss with Congress to come up with a measure that would totally ban endo.

Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra made this comment a day after he said that an EO alone was not enough to abolish endo, but an action from Congress.

“Just because an executive order can’t ban contractualization doesn’t mean that the President has turned his back on his promise to end contractualization because the President can still do it with consultation or in coordination with Congress,” Guevarra said in a Palace briefing.

Guevarra, however, reiterated that Congress needed to step in and create a law to repeal or amend that particular provision of the Labor Code.

According to him, the EO is meant “only to supplement” what the law provides but it cannot add, subtract or substantially alter it.

“That’s really more for Congress to do,” Guevarra said.

Guevarra earlier said that the Office of the President is currently trying to “harmonize” all draft EOs submitted to them.

“We are still trying to do our best to come up with an executive order that can be acceptable to the labor sector,” Guevarra said.

He said that if labor groups are still unhappy with the EO they would come up with, they would resort to consultations with Congress.

Last month, Duterte sought for a “compromise” on endo, stressing how difficult it was to force employers to abolish the practice completely.

Labor group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa (ALU-TUCP-Nagkaisa), meanwhile, remains hopeful that Duterte would fulfill his campaign promise to end endo. (PNA)