President Rodrigo Duterte will likely certify as urgent the refiled Security-of-Tenure bill that he vetoed last week, the Palace said Tuesday.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the revised version of the measure will be given priority.
Senator Joel Villanueva on Monday refiled the bill that seeks to protect workers from abusive labor practices, such as labor-only contracting.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, the country’s largest labor union, praised Villanueva for refiling the vetoed bill, which is better known as the “End Endo Bill.”
“We thank Senator Villanueva for filing the Anti-endo bill in the Senate again. We also urge the President to certify it as urgent again,” TUCP spokesman Alan Tanjusay said in a phone interview.
But Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri said Tuesday it made no sense to him that Malacañang would declare the Security-of-Tenure bill a “priority measure and then veto it after its approval.
Zubiri said they were even pressured by Malacañang to approve the bill and were accused of “sitting” on the measure when they failed to immediately act on it.
“They put pressure on us on why we haven’t acted on it. But after the House of Representatives passed it and the Palace came out with the certification that it was a priority measure and the Senate was sitting on it….”
With minor changes, Villanueva said, his bill was the “same measure that was certified as urgent by the President himself.”
President Duterte had previously defended his decision to veto the bill that supposedly snapped his campaign promise to end labor-only contracting, drawing criticism from labor groups and lawmakers.
“You do not make it hard for the capitalist also to move,” Duterte said, citing the need to strike a balance between the interests of businesses and workers.
The TUCP said in a statement it would also refile the same bill in the House of Representatives next week.
Labor Secretary Silvestro Bello III said his department was working on a new proposal it would submit to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council by Monday, Aug. 5.
“The mere fact he allowed us to review this bill is a step forward…This is not the end of their cause…I understand that there is a LEDAC [meeting] on Monday, so I hope we have a formulation so it can be presented to the President,” Bello said in a press conference Monday. With PNA and Macon Ramos-Araneta
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