ABOUT 25,000 contractual employees have been regularized since the Duterte administration assumed office, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said on Tuesday.
“As of two weeks ago, we already registered the regularization of not less then 25,000 contractuals. That’s a big thing,” Bello said in a press conference.
Ending labor contractualization practices is among the campaign promise of President Rodrigo Duterte.
But while Bello welcomed the positive development, he admitted that the number of employees freed from contractualization is a small fraction, “probably less than 10 percent of the entire workforce in the country today.”
Despite this, Bello said the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) is doing its best to keep the vow of the President to attain a zero “illegal, illegitimate contractual arrangement.”
Bello said the government would make sure that employees will be provided their Constitutional right to the security of tenure and the right to unionism.
He also expressed optimism that their target to end contractualization by 2017 is “doable.”
“So far, the result of our efforts is good,” the Labor Secretary said. “The target to have zero illegal contractuals by the end of year 2017 is doable.”
Bello, however, could not speak on the status of the contractual employees in the government.
He reiterated that the fate of the public employees is not dictated by the Dole because the agency only handles the private sector.
Bello said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Civil Service Commission (CSC) are the agencies that can end the government contractualization.
“The government workers are beyond our jurisdiction,” Bello said.
“It is up to the DBM and the [CSC to decide]. We only handle the workers in the private sector,” he added. (Sunnex)