Anakpawis Party-list and Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) issued these demands, noting that “each budget hearing is an occasion to scrutinize the policies of government agencies, or in the case of the DOLE, how taxpayers’ money will be used to serve the interest of the labor sector.”
The proposed 2017 budget for DOLE is P10.32 billion, or P1.20 billion more than the current 2016 appropriation.
Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao challenged the DOLE “to steer clear from the anti-workers mindset of previous administrations and commit to support the growing demand of the workers for the institutionalization of a P750 national minimum wage.”
“It is important that the budget of DOLE be allocated for purposes of fulfi lling the department’s promises to finally end the reign of ‘endo,’ said Casilao, the principal author of House Bill 556 or the anti-contractualization bill.
Despite Labor Sec. Silvestre Bello’s public statements about the Duterte government’s commitment to stop “endo,” “what the sector of the workers want to see are immediate and more palpable measures, given the urgency and dimension of the ‘endo’ problem in the country.”
Anakpawis cited a study showing that “four out of ten of rank-andfi le workers are in non-regular work or those classifi ed as contractual, probationary, casual, seasonal, apprentice or are agency-hired.”
Anakpawis also said that it supports KMU’s demand to junk DOLE Department Order 18-A series of 2011 which it described as “a set of guidelines that practically teaches employers how to skirt labor laws and implement various forms of ‘endo’”.
“I am assuming, with all the discussions specially on the social and economic reform agenda in the recently held formal peace talks between the GRP and the NDFP in Norway a few weeks ago which Sec. Bello participated in as head of the government panel, that the DOLE chief will consider favorably the demands of the workers. It is however important that the workers themselves remain militant and continue with their campaigns and protest actions,” Casilao said.
