“Niloko at nilinlang lamang kami ng pamahalaang Duterte,” a fiery Jerome Adonis, secretary-general of the labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), told the Collegian. The past five years under the Duterte administration has brought nothing but fear and dismay for workers like him, he said.
In what seemed like a complete turnaround from his campaign promises in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte has utterly left the country’s labor sector in tatters. Contractualization, unlivable wages, mass unemployment and underemployment, along with an insidious crackdown on labor unions, continue to define the present administration’s labor policies.
During the initial phase of his presidency, workers finally had hope that Duterte would fulfill his campaign promises and enact pro-worker policies during his term. Foremost among the president’s promises is his pledge to finally end the longstanding practice of contractualization in the country. Under this scheme, workers are employed under fixed-term contracts that only give temporary employment, usually lasting for less than six months.
Instead of keeping its promise, the administration instead went the opposite route, legitimizing the practice with the Department Order 174 released by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in 2017. “Itong department order na ito ay nagtatakda lamang na maging regular ang manggagawa sa agency,” Adonis noted. “Ayaw namin noon sapagkat ang manggagawa dapat ay regular at direktang employado ng kanyang principal na kompanya at wala dapat in-between.”
This was the first in a long list of disappointments faced by the labor sector under Duterte’s leadership, which has a troubling habit of kowtowing to powerful business interests.
More disturbing is the president’s veto of the Security of Tenure Bill in 2019. The proposed law sought to finally end the labor contracting scheme, but the president bowed down to pressure from the country’s powerful local and foreign business groups, which warned that the end of contractualization would supposedly impact the economy adversely.
Notably, the Philippine government itself is the largest employer of contractual workers in the country. With 600,000 civil servants employed under short-term contracts of service, the bureaucracy is still very much reliant on contractual labor. DOLE, for the most part, has kept mum on the fact, despite being flagged by the Senate in 2018 for allowing the practice to persist.
President Duterte’s promise of substantial wage increase also never materialized, Adonis noted. “Itong administrasyon na ito ang pinakabarat! Sa loob ng limang taon, dalawang beses lang nagtaas ng sahod sa kabila ng patuloy na pagmahal ng bilihin,” he said.
Out of all the post-EDSA administrations, the Duterte government has been the stingiest when it comes to increasing workers’ wages (see sidebar). The cumulative increase from the two wage hikes translated to a measly 9.4% rise in workers’ salaries—a far cry from the 46% seen during the first Aquino administration. The rate of wage increase under the present government has also been the slowest, with a long gap of 22 months in between hikes.
Most insidious of all has been the Duterte administration’s systematic attacks against labor leaders and unions, which the government has indiscriminately lumped along with all other opposition groups.
Karapatan has already recorded 230 cases of activists murdered under the Duterte administration—a sizable portion of which comes from workers’ groups. A total of 56 labor leaders have already been summarily executed, with countless more illegally detained on trumped-up charges. In fact, KMU has already seen 30 of its prominent leaders arrested.
“Hanggang ngayon, yung mga union members namin hina-harass, pinupuntahan isa-isa sa mga bahay para takutin,” Adonis shared. “May mga dokumentong pwersahang pinapirma sa kanila para mag-disaffiliate mula sa KMU. Tatlong unyon ng mga manggagawa na ang napilitang mag-disaffiliate mula sa KMU dahil sa pananakot ng mga pwersa ng estado.”
The botched pandemic response, Adonis added, has proven to be disproportionately disastrous for workers like him. At the height of the crisis, 12 million Filipinos were left either unemployed or underemployed. The meager cash assistance has proven to be extremely inadequate for most. “Dahil sa kayabangan ng pangulo sa pagha-handle ng pandemya, nagresulta ito sa matinding paghihirap ng mga manggagawa,” Adonis said.
“Nasa context na kami ngayon ng paniningil sa mga nabigong pangako. Alam na nating walang maasahan ang mga manggagawa sa mga binitawan ng pangulong mga salita,” a passionate Adonis told the Collegian. “Andito na tayo sa pagwasak ng estruktura ng nabubulok na sistemang kinakatawan ni Duterte, at posibleng ituloy ng susunod na administrasyon.”
No doubt, the president will brandish his administration’s supposed accomplishments in his coming State of the Nation Address. For workers like Adonis, these words will ring hollow, for the statements are sure to be half-truths and misrepresentations of the reality they live with daily. Workers like him, he said, will be the arbiters of truth, and they know full well how the past five years have been. ●
