The proposal for a 2-year probationary period for workers is not a solution at all to the long-time woes of Filipino workers. Pahahabain pa nito lalo ang paghihirap ng mga manggagawa. It is a fog in which to hide the real issue.
This ominous fog for a proposal will not only enshroud the actual issue – the abusive ENDO practices – but will also expose our workers to labor malpractice and put them in an employment situation where the attendant abuse is extended to two years, where predatory employers are served even more, and where the precipice and pitfalls are around to deliver our workers to the rocky bottom.
This is worse than 5-5-5. Here, employers can exploit workers’ labor for close to 2 years before cheating them of regularization and depriving them of their lawful benefits. If workers had been made to fall short in finishing their probationary period when it was shorter, how much easier would it be for unscrupulous employers to apply the same trick when the period is longer?
This is a mindless and heartless proposal, and at the core, anti-workers. Worse, it is antithetical to the long overdue anti-ENDO or security of tenure bill.
Perhaps those against the anti-ENDO bill and the forces behind this new proposal should be taught, in the words of Dickens, to shake hands every day with common sense and (labor) justice. ###
(Access the handwritten version of Dispatch from Crame No. 630, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_630)