Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vetoed a measure that would have ended companies’ practice of hiring workers on short-term contracts, his spokesman said yesterday, reneging on a campaign promise that helped put him in office.
Philippine law lets employers hire workers to meet demand at peak times by using five-month contracts to avoid a six-month rule that requires employers to give them permanent job status and provide health and other benefits.
“Security Tenure Bill vetoed by the president,” spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters via a messaging app, but did not elaborate on why Duterte threw out the bill, which he had in September last year called urgent.
To override the veto requires a two-thirds vote of the members of each house of Congress.
Labor groups said that Duterte risked losing his political capital for turning away from the workers.
“It really hurts us, because this is the president’s campaign promise,” Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines spokesman Alan Tanjusay told news channel ANC.
“He said: ‘I need a law to address contractualization,’ and now that there is a law, he vetoed the bill,” Tanjusay added.
Congress had overwhelmingly approved the measure, despite warnings by employers’ groups and business chambers that it could do the Philippine economy more harm than good in the long term.
They said that not only would it raise business costs, limiting the number of people who can be hired, but it would also drive away investors at a time when the Philippines seeks to attract foreign capital to boost economic growth and create jobs.
Foreign direct investment of US$9.8 billion in the Philippines last year was dwarfed by rivals such as Thailand and Indonesia, and the government is eager to boost the figure by slashing red tape and overhauling infrastructure.
“The passage of the bill could have a negative impact to the Philippine economy and to the workers whom the bill aims to protect,” more than a dozen business groups, including foreign business chambers, said in a joint statement this month. “The bill impinges on management prerogatives anchored on the constitution, and it excludes contract workers hired by government agencies.”
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS