FOR more than a century, May 1 has been celebrated as “Araw ng mga Manggagawa.” The first Philippine Labor Day celebration was in 1903, when Filipino workers protested against “American capitalism and imperialism” — a recurring theme that underpinned countless labor marches since then. These occurrences, peaceful or otherwise, produced results: enactment of the 8-hour day work, weekly days off, safe working environment and the right to collective bargaining agreements.

The origin of Labor Day is undetermined, but certain dates have been commemorated. May 4, 1886 was one such in Haymarket Square in Chicago where a peaceful protest in support of workers’ demand for an 8-hour workday turned violent, resulting in the deaths of police officers and injury to dozens of civilians. It will be recalled that the industrial revolution that started in Great Britain had the workingmen and even children working from 12 hours or more a day.

Since then, Labor Day in America is celebrated on the first Monday in September with the workers’ ideological anthem reverberating over the years — “8 hours for work. 8 hours for rest. 8 hours for what we will.”

PH labor scene
Laborers and peasant street protests in the Philippines historically echo the ideological divide in Europe brought about by the logical transition from the decay of feudalism towards capitalism, the core of the industrial revolution, where the confrontation of labor and capital has become rampant.

As a method of collective expression of dissatisfaction against government and authority, grievances against landlords and the upper-class — justified or not — protest and marches have become the primary tools with sharpened technology by the extreme left and right of the political spectrum.

‘Endo’
A multitude of issues confront labor, but the most irritating and contemporary is the endo. Short for end-of-contract employment of a worker’s fixed short-term work, where employees are hired for a specific number of months (six months) and automatically terminated — skirting the “regularization of employment” when other benefits like PhilHealth, SSS benefits, Medicare, vacation leaves, etc. kick in. This notorious practice has been prevalent in the country for decades and labor and capital are conflicted on the issue.

In the presidential campaign of 2015-2016, the candidate most vocal against contractualization was the Deegong. His stand that endo is not for the country endeared him to labor and the masses. “I will end it. It will not be my policy when elected,” he said. He punctuated it with a bluster that has become his signature gambit, “I challenge those who disagreed with me to make sure I lose the presidential race.” And he got the nod of the guileless labor sector.

But this year’s May 1 (Labor Day) manifesto and declaration morphed into a more drastic play on endo — giving it a much more lethal meaning. As translated from Filipino: “A ruined economy, massive destruction of jobs, rising prices of goods and services, inadequate aid, poor health response, intensified repression of trade union and human rights, endless disrespect of women, and the surrender of the West Philippine Sea to China, the point of view of workers, sum up and represent Duterte’s failed leadership, thus the Labor Day call for “ENDOterte, or an end to the Duterte administration.” To understand this menu of complaints toward a rising frustration, a cursory review from the start of PRRD’s regime to the present could be a guide.

Devil’s timeline (courtesy of TUCP)
It all started on March 16, 2017 when the Department of Labor (DoLE) released Department Order 174, setting strict guidelines on contractualization. But one clause labor considers obnoxious was inserted: “under this order, manpower agencies that hire these employees — not the main employers — are ordered to regularize their workers.” Labor was up in arms on this “betrayal of DU30’s campaign promise.” Adding salt to the wound was a subsequent declaration: “Prohibition of all forms of contractualization is beyond the powers of the secretary of labor. DoLE can only regulate contracting and subcontracting.”

Labor Day 2017
In April 2017, PRRD allowed the drafting of a substitute executive order (EO), with labor’s input and subsequently a bold declaration on May 1, 2017, Labor Day: “I stand firm in my conviction to stop ‘endo.’ Workers have a right to security of tenure. To this end, I will create an executive order directing strict provisions against ‘endo.’” This turned out to be a “forked-tongue” statement by the President in an obvious pattern of guile. By November 2017, after months of dillydallying, DoLE and labor agreed to a draft EO prohibiting labor-only contracting with certain exemptions instead of just regulating the practice.

By Jan. 17, 2018, after months of stalling, Duterte vowed to sign an EO against contractualization “anytime soon.” On March 15, 2018. Duterte misses his own “anytime soon” deadline. Pissed off, labor groups decided to bare its fangs and marched to Mendiola to denounce the delay.

Then a bombshell from senior deputy executive secretary Menardo Guevarra: “The total ban itself is something we cannot do by EO…substantial provisions can only be achieved by amending the country’s Labor Code — an act the legislative branch can do, but not the executive branch.”

This game of “moro-moro” continued until the fifth version of the draft EO was scheduled to be signed by PRRD on April 16. Two days prior, Malacañang announced the signing had been postponed for the next Labor Day on May 1, 2018.

Labor Day 2018
Then, a cop-out! “Much as I would like to do the impossible, that power is not vested upon me by the Constitution. And neither will I make both ends meet even if I violate the laws to achieve that purpose. Simply, it is not part of my territory,” the President said. After washing his hands of signing an EO, Duterte sent to Congress an urgent security of tenure (SoT) bill — this time against the vehement objections of the business community.

Congress did its part to enact Senate Bill 1826 and the End of Endo Act of 2018. The Lower House subsequently adopted a watered-down version of the bill. It has probably never occurred to the ingenuous labor sector that both houses of Congress are bastions of the oligarchy. This naiveté verging on labor stupidity was pervasive — with their position of “better than nothing.” The Federation of Free Workers, Partido Manggagawa and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines argue that while the bill has its weaknesses, it can still be used to improve the situation of millions who suffer from contractualization schemes.

In a final insult to labor, after months of being screwed, on July 26, 2019, Duterte officially vetoed the SoT that he himself had sent to Congress as urgent.

2019, 2020 Labor Day
The saga continues with Congress stringing along labor with a passage of another bill — House Bill 7036 with all sorts of convoluted definitions of illegal contractualization. At this juncture, one can hardly sympathize with labor’s plight. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice – shame on both of us.” Five labor days, they have been screwed. Next is election week 2022 — another traditional Labor Day castration. Today’s call for ENDOterte is a sad testament to the dominance of the man with the balls doing labor’s emasculation. Sad!