The late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, not his successor Corazon Aquino, signed the law that allows “endo” (end of contract), the practice of labor contractualization in the private sector.
A reader asked VERA Files Fact Check to look into an online post by website projectjurisprudence.com, which bore the headline:
“FAKE NEWS! LAW REGULATING ‘ENDO’ (P.D. 442) ENACTED BY MARCOS DURING MARTIAL LAW, NOT BY CORY.”
The post goes on to dispute what it calls “fake” reports by, among others, the Facebook page Radio Dagundong, and that of former broadcaster Jay Sonza, which claimed endo is a legacy of the Aquino administration.
Projectjurisprudence.com is correct.
Presidential Decree 442, the Labor Code of the Philippines, was signed by Marcos May 1, 1974, some 12 years before Aquino took office. Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code allow contracting and subcontracting.
Labor contractualization is when an employer “contracts” or “sources” an employee from an agency.
Under “endo”, workers are forced to enter into a fixed-term contract lasting less than six months, a scheme used by employers to evade regularizing their employees.
In recent months, the labor department found that Jollibee Foods Corporation, Dole Philippines Inc. and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone have failed to regularize thousands of their employees.
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