Broken promise: Philippines Duterte vetoes bill on short-term contracts

MANILA, July 26 (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo
Duterte has vetoed a measure that would have ended companies'
practice of hiring workers on short-term contracts, his
spokesman said on Friday, 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 contracts that run five months, 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," the
spokesman, Salvador Panelo, told reporters via a messaging app,
but did not elaborate on why Duterte threw out the bill, which
he had called urgent in September.
Without the veto, the bill would have become law on
Saturday. To override Dueterte's veto requires a two-thirds vote
of the members of each house of Congress.
Labour groups said Duterte risked losing his political
capital for turning away from the workers.
"It really hurts us because this is the president's campaign
promise," Alan Tanjusay, a spokesman of the Associated Labor
Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, the country's
biggest such grouping, 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.
Both house of 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.
Not only will it raise business costs, limiting the number
of people they can hired, but they said the bill would 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 $9.8 billion into the
Philippines last year is 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," they added.