Catherwood LibraryILR School

After his election in 2016, President Duterte promised to protect the 2 million Filipino workers who suffer under temporary contracts that deny them many of the benefits of regular employment. However, a full year later, many are skeptical of his ability to deliver on his promise of ending the practice of permanent contractualization, especially since the Philippines does not have a strong history of labor protection. Organized labor often struggles to fight against the entrenched political elite, who are often backed by big business, and therefore tend to dominate economic policy. The private sector has argued against ending fixed-term contracts because it may adversely affect their profit margins, but workers have argued that maintaining labor standards and offering benefits to workers is a more important issue.