Senatorial aspirant Sonny Matula, who is running under the ticket of Vice President Leni Robredo, said on Sunday, October 31, that presidential aspirant Manila Mayor Isko Moreno is not fit to become president after his remarks that ending contractualization is not a priority if he wins.

Matula, a lawyer and president of the Federation of Free Workers, said that the issue of contractualization, in whatever form, is an issue of “exploitation of labor and an attack on the fundamental right of workers to security of tenure.”

“Setting the issue of contractualization aside shows that workers are not in his platform, so we think Mr. Moreno doesn’t have the right to be president,” Matula, who is also the spokesman for the Alliance of Labor Leaders for Leni (ALL4Leni), added in a statement.

The group asked Moreno to reconsider his position on the end of contractualization (ENDO).

The statement said that workers do not only deserve any kind of job, as the Manila mayor said in his remark, but it has to be “a decent and secure job.”

"It was definitely ill-advised for Mr. Isko Moreno to dismiss the importance of regularization of jobs to Filipino workers. Ending contractualization should be on top of the menu for any person vying for the presidency”, Matula said.

“We would like to remind all candidates that the protection to labor anchored on social justice is a priority under the 1987 Constitution. Ignoring security of tenure in favor of business interests is a manifestation of abandoning social justice and protection to labor,” he added.

In a recent interview, the presidential aspirant said that putting an end to ENDO will not be in his administration’s top priority if he wins the presidency next year.

Instead, he wants Filipinos to have jobs—even temporary ones—since thousands of businesses are still struggling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. He also said that he will consider ENDO once the economy recovers.

ENDO is the practice of renewing a worker’s contract every six months instead of giving them full employee status with benefits such as health care and social security.

Ending contractualization was one of the unfulfilled campaign promises of President Duterte, who asked Congress in 2018 to pass legislation that will stop contractualization.

However, he vetoed a bill that was passed by Congress and did not certify the bill anew as urgent, Nor did he promise to act on it again in his final State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July.