MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) decided yesterday to defer the implementation of the new government policy on contractual employment.

After meeting with different workers’ groups, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III agreed to subject the DOLE’s new department order (DO) to further deliberations.

Jose Sonny Matula, Federation of Free Workers (FFW) president, said the DOLE obliged the workers’ demand to submit the DO to the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC).

“There is no (DO) yet on contracting out of work. There will be discussion in the tripartite council where workers, employers and the government are represented,” Matula quoted Bello as saying.

Matula said the 200,000-strong FFW welcomed Bello’s pronouncement and the labor group would continue to fight for the workers’ right to security of tenure before the NTIPC.

NTIPC is the DOLE’s main consultative and advisory body. It provides a venue for labor, employers and government to discuss policy issuances of the DOLE.

While the new DO is an improvement of DO 18-A or the regulations governing contracting and subcontracting arrangements, Matula said workers were strongly against it due to insufficiency to combat the evils of contractualization.

Matula said workers would continue to lobby for the adoption of laws that strengthen the right to security of tenure and criminalize labor-only contracting and other schemes of contractualization.

Bello previously announced that DOLE was issuing on Dec. 28 a new DO regulating contractual employment. He said the DO would be presented to President Duterte for approval.

There has been a report that Duterte was amenable to the new policy even as workers were protesting it.

The DOLE hopes to start the full implementation of the new policy by early 2017.

But Labor Undersecretary Dominador Say admitted that Bello was yet to sign the new DO as of yesterday afternoon.

Say confirmed that the DO would be submitted to the NTIPC by Jan. 14 for further deliberations.

However, Say said he was not expecting major revisions to the DO even after undergoing deliberations at the NTIPC.

Say denied reports that the President rejected the DO and ordered the DOLE to draft a new policy on contractualization.

Labor coalition Nagkaisa said workers succeeded in stopping the issuance of a new policy favoring employers after Bello listened to the workers’ call for crafting a new DO on contractualization.

Nagkaisa said all DOLE undersecretaries were expected to come up with separate drafts that would be consolidated and submitted to the NTIPC.