It has been a year since he took office, but all that President Rodrigo Duterte has given Filipino workers were “false expectations” and “unfulfilled promises,” according to several labor groups.

"We tried to rate the President’s performance as objectively as we can, but the outcomes for labor over his first 365 days have been generally wanting, have given us false expectations and given us many unfulfilled promises,” said the workers groups in a joint statement.

Members of the Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro), the Partido Manggagawa (PM), the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), the National Federation of Labor Unions (Naflu), and the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (Palea) gathered at the Boy Scout Circle along Timog Avenue in Quezon City to protest against Duterte’s administration labor policies.

They were also joined by members of the World March of Women and Ateneo University’s Union of Students for the Advancement of Democracy (USAD).

The groups said “contractualization did not stop” despite the Department of Labor and Employment’s prohibition on the “end-of-contract” or “endo” scheme in the country.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III issued Department Order 174, Series of 2017 in March, which banned repeated hiring of employees by contractors under an employment contract of short duration that falls short of the mandated six months to qualify for regularization.

The groups said that Duterte “has done no executive action to address the rampant contractualization.”

“We have always advocated for a prohibition of all forms of contractualization and a stop to the abusive operations of manpower agencies and manpower cooperatives,” they said.

“The President himself at his assumption to power and in his first meeting with labor groups early this year openly expressed disgust over these as they ‘abused workers,’ using his words,” the groups added.

Meanwhile, the groups lamented how wages remained low despite the chief executive’s promise to raise them and abolish the system of provincial rates, which are much lower than the rates in urban areas.

“In the meantime, the real value of wages continues to drop, power rates and prices of basic goods and services continue to climb, making it more burdensome for the working class. Meanwhile, the collection of exorbitant placement and other fees from OFWs have not been addressed sufficiently if at all,” they said.

They added that “unemployment and underemployment problems continue to weigh down on a large number of Filipino workers.”

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in April 2017 from 6.1 percent a year. Meanwhile, underemployment reached its lowest level in more than 10 years at 16.1 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

“In sum, it was ’Isang B(D)igong Taon’ on the labor front for President Duterte’s first year in office,” the group’s said on Duterte’s performance.

“It is expected when a leader quickly descends into a wrong war that only resulted [in] thousands of unsolved killings... while surveys have consistently showed that inflation, wages, and employment remain the top concerns of every Filipino,” the groups said.

Despite these, the groups gave Duterte a “passing mark” for being the first chief executive to endorse the International Labor Organization Convention 151 or the Labor Relations in the public sector for Senate concurrence.

MARLLY ROME C. BONDOC, GMA News