“Change is coming.

” President Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected on the said campaign slogan intended
to stay on the same subject when he delivered his 2018 3rd State of the Nation Address. In the first two
months of his administration, he has caught the attention not only of the Asia-Pacific region but also of
other international communities as well due to his unconventional way of trying to improve the lives of
the Filipinos. Apart from his tough orders on eliminating drugs, he vowed to abolish contractual
employment as he believes it “will kill the Filipino Skill”. In addition, he said that he would be
“unforgiving” of companies that continue to practice contractualization. He warns that he would close
down companies and take away permits if companies were found to be practicing contractualization.

While DOLE says, over 60,000 workers have been regularized since it started its campaign
against contractualization in mid-2016., it was found out that there are still 3,337 companies that have
been found to be engaged or suspected to be into labor-only contracting or other illegal contracting or
sub-contracting schemes that violate an employee's right to security of tenure. Out of the total, DOLE
said it has so far found that 767 companies are into such illegal practices. From June 2016 to April 2018,
DOLE has inspected 99,526 out of the over 900,000 establishments nationwide. In addition, it has
submitted the initial list to Malacañang and was not immediately clear if all the top 20 companies
identified are among those confirmed to be engaged in illegal contracting practices.