Let’s put an end to ‘endo’

One of the most dreaded words among the working class Filipinos is “endo,” short for ‘end of contract,’ causing anxiety among those hired with no guarantee of passing the maximum six-month probation regardless of their level of efficiency as companies try to avoid the cost of regular employment.

This has been going on since the 1970s, even if the law clearly prohibited, as it still does, the practice of labor-only contracting, because employers have found loopholes in the Labor Code. And if we are to believe Senator Franklin Drilon, himself a Labor secretary during the term of then-President Corazon C. Aquino, endo is symptomatic of even greater problems in the system, including an oversupply of labor vis-à-vis the absence of labor opportunities.