I.

Introduction

Employment is a vital aspect in the life of an average Filipino. In order to survive in

today’s challenging economic state, one must have a decent job with good pay.
Although this may sound simple, having a good job is actually pretty tough now a days
especially with all the changes that the current administration is trying to push through.
So for most Filipinos who are below the middle class, any job would actually do and this
paved the way for the trend of contractualization.
Contractualization is the practice of hiring employees for a given amount of time,
usually lasting for only a few months. This may also be defined as a work arrangement
whereby workers are only hired for only about 5 months without security of tenure,
monetary, non-monetary, and social protection benefits. In the Philippines, this has
been a system long practiced by a lot of companies, especially large companies who
would want to keep their profits up. This context is not altogether illegal where such
kind of hiring is really needed by the business. The law allows employment in a project
with pre-agreed termination date as well as seasonal employment, and fixed-period
employment. Even the hiring of temporary replacements of striking employees is
allowed.

Even with the current President’s statement regarding ending contractualization, a lot of
workers are still under it and ENDO is still a sad reality many Filipino workers have to
dwell upon. This study aims to hear the voice of contractual workers and discover how
they deal with contractualization. It also aims to find out whether contractualization has
to be dissolved altogether or if it is inevitable in the industry.

II. Process:

The process of the creation of this paper started by analyzing what makes this project
different from the other projects given to us that makes it difficult to accomplish this
easily. To best describe it, we relate it to the value of one-peso coin between now and
in the past. One-peso coin was such a big amount of money in the past to the point
that it can be enjoyed in one full meal, but now, as time goes by, its value has become
smaller and smaller. In short, we are facing a dilemma right now that affect our fellow
countrymen, especially those who are in the lower class and this problem resulted in
different working issues like contractualization.

This project was made by magnifying every part of our world by taking a look at it not
as a whole, but by every piece of it to reveal what is really happening in real life.
Deciding who to pick from, all the population of the workers involved in
contractualization is not as easy as setting an appointment and interviewing a
successful businessman since we have to dwell on how they struggle in life and be
sensitive enough to look deeper on how they see life considering their situation.

During the interview we look for workers who have available time to share their insights
on how they feel regarding contractualization. To best describe everything their eyes
will show how they really feel. Most of them really do not prefer contractualization but
choose to stay in their job since it's the best resort they can do to look for money that
may sustain their daily needs. The process of accomplishing this paper gives us the
chance to widely open our eyes and accept the fact that as a Filipino, we still have that
attitude came from the patriarchal period in which there are some people who are
pushed to stop studying to help their parents work and give money to the family.
During the interview we were given the chance to look at contractualization not just as
bad thing in our society, but we consider it as a solution to the rising problem we faced
which is unemployment. Some of the interviewee in our group are workers from the
furniture business of one of our group mates wherein she was able to talk to them
casually but still able to get professional answers sufficient enough to provide
information needed in this paper, some also interviewed workers through phone calls
which is also convenient on both party, others choose to talk to workers during their
working hours by simply throwing them questions while buying and some were able to
interviewed workers by chance when they happened to walk together.

III. Results

Our group was able to interviewed 15 respondents. Only 3 are males and the rest are
females. Most of the respondents are in the age from 20 to 35 and one 40 and 50 years
old. Twelve out of 15 respondents prefer that there is no contractualization and 3 are in
favor of it. Some of the reasons why they do not prefer contractualization are having
low labor cost, they usually work long hours, they can be easily replaced and no
benefits. One of them said that being a contractual worker is not safe and illegal. We
have 3 respondents who prefer that there is contractualization. According to them,
being a contractual worker also has benefits. One female single respondent said that
being a contractual worker provides income while waiting for her preferred career. It
also opens a door to be a permanent, so a worker will strive to work hard to be
permanent. Another respondent who agree with contractualization is a female working
student. It helps with her studies and she is thankful for having a good employer who
provides a good salary too even without a benefits.
 IV. Recommendation:

We do not recommend to not implement the contractualization by the government

since it saves people of the Philippines from poverty. People who does not have any
degree may give an impact to their lives because of this. It is also a way to those
people who wants change to their miserable life before and with this we come up with
various recommendations:

1) Government should require businesses to have fair dealings to their contractual

workers.

2) There should have not late payments when the workers are able to do their job
in their required time.

3) They should have also benefits even though they will just be working for 6
months only inside the firm. . Workers should receive some incentives so that
they will strive to do what should be done and be noticed by the management
because of the performance that is not expected to be performed by the worker
but because he/she did his/her job more than what the firm had expected.

4) The firms should also make the workers permanent who really deserve to be but
not because they have some backers that may help them to be one who will
become permanent inside of the company.

V. Conclusion:

As we interview 15 contractual employees, we gather different answer and

comment on contractualization issue. Some of them are the head of the family and
most of them are against contractualization. And while asking some questions to them,
we also feel sympathy on how hard for them to work without assurance and some are
without insurance. We saw how they value their jobs even they know that it is only
temporary. However, they still choose to take the job to support their needs. We also
realize that some companies are being unfair to their contractual employees compare to
regulars.
 PROJECT REPORT

ON CONTRACTUALIZATION

(CSR)

Prepared by:

Hazel Anne Antonio

Kym Breboneria
Clara Victoria Brijuega
Ericka Bianca Guaves
Jenny Hugo
Regina Milagros Palmiano