This year, the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) moved to secure the regularization of almost 600,000 contractual workers, increase employment and issue policies to protect Filipino workers’ rights.

But it could have been a more fruitful year for the agency had President Rodrigo Duterte not vetoed the Security of Tenure (SoT) Bill, a landmark legislation that would have prohibited subcontracting and all other illegal employment schemes of employing workers.