A House leader on Saturday once again pressed the national government to "lead by example" by ending its long-standing issue on contractualization in the public sector.

End of the contract or endo is the term used for contractual workers who serve on a specific company for a limited period anchored on a project or fixed-term, most often not exceeding six months.

"The biggest violator of contractualization is actually the government," said House Deputy Minority Leader Bernadette Herrera during the House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation hearing on House Bill 1387 over the weekend.

Herrera is the principal author of the proposed measure, which aims to reduce government labor contractualization by granting civil service eligibility to long-term casual state workers.

"Hopefully, HB 1387 will put an end to that. If we want to end endo in the private sector, we have to lead by example in government," the lawmaker added.

The panel, chaired by Bohol Rep. Kristine Alexie Tutor, has approved the motion to consolidate HB 1387 with ten other similar bills and come up with a substitute bill as well as the approved version in the 18th Congress pertaining to the regularization of contractual government employees.

Should be passed into law, HB 1387 would be applied to government employees in the first and second levels who have casual or contractual posts and have served for at least five years.

However, under the bill, these employees "shall not be entitled to any promotion unless they obtain the relevant qualifying condition for that post."

According to data from the Civil Service Commission, the government employed approximately 2.4 million people in 2017, making it the country's largest employer. Over 660,000 of these people were hired as contract or temporary workers.