Filipino workers and their families have been calling for an increase in wages, among other economic and political demands. (davaotoday.com file photo by Ace R. Morandante)
And as the workers, farmworkers and peasants marched and braved the heat, with hundreds of red flags waving, they showed Aquino they are still a force to reckon with, undeterred despite the oppression they are experiencing from massive corporations who stole their lands and displaced them from their homes and livelihood.
By BEVERLY ANN S. MUSNI, YR.
Davao Today
The scorching heat was no match for the more or less ten thousand people who attended and marched through Valencia City, Bukidnon province, in commemoration of the 127th International Labor Day. Workers and peasants all over the world unite on this day to demand an improvement of the workers’ situation wherein a ‘dying wage’ is mandated instead of a ‘living’ wage.
As large and colorful flags and banners of Bayan Muna, Piston, Kabataan and Gabriela Party-lists along with the red flags of Kilusang Mayo Uno were waving in the air, I felt a surge of pride for these people who arrived and gathered in truckloads from all parts of Bukidnon; who showed their force as one, as workers throughout the history have done so, and proved once again that the working class is a force to reckon with.
That despite militarization, oppression, poverty and repression, on this singular day, they have shown the true face of our nation — battered , bruised and poor from all the beatings it has endured from the government through its anti-people and corrupt policies and its refusal to heed the call of the majority for genuine agrarian and labor reforms.
Progress is what the government is aiming. But “development aggression” and arrogance is what the government has been doing.
The workers, farmworkers and peasants in Bukidnon continue to be slaves to gigantic industries of Dole, Del Monte, Stanfilco and Sumifro. Spanning at least 100,000 hectares of sugarcane, pineapple and banana plantations, they suffer the brunt of work in a contractual basis.
With only five working months in a contract, the workers are prohibited from becoming regular workers, practically depriving them their right to organize and form unions and enter into collective bargaining agreements. The Constitutional rights which are vested upon the workers are not recognized. The rights of the workers have become a mockery to themselves.
More insulting to them is the fact that as they are handled through an agency or a cooperative, the benefits they receive through SSS, Philhealth and other insurance claims were not remitted. Thus, when worse comes to worst, they are left to rot in their own blood, unable to claim the benefits which they have rightfully earned through their own sweat, blood and tears.
The workers in Region 10 alone continue to subsist at a measly daily minimum wage of PHP 259 to PHP 286. The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards failed to consider, if not outrightly ignored, the fact that a family of six needs at least PHP 600 to survive.
The constant rise in prices of basic necessities creates a deeper quagmire of poverty in which the workers are unable to cope, with their meager salaries (minus the supposed payment of benefits and debts) barely enough to sustain themselves, let alone their families.
Unemployment also serves as one of the major problems in the country which the Aquino government was not able to truly address. Under him, larger portion of budgetary allocations has been directed to foreign debt servicing and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, thereby putting agriculture, education, health and basic industries in the backseat.
With no concrete steps to generate jobs for the Filipinos within the country, the government has given employers, especially foreigners, the license to easily hire and fire a person at a snap of their fingers. Contractual employment has become the trend, forcing the people to accept jobs for a short period of time. Security of Tenure, in which the Labor Code so fiercely protects, remains a meaningless phrase in the present dispensation that greatly disrespects and undermines the workers and their rights.
Despite these glaring realities, how can President Noynoy Aquino continue to campaign for his allies in the coming 2013 elections?
Surely, we are better off with team P-Noy, considering that these people whose time in Congress could have been used to solve the plight of the workers and peasants, but did not. How can we expect them to solve the economic demands of our workers when Aquino himself cannot even solve and implement the decision of the Supreme Court in returning the lands to the rightful owners, the farmers and farmworkers of the Azucarera de Tarlac, in Hacienda Luisita?
And as the workers, farmworkers and peasants marched and braved the heat, with hundreds of red flags waving, they showed Aquino they are still a force to reckon with, undeterred despite the oppression they are experiencing from massive corporations who stole their lands and displaced them from their homes and livelihood.
They are undeterred by the anti-people policy of Two-Tierred Wage System which fosters productivity incentives instead of recognizing the need to increase the basic pay of all workers nationwide with PHP 125 across-the-board. They are undeterred by the Performance Based Bonuses which effectively leads the way to the abolition of salary standardization of state workers.
President Aquino, the one who never learns from history, should know that the more he suppresses and represses the working class, he will be crushed under their weight as they are the life force of the nation.
Beverly Ann S. Musni, Yr. is a free spirit. She is a wanderlust, a dreamer and a frustrated rock star who dreams of travelling the world one day. She is a world peace advocate.
125 across the board wage increase, Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kabataan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Labor Day, Piston, workers
