DAVAO CITY – A partylist representative scored the use of private security guards to harass and violently disperse a peaceful protest of workers last Friday at the plant of Tanduay Distillers, Inc., in Cabuyao, Laguna which is owned by multi-billionaire Lucio Tan.
ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio also condemned the complicity of Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Tan’s “violations of labor laws.”
Tinio said activists were en route to the factory’s Gate 3 to support the Tanggulang Ugnayan Daluyang Lakas ng Anakpawis sa Tanduay Distillers Inc. (TUDLA) when around 50 of the management’s security guards wearing helmets, masks, bulletproof vests, and guard uniforms chased the protesters away, battering them and their vehicles with bats, rocks, and shields.
Victims of the dispersal included a member of Tinio’s congressional staff and members of militant Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), including two teachers and several education students, one of them a minor, who were then on board the party-list’s service van when it was repeatedly hammered by the strike breakers.
“Due to the violence, the program they were planning to hold with other sectors to protest the company’s unfair labor practices and contractualization of 90% of its workers, was aborted,” said Tinio.
He said the service van sustained several dents in its body and the glass at its rear was shattered, nearly injuring the occupants inside.
“We will not let slide these highly condemnable acts of Tan and his goons,” said Tinio.
“And from DOLE and PNP’s silence and lack of action, these agencies are complicit in Tan’s numerous and repeated violations of the Labor Code and other laws. Instead of fulfilling their mandates ‘to serve and protect’ the people, they serve and protect the interests of big compradors like Lucio Tan, allowing the use of virtual private armies to interfere in labor disputes and suppress the civil rights of workers and the people,” he said.
Tinio pointed out that laws mandate DOLE and PNP to prevent managements from using or employing strike-breakers or those who obstruct, impede, or interfere with, using force, violence, coercion, threats, or intimidation, any peaceful picketing or the exercise of the right of self-organization or collective bargaining.
Tinio said that they are preparing criminal and civil charges against Tan and his goons for attempted physical injuries, damages to property, and violation of constitutional rights.
