An appeal to President Duterte to address workers’ plight in his last year in office
As the five years of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte were not able to provide a dignified life to the common Filipino workers, the Church People-Workers Solidarity (CWS) challenges the president and pertinent government agencies to exert all efforts to do better in his last year in office.
Pope Francis, in his September 25, 2015 United Nations address, highlighted three important “minimum material means” for a person to live a dignified life: land, labor, and lodging.
June 30, 2021 marked the five years of President Duterte and the CWS is saddened of the miserable situation of workers in the country:
1. Failed land reform program. Much of farmland in the country is still concentrated in the hands of large corporations and wealthy families. President Duterte promised free land distribution, but since taking office in 2016, not only has he failed to implement a genuine land reform program, he has also cracked down on those who dared to fight for it.
2. Killings of industrial workers, farm workers and fisherfolks. Labor rights groups documented at least 56 killings involving workers and labor leaders. Attacks on agricultural workers’ rights proliferated across the country. As of October 2020, Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) documented 333 cases of killings of peasants, farmworkers, and fisherfolks under President Duterte’s administration. In 2018, two years after President Duterte assumed office, nine sugarcane workers were killed in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, including four women and two children.
3. Labor rights violations. Earlier this year, sugarcane farmworkers, including a mother and her two-month old baby, were arrested in Hacienda Ambulong, San Fernando, Talisay City, in Negros. Last month, sugar farmworkers in Isabela decried union busting and wage slavery. The sugar workers in a plantation run by the Lorenzo-owned Green Future Innovations, Inc. receive a humiliating Php 15 daily wage, far from the regional minimum wage of Php 340 a day. Moreover, Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian recently ordered the suspension of the business permit of Nexgreen Enterprise for unfair labor practices, non-payment of other benefits and for paying the salary of a worker in centavo coins.
4. Unemployment. Joblessness increased due to continued lockdowns. The Philippine Statistics Authority recorded last June 2021, an 8.7% unemployment rate or 4.14 million jobless Filipinos. President Duterte’s campaign promise to end the practice of “contractualization” or “endo” and to improve labor conditions for all have not been fulfilled.
President Duterte’s campaign slogan promised the Filipino people that “change is coming”. Five years would have been more than enough to fulfill that promise. However, the promised change never happened. With one more year in office, can we still expect fundamental changes to happen, especially now that the 2022 election is looming? The challenge is for us citizens — church people and workers, actually every voter — to choose good leaders and to make sure that the coming election will be clean, honest, accurate, meaningful, and peaceful (c.h.a.m.p.)!
The CWS calls on President Duterte to address the workers’ woes, let justice prevail and truly serve the interest of the Filipino working people. Perhaps, he may still redeem himself if he takes our challenge to put the dignity of the human labor at the center of his efforts in his last year as president; and to have the passion for The True, The Just, and The Good.
+MOST REV. GERARDO A. ALMINAZA, D.D.
Bishop of San Carlos, CWS Chairperson
gerard_alminaza@yahoo.com
