(CBCP / MANILA BULLETIN)
April 30, 2019, 1:49 PM
By Leslie Ann Aquino Manila Bulletin
For Catholic prelates, the best gifts that the government can give to workers on May 1, Labor Day will be more jobs in the country, and an end to contractualization.
“For me the best gifts are: first to create jobs here so that they will never be forced to find work in foreign lands, be separated from their families and to avoid brain and manpower drain,” Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos said in an interview.
“Second is to end contractual which there would be stability, mutual benefits,” he added.
Bishop Santos said this is also to show our appreciation for the sacrifices of the country’s workers.
“To be grateful and be appreciative of their sacrifices and services is to promote their wellbeing, make their jobs safe, stable and secured. Workers are the builders of the country, agents of progress and development,” he said.
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo agreed with Santos.
“Workers have long been asking for security of tenure. No contractualization,” he said.
Meanwhile, San Carlos, Negros Occidental Bishop Gerardo Alminaza remembered the sugar workers who were massacred last October this Labor Day.
“We especially remember our departed sugar workers, the Sagay 9, who were massacred last October 20, 2018 but whose murder is not given justice until today,” he said in his Labor Day message.
“The impunity in senseless killings resulting from the landlessness of our agricultural and farm workers are sad manifestations of where we are in our journey towards God’s kingdom of love, justice and peace,” added Alminaza.
He then asked pertinent government agencies such as the AFP and PNP to facilitate speedy justice to the senseless killing of the Sagay 9; address the centuries-old problem of landlessness; and protect the lives of defenseless civilians whom they have sworn to defend and protect.
“May everyone in our community have compassion for our poor brothers and sisters as we bear in mind that the situation of the smallest and weakest among us would show how we are as a community,” Alminaza said.
