Press Release
January 6, 2015
The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) lambasted Department of
Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya for
bragging about ‘political will’ in justifying the MRT and LRT rate hike, saying
political will is best understood when imposed against a mighty force and not
on the hapless poor.
Abaya claimed over media interview the other day that political
will defined the major difference between the past and the present
administration in dealing with the MRT and LRT fare hike.
“Political will do not differentiate the past and present
regimes over this issue as they all bear the same class bias and more or less,
the same failures. PNoy is bolder to tread on the unpopular but that
doesn’t mean a triumph of tuwid na daan. If the President and the entire
government cannot go after corporations and powerful people behind this railway
scam, that political will assumes no effective meaning other than imposing the
burden to the poor,” said PM
spokesman Wilson Fortaleza.
PM and other labor groups under Nagkaisa! participated in
yesterdays protest actions held at select MRT stations. They called on
the government to run after private contractors who messed up with the metro
rail system rather than shifting the burden to the poor.
“Everybody knows that this crashing railway system, the MRT3
in particular, was a product of an onerous contract. The test of
political will, therefore, is in the cancellation of this contract and the
prosecution of people and corporations behind the scam, not penalizing the
people who are the rightful beneficiary of this social good,” argued Fortaleza
Fortaleza argued further that the Palace is making gross
misrepresentation in labelling government appropriations made for the
maintenance and operations of the MRT as ‘subsidy’ to commuters when in fact it
is a guaranteed payment to that onerous take-or-pay contract.
“The government bleeds heavily from this and congressmen from
Visayas and Mindanao complain about
inequalities created by this subsidy. We never see them complain, however,
against powerful forces behind this mess whom they certainly know and perhaps
worked hand in hand with,” concluded Fortaleza
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