As workers commemorated
Bonifacio Day in a nationally coordinated action, Partido Manggagawa (Labor
Party) demanded the release of unionists Dennis Derige, Myra Opada, Joksan
Branzuela, Jonel Labrador, and Cristito Pangan.
Opada is the union president
at Philippine Light Leather, Pangan is the union president at First Glory
Apparel while Derige, Branzuela and Labrador are union organizers.
The Mactan Economic Zone has
been a site of struggle between local labor and foreign capital. Last Friday, Nov. 27th, some 300 workers of
the First Glory Apparel were fired -- the latest in the surge of mass layoffs
at garment firms in the zone in the past three months. The Sports City group of companies laid off
4,000 workers, Yuenthai fired 200 workers, FCO laid off 100 workers and Kor
Landa retrenched 67 workers.
To mark Bonifacio Day,
members of the Mactan Ecozone Workers Alliance, Partido Manggagawa, and Sentro
assembled at Gate 3 and marched to Gate 2 where they held a program
highlighting the Zone capitalists' attack on the right of workers to unionize,
bargain collectively, seek redress of grievance and assemble peacefully. However,
police broke up the rally and arrested the five unionists.
Rene Magtubo of PM called for
an end to the repression of labor rights and the harassment of human rights
defenders. "Activism is not
terrorism," said Magtubo. "This
is precisely the theme of today's national and global commemoration of
Bonifacio Day."
The arrest of the PM Cebu
labor organizers underscores the escalating attacks on workers' rights in the
country, said Magtubo. "It adds to
the unsolved killings of unionists, busting of unions, and red-tagging of union
activists."
Last year, PM-Cavite labor
organizer Dennis Sequena was brutally murdered while facilitating a labor
seminar. No one has been arrested, much
less charged with his murder.
The impunity with which
workers are fired in economic zones like Mactan, in the middle of a pandemic,
graphically illustrates the inability of the government to ensure job security
for native labor, and its puppetry toward foreign capital. As employment shrinks steadily and
dramatically in the country, the brunt of the double blow of a recession and a
pandemic is felt most grievously by the Philippine working class.
