Abaya is incompetent and PNoy’s PPP is committing the same sin – Partido Manggagawa

Photo Credit: Politiko/Pinoy Movie Blogger

The Aquino administration cannot hide the incompetence of DOTC Sec. Joseph Emilio Abaya by conveniently referring to the original sins of the Ramos administration, the partylist group Partido Manggagawa (PM) said in a statement.

 

The group said that while it completely agrees with the ‘original sin’ line of the Liberal Party (LP) in identifying the main problem besetting the MRT system, the administration is likewise guilty of repeating the same mistake by lining all the rehabilitation, maintenance, and expansion programs for MRT/LRT systems under PPP (Public-Private Partnership), which is but another name for the Ramos-era BOT (Build-Operate Transfer) scheme.

 

“LP should not point an accusing finger to other sinners when what it can only offer to our people is the same menu placed in separate tables,” said PM spokesman Wilson Fortaleza.

 

Fortaleza said LP stalwart Edgar Erice was right in describing the MRT-3 contract as ‘highway robbery’ yet he avoided to explain why the ‘tuwid na daan’ failed to apprehend the robbers.

 

“Erice is also correct in considering the option of expropriation to finally eliminate the resistance of the MRTC consortium, yet his DOTC secretary wasted six years on cherry-picking who among his choice concessionaires would replace the Sobrepenas and the former supply and maintenance provider,” said Fortaleza.

 

Fortaleza added that for the last six years, the Aquino administration pursued not the track of expropriation but of privatization, first by gradually removing the subsidy through fare increase, and second, by lining all MRT/LRT maintenance and expansion projects to PPP concessions. 

 

“This PPP scheme, which is no different from BOT, caused the delay of the much needed rehabilitation of the MRT system, the expansion of LRT 1 to Cavite and the construction of MRT 7 from North QC to Fairview and Bulacan.  Abaya even failed to connect LRT 1 and MRT 3 simply because the Ayala and Henry Sy fight over the common station,” lamented Fortaleza.

 

As to Abaya who faces other pressing problems in the transport and communications industry, the labor group said that with no action coming from PNoy, they can leave his fate to Heneral Luna since the problem with our current mass transport system is larger than the secretary’s head.

 

PM partylist is calling for quality public services in its electoral platform, and its components include the development of safe, clean and affordable mass transport system.  And to be able to do it, the program needs huge amount of public investment and subsidy, not the abdication of state responsibility.

08 January 2016

Bagong landas ng social reform di lang tuwid na daan ng good governance

Press Statement

July 23, 2011

Gerry Rivera

President, PALEA

Vice Chair, PM

Hiling ng mga manggagawa kay PNoy sa SONA:

Bagong landas ng social reform di lang tuwid na daan ng good governance

In his SONA, President Benigno Aquino will likely highlight his administration’s accomplishments in stamping corruption. But workers believe that poverty will not be solved by good governance alone. Poverty can only be eradicated by reforms in the economic and social arena that attacks the iniquitous distribution of wealth in the country.

After one year of PNoy, there is no new program to generate jobs, no new mechanism to increase workers wages and no change in the no-union policy in the ecozones. PNoy has given the go signal for contractualization at Philippine Airlines. He has praised Hanjin’s investments but has been silent on the deaths and injuries of workers at the shipyard-cum-graveyard. PNoy has continued with sacrificing labor rights at the ecozones to attract foreign capital.

In Philippine Airlines, the Office of the President has allowed management to outsource 2,600 jobs even as it suppressed the right of the union to fight through an assumption of jurisdiction order. In the Hanjin shipyard, another worker has died last Wednesday, adding to the 31 previous deaths. In the Mactan Economic Zone, after three decades a union finally won a certification election only for the Japanese company to shutdown operations in order to bust the union then reopen last week via a permit from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

Kung ganito sa unang taon ni PNoy, paano na sa susunod pang limang taon?

Despite the absence of wang-wangs, despite the resignation of Merci Gutierrez and despite the initiative to prosecute GMA for plundering the country, it is undeniable that the number of poor and hungry Filipinos has remained the same if not worsened. And it is because there is not social reform being implemented under the PNoy administration despite the so-called social contract with the people.

The contents of the PNoy’s Philippine Development Plan are hardly different from GMA’s Medium Term Philippine Development Plan. PNoy’s Public-Private Partnership is simply privatization by just another name. Privatization has being tried by Cory, FVR, Erap and GMA. And it has been exposed as the root of the high prices of power, electricity and water, and of excessive toll fees among others.

Ipinapaabot ng mga manggagawa kay PNoy: ang gusto ng kanyang mga boss ay bagong landas di lang tuwid na daan. Ang kailangan ng taumbayan ay di lang good governance kundi higit sa lahat social reform.

PM calls for public employment program in response to unemployment

Press Release

May 26, 2011

The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called on the government to create a public employment program in response to worsening unemployment under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. “Instead of flying off to Thailand to entice investors for PPP projects, PNoy should stay in the country and create an aggressive public employment program that will create millions of jobs. The PPP that workers want is not Public-Private Partnership but Programang Patrabaho para sa Pilipino,” asserted Renato Magtubo, PM national chair.

The recent SWS survey showed that an additional one million Filipinos loss their jobs since November. This is in addition to more than a million more unemployed Filipinos since President Aquino took office. Unemployment was 20.5% when the Aquino administration started then jumped to 23.5% last November and further to 27.2% as of March.

“The public employment program should not be limited to street cleaning and whitewashing walls but must include restoring the environment and building housing for the poor aside from the usual public works projects. Given the sorry state of the environment and the backlog in public housing, just these two sectors are significant enough to provide millions of jobs for a start,” Magtubo stated. Aside from a public employment program, PM is calling on the government to discourage retrenchments and curb contractualization as immediate steps and then shift to a strategic policy of strengthening the local economy to generate jobs.

“The SWS survey showed that among the factors contributing to increased unemployment was contractualization and layoffs. The decision of the Labor Department and the Office of the President allowing Philippine Airlines to terminate and outsource some 3,000 jobs is sending the wrong signal to employers that it is ok for them to cut regular jobs then hire contractual workers,” Magtubo explained.

He added that “PNoy must end endo. He must stop contractualization. He must make a favorable decision on the motion for reconsideration of the Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association against the outsourcing scheme.” Endo is short for end of contract and a popular term for contractual workers losing their jobs before the maximum six-month probationary period before they are mandated to become regular employees.

“However the strategic solution to the unemployment and underemployment problem is to strengthen the local economy instead of weakening it by liberalization, privatization and deregulation. The worse controversy for the IMF is not the sex scandal of its former head but the collapse of domestic economies such as ours because of the bitter pill it has prescribed,” Magtubo argued.

He added that “Supporting the local economy means policies to promote domestic agriculture—among them agrarian reform—and national industrialization. Filipinos should have decent regular jobs in our country instead of being forced to seek greener pastures abroad.”

Postponement of MRT and LRT rate hikes a media stunt to promote privatization

PRESS RELEASE

11 May 2011

Malacañang’s postponement of the planned rate hikes in the MRT and LRT systems should not be taken as a considerate act of shielding the interest of the commuting public against price hikes but more of a deliberate stint for promoting the planned privatization of the railway mass transport systems, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said in a statement.

PM is opposing not only the recently approved fare hikes in LRT and MRT but also the privatization of these public utilities.  The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has approved the new rates for MRT and LRT lines 1 and 2,  just a day after the NCR wage board granted workers P22 cost of living allowance (COLA).

The new rates would require commuters to pay P11 boarding fee, with an additional P1 for every succeeding kilometre.  Accordingly, the P20 fare for LRT line 1 from

Roosevelt Avenue

in Quezon City to Baclaran in Parañaque City will be increased to P30, while the P15 fare in LRT line 2 from Marikina City to Legarda in Manila will be hiked to P25.

But transportation officials said the hike is to be postponed amid the soaring prices of other basic commodities.  PM Chair Renato Magtubo said the postponement also has nothing to do with the rising prices of other commodities as claimed by a Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) official, but more with the rush to privatize said firms.  He stated “Nor it can be presumed as a freebie to the measly cost of living allowance (COLA) granted by the wage boards to metro workers.”

The LRT system is the first to be bid out under P-Noy’s Public-Private Partnership Program.  DoTC officials claim that the private sector can do a better job in operating public utilities.  The government said it is spending at least P7 billion in subsidies to the MRT-LRT to keep fares affordable to ordinary commuters. 

The labor party said the Philippine privatization program begins with this usual propaganda line: That the government is losing money in running public utilities and the private sector can do a better job in managing them.

Earlier, Transportation Undersecretary Glicerio Sicat, head of the DoTC’s rail transport group, said the privatization of key government services had led to more efficient operations, citing as an example the privatization of public services such as water and electricity distribution which he claimed led to better and more reliable services.

But Magtubo said both P-Noy and Sicat were either absent or just cared for nothing during the last ten years to feel the impact of water and power privatization to ordinary consumers.

“The water and power privatization in the country is one of the largest privatization projects in the world.  After ten years electricity rates doubled and water rates increased by not less than 500% -- the main reason why we have one of the highest electricity and water rates in the world,” explained Magtubo.

Philippine privatization, the group added, led to the rise of private monopolies which destroys all the myths of free competition as mergers and acquisitions led to further monopolization of the market as shown in the case of PLDT-Digitel buyout – the same thing that is happening in the power and water industry.

PM insists that the light railway system is better left public, its rates remain subsidized, and service area even expanded to serve more poor commuters of the metropolis and nearby provinces. 

“The light rail should be maintained as the cheapest, most efficient and greenest mass transport in the country. Every peso spent by the government on subsidizing the LRT and MRT is money well spent. It does not only benefit the workers, students and the poor but protects the environment as well,” insisted Magtubo.

The group said that the cost-benefit accounting of the LRT/MRT operation should include a consideration of its “social good” delivered which cannot be quantified in money terms.