Cabinet resignation is not a bold reset but just a marketing gimmick if not matched with policy shift

Rappler photo

 

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) criticized President Bong Bong Marcos Jr.’s call for the resignation of his entire cabinet as just a marketing gimmick and not a bold reset since it is not complemented by a policy shift that addresses hunger and poverty. President Marcos Jr. announced the cabinet revamp yesterday as his response to the loss of the administration senatorial slate and falling popularity ratings.

 

“The welfare of workers and the poor will not improve if there are new faces in the cabinet who implement the same policies of cheap wages, endo jobs and gutting of public services. Instead, labor groups want to see PBBM declare a bold reset in policies: certify the P200 wage hike as a priority legislation, support the security of tenure bill and return the Philhealth funds so it can scale up its services to members,” stated Rene Magtubo, PM national chair and re-elected Marikina councilor.

 

PM dared the administration to heed these concrete demands as an effective response to the discontent of voters as revealed in the recent polls and surveys. “PBBM also needs to shape up, not just his cabinet secretaries. It's not only the performance of the cabinet secretaries that should be reviewed and evaluated, but also PBBM's policies and programs that fail to address the serious problems of corruption, poverty, low wages, high prices of goods, and inadequate public services in health and education,” Magtubo explained.

 

To recall, last Labor Day, PBBM rejected the call for a legislated wage hike and instead asked the regional wage bords to respond to the demand for salary adjustments. Yesterday, the NCR wage board called for a consultation with labor groups. The group Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa attended the consultation but called on the NCR wage board to defer to Congress so that the latter can address the wage demand through legislation.

 

Magtubo added that “Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president and are thus his alter egos. Therefore, if the policies and programs fail to address the worsening problems, the primary responsibility lies with the president—not just his alter egos.”

 

Kapatiran is calling for a P200 national wage hike to recover the P126 erosion of wages due to inflation and P74 as share in the rise in labor productivity. PM is supporting Kapatiran’s demand for a legislated P200 salary increase. 

‘Baguhin ang Labor Code Hindi ang Konstitusyon’: Comrades remember Ka Popoy Lagman amid ‘tumultuous’ time

 

Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman was assassinated inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus 23 years ago today. Nobody claimed responsibility for his murder, but his comrades in the labor movement do not rule out state involvement by many means, as the revolutionary labor leader played a key role in mass mobilizations during important social issues of his time, including charter change.

 

Partido Manggagawa (PM) Chair Renato Magtubo, a union president and a partylist representative then, remembers Ka Popoy as someone who adapts to the changing political landscape without losing his revolutionary commitment.

 

He cited as an example that Lagman popularized the slogan ‘Rebolusyon Hindi Eleksyon’ in anticipation of the transition of power from Cory Aquino to Fidel Ramos during the 1992 elections, as well as the ‘Resign All’ call during the anti-Erap struggle, as he deemed that a Gloria Arroyo takeover of power won’t change anything, which proved prescient.

 

At the height of Edsa Dos people power, Lagman’s group pushed for the idea of having a caretaker government to be headed then by Chief Justice Hilario Davide, while other left groups supported Gloria Arroyo.

 

“Hindi katanggap-tanggap na ang panibagong people power ay magbunga lang ng isang Gloria. Dahil para lang nating pinalitan ang bigote ni Erap ng nunal ni Gloria,” Magtubo recalled Ka Popoy saying these words in disgust over the dire prospect of a simple regime change instead of the possibility of system change.

 

On February 6, 2001, he was shot dead while he was in the thick of preparations for the launching of Partido Manggagawa (PM). PM was founded by working class leaders on February 12, 2001, the same day Ka Popoy was laid to rest through a massive funeral march from UP to Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina.

 

“Kung nabubuhay lang si Ka Popoy ngayon, malamang ibabalik niya ulit ang kanyang naunang paninindigan noon laban sa charter change na ‘Baguhin ang Labor Code, Hindi ang Konstitusyon,’” Magtubo explained. At that time, labor groups were pushing for ‘CBA ng Uri’ as they find in the Labor Code many provisions that prohibit the free exercise of labor rights, including the freedom to organize and to strike as provided under the Constitution.

 

Today PM pursues a similar line, “Chicha hindi Chacha”, as it finds the motives behind the new push for charter change remain to be the same—dynastic lust for power and service to foreign capital—that runs counter to workers’ most urgent concerns on high prices, low wages, unemployment, and other demands for economic relief.

 

Members of PM vowed to continue seeking justice for Ka Popoy while pursuing what they believe is his legacy as a working-class hero—the struggle for the emancipation of the working class.

06 February 2024

Workers' Digest on Corona Impeachment Trial

On the 11th death anniversary of Ka Popoy: Labor party revives campaign for reforms beyond impeachment of high officials

PRESS RELEASE

06 February 2012

The Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines) made the commemoration of the 11th death anniversary of its founding hero, Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman, an occasion to revive labor’s campaign for reforms beyond the impeachment of the country’s high officials.

“If we want no repeat of the failed Edsa II, campaign for reforms must extend beyond the removal of high officals.  With the whole system corrupted in this country, a total cleansing is therefore necessary not only in the judiciary but in all branches of government.  In addition is the pressing necessity to reverse the country’s anti-labor and anti-poor economic policies such as cheap labor and contractualization schemes,” said Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) chair Renato Magtubo.

It can be recalled that it was Ka Popoy Lagman who led the campaign for the total cleansing of government by putting forward the call “resign all” during the height of the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada in 2000.  He was assinated inside the University of the Philippines campus on February 6, 2001, a week after Gloria Arroyo assumed office.

The late Lagman argued then that simply replacing Erap with Gloria without first emabarking on major political and economic reforms would  render the whole process an empty political exercise.   Expectedly Erap was removed but the country suffered another nine years of plunder under Arroyo.

Today, PM and the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) kick off their “Reporma lagpas kay Gloria at Corona” (reforms beyond Arroyo and Corona) campaign in a picket held at the Senate where Corona’s flip-flopping on the PAL issue is expected to be raised.

“Now we are in front of another impeachment trial, the Coronavela that has the single objective of removing the Chief Justice.  While it is a must to remove Corona for being unfit and corrupt, the truth remains that corruption occupies not only the streets of Padre Faura but all the branches of government, thus the need to extend the reform agenda beyond this process,” explained Magtubo.

“Habang api ang manggagawa sa PAL, alam din ng marami na hindi lang si CJ Corona ang opisyal ng gubyerno na binubusog ng mga negosyanteng gaya ni Lucio Tan,” added Magtubo.

The labor leader said that on the issue of corruption, labor will also extend its campaign on labor justice by calling for reforms and cleansing in the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as well as the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) where ‘decisions for sale’ is also common knowledge.

Apart from that, labor groups will also intensify its call for an end to contractualization policy which they claim is more fundamental than waiting for another piece of evidence of Corona’s  ill-gotten wealth presented and hotly debated in the Senate.

10 years of failed labor justice under the Arroyo regime

PRESS RELEASE
5 February 2010

Labor justice is a failed agenda under the 10-year rule of the Arroyo administration, a militant labor partylist group, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), said in a statement sent to media as the party commemorates the 10th year death anniversary of its founder, the late Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman, tomorrow.

Lagman was gunned down at the Bahay ng Alumni in UP Diliman on February 6, 2001, barely two months after Mrs. Arroyo assumed power through a popular uprising and thus considered the first case of extra-judicial killing under the Arroyo government that remains unsolved.

PM chair Renato Magtubo even recalled that Mrs. Arroyo in her 2001 Labor Day speech vowed to solve the Lagman case in her first 100 days in office and instructed all concerned law enforcement agencies to coordinate and go after the killers.

“Now it’s not just 100 days but an agonizing 10 years of failed justice for Ka Popoy and for many other victims who suffered the same fate under this corrupt and repressive regime,” said Magtubo.

The Partido ng Manggagawa was Lagman’s last project before his death. PM is a sectoral group running for the partylist elections.

He was also behind the formation of other militant groups such as the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and the multisectoral group Sanlakas. It was also Lagman who then pursued the “Resigh All” line calling not only for the resignation of President Estrada but also of Mrs. Arroyo, believing that a mere change in the face of the next rulers will never solve the country’s chronic problems.

“In few more months, GMA will leave the presidency with the Lagman murder still unsolved and the conditions of the working class in the country gone from bad to worse. Our challenge to the next administration is to make labor justice an urgent agenda and policies aligned towards this platform,” declared

Labor justice, according to PM, is not only about justice for the unsolved killings under the Arroyo regime but most importantly, is a change in policies that for the longest time have undermined the rights and welfare of the working class.

The current minimum wage of Filipino workers is way below the needed family wage as mandated by the Constitution. Filipinos have also the least social security protections compared with their counterparts abroad. As a result, some 3,000 workers leave the country everyday to find their fortunes in almost every corner of the world.

The labor party in particular is opposing the policies of contractualization which keeps the level of wages low, threatens job security and a bane to exercising the workers’ rights to self-organization.