Press Release
October 29, 2009
Dala ang mga sira-sirang damit at kasangkapan na sumisimbolo sa hagupit ng kalamidad, sinugod nang may-ilang daang biktima ng bagyong Ondoy, ang Mendiola para magprotesta laban sa anila’y mata-pobreng pagtrato sa kanila, palpak na programang pabahay ng pamahalaan, at banta ng pwersahang relokasyon.
Pinangunahan ang kilos-protesta ng mga miyembro ng Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) at Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino (AMP) mula pa sa mga lalawigan ng Rizal, Laguna, at Bulacan. Nauna rito ay nagbanta ang pamahalaan na pwersahang aalisin ang mga maralita sa mga itinuturing na danger zone dahil ang mga iligal na istruktura umano ang bumabara sa mga natural na daluyan ng tubig na siyang dahilan ng malawak na pinsala ng mga pagbaha.
Nanawagan ang mga manggagawa at maralita sa pamahalaan na walang pwersahang demolisyon at relokasyon na dapat isagawa hangga’t walang malinaw at makataong paninirahan na maibibigay sa kanila ang pamahalaan.
Ayon kay Renato Magtubo, tagapangulo ng PM, sa halip na idagan ang mata-pobreng panunumbat sa mga maralita na silang mas malagim na biktima ng kalamidad, mas dapat ibangon di lamang ang nasalanta nilang kabuhayan kundi ang kanilang dignidad sa pamamagitan ng tamang pagtrato sa kanila at pagharap sa totoong problemang kanilang kinasadlakan.
Ang totoo umano, ani Magtubo, ay mas malaki ang kontribusyon ng mga industriya, mining companies, at land developers at kapabayaan ng kasalukuyan at dati pang mga pamahalaan sa pagkasira ng kalikasan.
Idinagdag pa ni Magtubo na lagi-laging nahahantong sa “danger zones” ang mga maralita dahil mismo sa klase ng lugar na kanilang kinalalagyan at klase ng materyales na gamit sa kanilang mga bahay. Kahit saan umanong lugar, walang laban sa hangin at baha, maging sa sunog ang mga barung-barong na gawa sa mga light materials. Ito aniya ang paliwanag kung bakit di itinuturing na nasa danger zone ang mga mansyon, malalaking gusali, at palasyo gaya ng Malacanang sa tabi ng mga ilog dahil ligtas ang mga ito kumpara sa mga barung-barong sa tabi ng mga estero.
Ayon naman kay Romeo Cabugnason, pinuno ng AMP, ang ultimong solusyon dito ay seryosong programa para sa desente at ligtas na pabahay, hindi ang paulit-ulit na ‘balik-probinsya’ program, o relokasyon sa mga undeveloped at inhabitable relocation areas gaya ng naging kaso sa Bulacan.
Naniniwala ang PM at AMP na walang mangyayari sa programang rehabilitasyon at rekonstruksyon hangga’t walang ilalaang malaking pondo para dito ang pamahalaan, laluna’t halos 30% ng pondo ng gubyerno ay napupunta lang sa pambayad ng utang.
Kaya nanawagan ang mga ito na itigil muna ang pagbabayad utang at para matugunan ang lahat ng kinakailangang pondo para sa rehabilitasyon at maisakatuparan ang isang bagong programa na tutugon sa malawak na problema ng kawalan ng desente, ligtas na pabahay at makataong pamumuhay.
Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Lakeside residents of Binan seek LGU, National Government aid amid miserable state
PRESS RELEASE
Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino
Partido ng Manggagawa
26 October 2009
Residents residing at Barangays Malaban and San Antonio in Biñan Laguna will hold a rally this morning at this town’s Municipal Hall to seek aid from both the local and national government. The two barangays are just part of several barangays that are still under water since the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy that drove lake waters of Laguna De Bay to rise.
The local of Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino (AMP) in Biñan said food and health conditions in the area are very bad because of lack of safe drinking water and lack of other basic supplies, among others. They also fear of forced relocation being planned by the national government without any assurance that such a plan would lead them to a better habitat.
AMP leaders Mercy Manzo and Elizabeth Mendoza describe their situation in the area as “helpless and miserable” as relief goods are still lacking in most parts of the area and many people have no more means of earning an income unlike before. Many people especially children are also getting sick because of lack of sanitation and safe drinking water.
“We don’t know how we can survive this kind of situation,” Manzo said, adding that without continuing relief operations and alternative places to live, the people around the lake face humanitarian crisis.
The group is asking the local government to formulate a short and long-term solution to this problem, including alternative places where affected residents can live safely. They are also asking for livelihood assistance to recover their means of livelihood that were devastated by Ondoy.
The AMP is also calling on the national government to give due attention to the poor people of Biñan and Laguna rather than blaming them for making themselves the victims of their own desperate situation. The government, specifically the Laguna Lake Development Authority had been blaming the poor settlers for clogging the natural waterways that aggravates flooding.
“There are bigger players to blame such as industry owners, mining companies and land developers who destroy our natural habitats. Why point all your fingers to us?,” complained the AMP leaders.
After the protest action in Laguna, the AMP and the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) will bring their issues to Malacanang in another rally to be held in Mendiola on Thursday, October 29.
The AMP and PM will demand a moratorium on debt payments and massive government funds saved from debt service be allotted for rehabilitation and reconstruction program. “Rehabilitation and reconstruction are dead words without the funds,” stressed the group.
The groups will also press for a new housing program that decisively addresses housing problems -- the main reason why poor settlers are forced to live and face their deaths in “danger zones”. Another demand is for a new, centralized and coordinated land use policy to prevent land developers and miners convert and destroy lands so that the poor can be accorded habitable and sustainable places to live.
Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino
Partido ng Manggagawa
26 October 2009
Residents residing at Barangays Malaban and San Antonio in Biñan Laguna will hold a rally this morning at this town’s Municipal Hall to seek aid from both the local and national government. The two barangays are just part of several barangays that are still under water since the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy that drove lake waters of Laguna De Bay to rise.
The local of Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino (AMP) in Biñan said food and health conditions in the area are very bad because of lack of safe drinking water and lack of other basic supplies, among others. They also fear of forced relocation being planned by the national government without any assurance that such a plan would lead them to a better habitat.
AMP leaders Mercy Manzo and Elizabeth Mendoza describe their situation in the area as “helpless and miserable” as relief goods are still lacking in most parts of the area and many people have no more means of earning an income unlike before. Many people especially children are also getting sick because of lack of sanitation and safe drinking water.
“We don’t know how we can survive this kind of situation,” Manzo said, adding that without continuing relief operations and alternative places to live, the people around the lake face humanitarian crisis.
The group is asking the local government to formulate a short and long-term solution to this problem, including alternative places where affected residents can live safely. They are also asking for livelihood assistance to recover their means of livelihood that were devastated by Ondoy.
The AMP is also calling on the national government to give due attention to the poor people of Biñan and Laguna rather than blaming them for making themselves the victims of their own desperate situation. The government, specifically the Laguna Lake Development Authority had been blaming the poor settlers for clogging the natural waterways that aggravates flooding.
“There are bigger players to blame such as industry owners, mining companies and land developers who destroy our natural habitats. Why point all your fingers to us?,” complained the AMP leaders.
After the protest action in Laguna, the AMP and the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) will bring their issues to Malacanang in another rally to be held in Mendiola on Thursday, October 29.
The AMP and PM will demand a moratorium on debt payments and massive government funds saved from debt service be allotted for rehabilitation and reconstruction program. “Rehabilitation and reconstruction are dead words without the funds,” stressed the group.
The groups will also press for a new housing program that decisively addresses housing problems -- the main reason why poor settlers are forced to live and face their deaths in “danger zones”. Another demand is for a new, centralized and coordinated land use policy to prevent land developers and miners convert and destroy lands so that the poor can be accorded habitable and sustainable places to live.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Women workers warn GMA vs. veto of additional stimulus budget
Press Release
March 6, 2009
Women leaders of the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa cautioned the government against vetoing the P50 billion fund added by Congress from the budget allocated for debt servicing. They warned of protests if the veto pushes through. Yesterday the group led women workers in a picket at the Labor Department to push for subsidy and jobs.
“It is truly ironic if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during women’s month vetoes the supplemental budget for social services and education programs that will benefit women. We want the Marcos-era automatic debt appropriations law repealed for depriving women of social services,” argued Judy Ann Miranda, secretary-general of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM).
Miranda furthered that “A P50 billion cut in debt servicing to fund social programs is already too little in fact. But it is better than nothing. And it is better than the P330 billion government stimulus plan which does not involve any new money and is merely a repackaging of the old budget. Yet GMA threatens to bring it back to zero.”
Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya had announced yesterday that the President might veto the provision appropriating P50 billion for the congressional aid package. Last year, the President restored interest payments for questionable loans such as the medical waste incinerators bought from an Austrian firm after Philippine environmental laws had rendered the equipment illegal.
“If indeed GMA vetoes the additional stimulus fund then she would consistent in her anti-poor, pro-banker stand. And she would be deserving of the condemnation of working women,” Miranda added.
PM is campaigning for a bailout package for working women since they are bearing the brunt of the impact of the layoffs and other flexibility schemes by employers. The group is calling for unemployment subsidy for workers, tax refund for all wage earners, PhilHealth coverage for displaced workers, a reformed public employment program, and moratorium on demolitions and evictions.
It is also calling for the reversal of the policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization which the group blames for the high prices of goods and the deterioration of public services. PM is further demanding the reallocation of the entire P700 billion debt servicing budget to fund a vastly expanded social program.
March 6, 2009
Women leaders of the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa cautioned the government against vetoing the P50 billion fund added by Congress from the budget allocated for debt servicing. They warned of protests if the veto pushes through. Yesterday the group led women workers in a picket at the Labor Department to push for subsidy and jobs.
“It is truly ironic if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during women’s month vetoes the supplemental budget for social services and education programs that will benefit women. We want the Marcos-era automatic debt appropriations law repealed for depriving women of social services,” argued Judy Ann Miranda, secretary-general of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM).
Miranda furthered that “A P50 billion cut in debt servicing to fund social programs is already too little in fact. But it is better than nothing. And it is better than the P330 billion government stimulus plan which does not involve any new money and is merely a repackaging of the old budget. Yet GMA threatens to bring it back to zero.”
Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya had announced yesterday that the President might veto the provision appropriating P50 billion for the congressional aid package. Last year, the President restored interest payments for questionable loans such as the medical waste incinerators bought from an Austrian firm after Philippine environmental laws had rendered the equipment illegal.
“If indeed GMA vetoes the additional stimulus fund then she would consistent in her anti-poor, pro-banker stand. And she would be deserving of the condemnation of working women,” Miranda added.
PM is campaigning for a bailout package for working women since they are bearing the brunt of the impact of the layoffs and other flexibility schemes by employers. The group is calling for unemployment subsidy for workers, tax refund for all wage earners, PhilHealth coverage for displaced workers, a reformed public employment program, and moratorium on demolitions and evictions.
It is also calling for the reversal of the policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization which the group blames for the high prices of goods and the deterioration of public services. PM is further demanding the reallocation of the entire P700 billion debt servicing budget to fund a vastly expanded social program.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Labor party won’t buy Nograles’ pitch for cha-cha
PRESS RELEASE
Partido ng Manggagawa
2 October 2008
Transforming the US financial crisis into an opportunity for the Philippines was not just a wishful thinking on the part of the House Speaker but an insidious ploy by the administration to smuggle its charter change agenda.
“The view that the worsening financial crisis in the US may turn into a golden opportunity for the Philippines was more like King Midas’ political imagination rather than sound economic wisdom of Speaker Nograles,” said Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) chair, Renato Magtubo.
Speaker Nograles had said that the US financial crisis offers us the best argument to "lift equity restrictions" on the prohibitive 60-40 constitutional provision that favors only local businessmen, adding that amending the constitution would give Americans and Filipino migrants the opportunity to transfer their investments here.
Magtubo, who was a former partylist representative for labor, pointed out that there was no solid argument to support the claim that Fil-Am’s decisions to bring their investments back home is restricted by that constitutional provision, and thus comes the urgent need to lift it. Even with Americans and other aliens whose investments here are already protected by many foreign investment laws such as the build operate and transfer (BOT).
Magtubo explained that on the contrary, their decision to invest in the country may not be bothered by the Philippine conditions but by the overall investments climate amid capitalism’s continuing dip into global recession.
“In fact, what we must be greatly concerned of are the fate of our OFW’s and emigrants living in the US and other countries badly hit by the financial crisis since the immediate impact of that crisis is the rise in unemployment rate,” said Magtubo.
Magtubo cited a recent report by Reuters based on the findings of some business analysts that US factories are now at “recession levels” causing a rise in the unemployment rate.
The Institute for Supply Management’s index of national factory activity fell to 43.5in September from 49.9 in August. An index of below 50 means contraction instead of expansion. Another report by employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reveals that job cuts brought the third-quarter layoffs total to 287,142, the highest quarter of cuts since the fourth quarter of 2005. The September non-farm payrolls report from the Department of Labor is expected to show a loss of 100,000 jobs, according to a median estimate from economists.
The labor leader said that under this condition, the government must be more concerned with the ‘capacity’ of our OFWs to secure their jobs abroad and weather this crisis than their ‘ability to invest’ their dollars in the country, which they already did by sending most of their incomes back home to support their families.
There are at least eight million Filipinos working abroad, according to the records of POEA. It is assumed that their jobs as well as their income are threatened by this global recession. One in every six Filipino families derives most of their income from OFW remittances, according to studies.
“It should be this kind of risk and prospect that our government leaders should prepare. Otherwise, making use of the crisis as an ‘opportunity’ to revive the charter change campaign, is barefaced political opportunism,” said Magtubo
Accordingly, to prepare the country for the worse impact of the global crisis, the Partido ng Manggagawa called on national leaders to reverse its economic policies that were hinged more on foreign investments rather than on developing our own industry and the real economy.
“It can be done by redirecting the more than P600B debt service payments this year for economic and social services. Banks and pension funds should also be mandated to invest their money in agriculture, industry, housing, and other sectors of our real economy, rather than in ‘casino’ speculative markets offshore,” concludes Magtubo.
Partido ng Manggagawa
2 October 2008
Transforming the US financial crisis into an opportunity for the Philippines was not just a wishful thinking on the part of the House Speaker but an insidious ploy by the administration to smuggle its charter change agenda.
“The view that the worsening financial crisis in the US may turn into a golden opportunity for the Philippines was more like King Midas’ political imagination rather than sound economic wisdom of Speaker Nograles,” said Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) chair, Renato Magtubo.
Speaker Nograles had said that the US financial crisis offers us the best argument to "lift equity restrictions" on the prohibitive 60-40 constitutional provision that favors only local businessmen, adding that amending the constitution would give Americans and Filipino migrants the opportunity to transfer their investments here.
Magtubo, who was a former partylist representative for labor, pointed out that there was no solid argument to support the claim that Fil-Am’s decisions to bring their investments back home is restricted by that constitutional provision, and thus comes the urgent need to lift it. Even with Americans and other aliens whose investments here are already protected by many foreign investment laws such as the build operate and transfer (BOT).
Magtubo explained that on the contrary, their decision to invest in the country may not be bothered by the Philippine conditions but by the overall investments climate amid capitalism’s continuing dip into global recession.
“In fact, what we must be greatly concerned of are the fate of our OFW’s and emigrants living in the US and other countries badly hit by the financial crisis since the immediate impact of that crisis is the rise in unemployment rate,” said Magtubo.
Magtubo cited a recent report by Reuters based on the findings of some business analysts that US factories are now at “recession levels” causing a rise in the unemployment rate.
The Institute for Supply Management’s index of national factory activity fell to 43.5in September from 49.9 in August. An index of below 50 means contraction instead of expansion. Another report by employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reveals that job cuts brought the third-quarter layoffs total to 287,142, the highest quarter of cuts since the fourth quarter of 2005. The September non-farm payrolls report from the Department of Labor is expected to show a loss of 100,000 jobs, according to a median estimate from economists.
The labor leader said that under this condition, the government must be more concerned with the ‘capacity’ of our OFWs to secure their jobs abroad and weather this crisis than their ‘ability to invest’ their dollars in the country, which they already did by sending most of their incomes back home to support their families.
There are at least eight million Filipinos working abroad, according to the records of POEA. It is assumed that their jobs as well as their income are threatened by this global recession. One in every six Filipino families derives most of their income from OFW remittances, according to studies.
“It should be this kind of risk and prospect that our government leaders should prepare. Otherwise, making use of the crisis as an ‘opportunity’ to revive the charter change campaign, is barefaced political opportunism,” said Magtubo
Accordingly, to prepare the country for the worse impact of the global crisis, the Partido ng Manggagawa called on national leaders to reverse its economic policies that were hinged more on foreign investments rather than on developing our own industry and the real economy.
“It can be done by redirecting the more than P600B debt service payments this year for economic and social services. Banks and pension funds should also be mandated to invest their money in agriculture, industry, housing, and other sectors of our real economy, rather than in ‘casino’ speculative markets offshore,” concludes Magtubo.
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