Living wage, freedom of association asserted on celebration of Human Rights Day

 

Demand for living wage and freedom of association highlight workers’ participation in the Human Rights Day protest held in Manila, Saturday.

 

The Partido Manggawa (PM), said 74 years after the International Declaration of Human Rights and yet living a life of dignity and improvements in peoples’ standard of living that were desired under that declaration remain wanting.

 

“This is because in many states, including the Philippines, these aspirations remain a scrap of paper. And with civil and political rights, including the right to form unions, to bargain and even to strike are highly constrained, achieving living wage and rising standard of living as provided under the Constitution were never achieved,” said PM Secretary General Judy Miranda.

 

PM Joined the human rights community led by PAHRA and iDEFEND in a caravan and march to Mendiola this morning.

 

Miranda lamented that without a Labor Agenda to stand with, the Marcos administration will just be another sad episode in the country’s lack of compliance to international commitments on human rights.

 

Living wage, according to Miranda, “is the only way to achieve a golden age as the current poverty wages consigned workers to poverty even if their productivity has increased many folds during the last three decades.”

 

PM accompanied the Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa (KAPATIRAN) last Monday in filing a P100 wage increase for wage recovery (WinWar) petition at the NCR Regional Wage Board. Similar petitions will be filed in other regions in the next few days as inflation continues to soar.

 

PM also wants Congress to abolish the regional wage boards in favor of a national wage commission to reform the country’s wage fixing mechanisms that fail to bring wages nearer the living wage as mandated by the Constitution.

 

“The Maharlika bill should be scrapped in favor of the workers agenda such as wage hikes and wage reforms, ending endo, and the creation of strong public employment programs,” referring to the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) that Congress is pushing, said Miranda.

 

The group said the sovereign wealth fund can only be sustained by wealth tax as the public sector runs on deficit and the real surplus is at the hands of the wealthiest businessmen.

Photos of the December 10 Human Rights Celebration can be accessed here: https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/pfbid02LoqtmQCgWeYDQ4bq1ihGfRhpBYAiHCMwEmAEpEfxi8Q1tJzEu7AWPhPyNhSgJMoJl

Partido Manggagawa

10 December 2022

State of human rights in the country regressing further – labor group

The state of human rights in the country continues to regress under the Duterte administration, the Partido Manggagawa (PM) said in a statement sent to media on the International Human Rights Day. The group joined the march by members of human rights community led by the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) and i-DEFEND in Quezon City. 

“Extra-judicial killings remain unchecked while harassments and actual assaults against human rights defenders (HRDs) in the trade union and other people’s organizations escalated in recent months,” said PM Secretary General Judy Miranda. 

These assaults, Miranda noted, include red-tagging, misogyny, arrest and detentions, including unsolved killings of HRDs working for trade union rights and protection of the environment. 

Last June, trade union leader Dennis Sequeña of PM Cavite was gunned down while doing lecture on basic trade union rights for EPZA workers. This incident, including other cases of trade union killings and violations, prompted the International Labor Organization (ILO) to send a high level mission to the Philippines to investigate the state of trade union repression in the country. That mission, however, is yet to be acknowledged and allowed entry by the government. 

But for the group, the biggest threat to human rights in the country is the counter-narrative being peddled against its very concept and principles by no less than the President who keeps on vilifying the HRDs as bad guys working with society’s criminal elements. 

“It’s very similar to having a company CEO who keeps on telling his workers that labor rights are bad. That mindset justifies all repressive actions while creating fear among workers that having a job is better than enjoying labor rights,” concluded Miranda.

10 December 2019

Workers will continue fighting for democracy and human rights

Authoritarianism and liberal democracy are two distinct form of governance, yet workers under both circumstances suffer different degrees of human rights violations. Democracy and human rights, in other words, are permanent demands and agenda that workers will be fighting for in either condition of elite governance. 

We remember how workers and their trade unions were supressed during the dark days of martial law, 47 years ago today. But it is also important to recall the resistance and heroism the workers’ movement played during those turbulent years until the end of the Marcos dictatorship. Then the struggles that never stopped even under the post-martial law/post-Edsa regimes. 

Today, therefore, is also a good day to ask: When will workers stop fighting for those agenda?  

Workers did fight before because democracy was lacking and state violence was an everyday bill. We fight today because democracy was still wanting while chronic poverty and inequality remain. 

Accordingly, workers will be fighting any plan by the administration to bring back martial law or re-establish dictatorship, alongside with the campaigns for job security, living wage, freedom of association, and deeper political reforms. And we are aware of the fact that winning these agenda is more difficult under the Duterte regime where the struggle for labor and human rights are taken as rebellion initiated by state enemies. 

There are reasons to worry about the dangers faced by human rights defenders (HRDs) in this country today, including those who are involved in trade union organizing. Several trade union organizers have already been killed in EJK manner of executions. There is also an on-going red-tagging of unions being undertaken by the military nationwide, most especially in hot spot areas like EPZA’s and mining communities. Several picket lines have also been dispersed violently by combined private and state security forces in the last three years.   

Today we join the human rights community led by the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) and In Defense of Human Rights (I-Defend) in demanding #StopTheAssault against HRDs and the Filipino people. 

We condemn, in strongest terms, acts of state violence in the same way as we reject and demand the scrapping of official policies like red-tagging of trade unions and other HRDs working for the realization of a life of dignity and human rights for all.

21 September 2019

PM calls for justice for slain leader, victims of extra-judicial killings on anniversary of martial law:

The militant Partido Manggagawa (PM) today called for a stop to the killings due to the war on drugs and justice for one of their leaders ambushed last Saturday. PM joined the big mobilization of the coalition iDefend (In Defense of Human Rights and Dignity) this afternoon to commemorate the anniversary of the declaration of martial law.

“On the 44^th anniversary of martial law, the struggle for human rights and democracy for all remains as relevant and critical as ever. With the war on drugs claiming thousands of lives and a state of lawlessness imposed on the whole country, civil liberties and democratic freedoms are under clear and present danger,” stated Wilson Fortaleza, PM spokesperson.

He added that “The prevailing climate of impunity that has resulted in wanton killings of alleged drug pushers and addicts has also provided fertile ground for politically motivated slayings. The ambush killing of PM-Cebu leader and organizer, Orlando Abangan a few days ago is testament to this. Abangan’s murder came after the killing of Gloria Capitan, an environmental activist in Bataan, last July 1, on the first official day in office of the Duterte administration. The extra-judicial killings done in the name of the war on drugs have now spilled onto slayings of human rights defenders.”

The iDefend members started assembling at 2:00 pm today in Bustillos Church before marching to Plaza Miranda for a mass and program. At 6:00 pm the iDefend marchers lighted candles to commemorate the victims of martial law, the war on drugs and political killings of human rights defenders like Abangan and Capitan.

Also in Cebu today, PM and other militant and human rights groups held a rally to call for justice for Abangan and Capitan. They marched around downtown colon this afternoon to call for a stop to the killings and to never forget the terror of martial law.

“We call on the authorities for a swift but thorough investigation of the killing of Ka Lando Abangan. We know that they are already pursuing leads that point to certain suspects. Still we urge them not to stop at the arresting suspected gunman but to probe who the mastermind is. Ka Lando is not involved in drugs and is respected in his community as an activist, so we believe that his killing is politically motivated and is related to his work as a human rights defender of urban poor and workers,” explained Dennis Derige, PM-Cebu spokesperson.

Derige also revealed that five days before Abangan was shot to death, he escaped a first attempt on his life. He recalled that several armed men riding motorcycles came looking for Abangan in a place where he frequently hangs out.

September 21, 2016