Group appeals for aid for Mactan ecozone workers in Cebu

The massive damage resulting from Typhoon Odette included the infrastructure of factories in Metro Cebu, the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City and the southern part of the province. As a result, thousands of ecozone workers are temporarily out of work due to the damaged factories. “Thus, we are appealing for aid for the affected workers from the government as well as the companies too,” stated Dennis Derige, spokesperson of the Cebu chapter of the Partido Manggagawa (PM).

 

PM welcomed the announcement from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that it is extending assistance for some 25,000 informal workers worth P100 million through the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD). But Derige asserted that affected workers in the formal sector desperately need support too.

 

Citing informants from the Mactan Export Processing Zone Workers Association (MEPZWA), Derige reported that the factory of the biggest employer in the Mactan Ecozone has been damaged and as a result its more than 14,000 workers are without work until January 17. In contrast, just before Odette hit the Philippines, those workers were supposed to work through the Christmas holidays due to a large shipment of apparel. Another garment factory in the Mactan Ecozone employing more than 3,000 workers was also severely damaged and their workers too are on forced leave. Just these two companies already comprise almost a fifth of the total 100,000 workers in the Mactan Ecozone.

 

“Even outside of the Mactan Ecozone, other manufacturing and service establishments are not operating either due to actual damage from the typhoon or the lack of electricity. For example, one food processing company is closed in the meantime for lack of electricity and so its 130 employees are temporarily jobless without an assurance when they will be back at work,” Derige declared.

 

“It is the government that is in the position to provide immediate relief both to workers in the formal and informal sector. Everybody has suffered and no one must be left behind in the relief and rehabilitation effort. We hope that the DOLE hears the plea of MEPZWA and other Cebu workers,” Derige insisted.

 

He added that “Nonetheless we also ask companies to provide support to their own employees as they are more than capable. Just before Odette, Mactan Ecozone locators were already operating normally. And for a decade and half before the blip of the pandemic, business was booming for firms inside and outside the Mactan Ecozone. But while productivity rose by 50% and revenues doubled in 15 years, real wages have stagnated. At this dark hour of disaster, we call on employers to share the fruits of labor with their workers.”

 

Derige cited that one unionized mining company in Cebu already gave a P5,000 ayuda to all of its employees and extended a P20,000 calamity loan payable in one year without interest. This should be a model for others, he asserted.

December 27, 2021

Ping asked to dialogue with groups calling for role in Yolanda rehab

Press Release

December 31, 2013

The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called on Yolanda rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson, agencies involved in the reconstruction plan and international aid groups to dialogue with workers associations in Leyte demanding decent jobs and people’s participation.

Yesterday a motorcade of a hundred tricycles garbed in tarp posters with the message “Make jobs a priority in Yolanda rehab,” went around Tacloban City and were warmly received by typhoon survivors. The motorcade signaled the launch of the campaign for decent employment, social protection and people’s participation as bedrocks of Yolanda rehabilitation and reconstruction plan.

“Yolanda survivors should be treated as citizens not beggars. It behooves Ping, rehab agencies and donor countries to engage with the Leyte informal workers in the reconstruction plan. Inclusive growth is mere lip service, people empowerment is just a buzz word without the actual participation of organized groups at the grassroots,” insisted Wilson Fortaleza, PM spokesperson.

Before the motorcade, the tricycle drivers attended a noon mass at the Sto. Nino Church. A gathering and small salu-salo followed the motorcade at the church’s social hall where family members and other Yolanda survivors gathered to hear the groups’ manifesto and affirm their commitment to the collective struggle of rebuilding their lives and their communities.

“In the rehabilitation and rebuilding process, we do not want to just revert back to where we were before Yolanda. We want a new community–a better community,” declared Judy Torres, PM-Region 8 coordinator and chair of the Tacloban Federation of MCH (Motor Cabs for Hire) Drivers and Operators Associations, Inc. (TAFEMDO).

The campaign came days after the government announced the US$8.17-billion or P361-B plan under the so-called Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda (RAY) which will be completed in four years.

In a joint manifesto signed by TAFEMDO, Trisikad Operators and Drivers Organization of Hilongos, Leyte, Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa-Region 8 and PM, the groups explained that prior to the onslaught of Yolanda, they were already living miserable lives since transporting people around the city through motorized and non-motorized cabs for hire was their only source of income. 

“Our priority demand is decent jobs because it is a guarantee to a person’s long-term security and a life of dignity,” said Torres, adding that while everybody was devastated it is the poor that suffered most.

He added that “Today’s extreme weather systems are the awful outcome of climate change caused by unrestrained economic activities of industrial countries. Thus, we believe that more than the humanitarian aspect, developed countries have the historical, moral, and social responsibility to come to our aid.”

Labor urges gov’t to make employment, building new communities a priority in post-Yolanda rehab

PRESS RELEASE

28 November 2013

Tacloban City and the rest of typhoon-ravaged places in Regions 8, 7 and 6 must be rehabilitated and rebuilt based on a framework of building the people’s capacity to survive calamities and live a secure and dignified life thereafter, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said in a statement.

“A new model of community must be built out of the ruins of Yolanda. Employment must be a top priority since it is regular income that gives people a sense of long-term security and a life of dignity,” said PM spokesman Wilson Fortaleza. 

Fortaleza pointed out that since the private sector where the government completely relies on job generation is not capable, prior to and after Yolanda, of providing employment to the poor people of these particular regions, the rehabilitation plan must therefore include a medium to long-term public employment program where the State plays a key role. 

“Such program may include social service activities such as healthcare, climate-resilient mass housing projects, education and skills training, as well as building new, smart and renewable power and transport systems that would create green jobs, among others,” added Fortaleza. 

The labor group likewise stressed that if “Yolanda” is the “new normal” vis-à-vis climate change, then the government must not stay on a normal mode of asking, repacking, and delivering relief goods from northern countries in the face of 20 Yolandas in every semester of the whole year.

“There must be a shift – from relief operations to building prepared and secured communities,” said Fortaleza.

He added that northern countries whose high carbon emissions produce many Yolandas in the Pacific must be made to pay for a climate debt they owe to poor nations such as the Philippines – the compensation coming from them must be utilized for building new kind of communities.  

However, the labor group finds it very unfortunate that this country had been, up to this moment, is under the rule of the Ilustrado class whose vision of the country cannot go beyond the insular demand of their pockets. 

“It’s very clear that government’s failure in Yolanda, both national and local, is the failure of trapo politics,” said Fortaleza

On Saturday, November 30 and the 150^th birth anniversary of working class hero Andres Bonifacio, Partido ng Manggagawa will join the NAGKAISA! coalition march to Mendiola to raise the many working class issues that past and present governments failed to address, including climate crisis.

Appeal for Solidarity with Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan Victims

Tacloban City, 10 November 2013

The most powerful typhoon ever recorded in the Philippines and one of the worst in the world, super typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda slammed the central part of the archipelago and wrought devastation in its wake. The true extent of the damage to lives and property is yet to be known as Haiyan/Yolanda destroyed critical communications and power infrastracture thus limiting access to the worst hit areas.

Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) [Labor Party-Philippines] is appealing for solidarity and assistance to ordinary workers and poor who have suffered from the super tyhoon’s impact. PM members among informal drivers and the urban poor in Tacloban, Leyte were among those severely affected and will be among the focus of the relief assistance.

The super typhoon swept through the islands of the central Philippines from Cebu to Panay where PM maintains chapters in the key cities. In Cebu and Bohol, the devastation of the typhoon comes on top of the destruction brought by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake less than a month ago. As in all the disasters brought about by climate change, the urban and rural poor suffer the most.

PM is appealing for assistance so it could offer relief at least to its affected members and its organized communities. Relief assistance would complement the organizing efforts of PM on the basis of urban poor and working class issues.

PM is a political organization of the working class which engages in parliamentary struggle as a extension of the parliament of the streets. Even as PM has a strategic vision of social change, it actively fights for social reform and even involves in relief efforts as means to arouse, organize and mobilize the working people.

To donate via Paypal: http://laborpartyphilippines.org/funddrive

To donate via bank wire transfer:

Partido ng Manggagawa
Current Account No. 003122-1012-73
Landbank of the Philippines
Batasan Branch

Swift Code: TLBPPHMMXXX

  

To donate relief goods contact:

Partido ng Manggagawa-Central Visayas office

Workers Development Center, Barangay Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City 6015

Cellphone Nos. +639166058407, +639328785506

Partido ng Manggagawa National office

144 Legaspi St., Project 4, Quezon City, Philippines 1109

Landline No. +632-4396829

Cellphone Nos. +639175570777, +639228677522,+639209466191

Appeal for Flood Victims

Appeal for Solidarity with Victims of Floods in the Philippines

Flooding in a slum area of Metro Manila

In scenes reminiscent of the large scale destruction wrought by Typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana) in late 2009 in which 400 died, torrential rains brought widespread flooding in the capital Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Almost a million people are affected and some 250,000 forced to evacuate, majority of whom are workers and poor, with 15 deaths already reported.

Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) [Labor Party-Philippines] is appealing for solidarity and assistance to the communities which have been hit by flashfloods. Among the severely hit areas are communities organized by PM located in the working class towns of Marikina, Malabon, Valenzuela, Paranaque, Pasay, Marilao in Bulacan, Bacoor and Rosario in Cavite.

The heavy downpour over more than 24 hours from the afternoon of August 6 to the present was brought by the south-west monsoon and enhanced by Tropical Storm Haikui. The government has already issued the highest level of alert with the warning that landslides may occur in mountainous areas and floods in low-lying areas. The ongoing disaster is no doubt the most recent impact of climate change in the Philippines.

PM is appealing for assistance so it could offer relief at least to the communities is has already organized. Relief assistance would complement the organizing efforts of PM on the basis of urban poor and working class issues, and its urgent advocacy for climate justice and green jobs.

To donate relief goods contact:

Partido ng Manggagawa office

Landline No. +632-4396829

Cellphone Nos. +639175570777 (Globe), +639228677522 (Sun) , +639209466191 (Smart)

144 Legaspi St., Project 4, Quezon City, Philippines 1109

To donate via bank wire transfer:

Partido ng Manggagawa
Current Account No. 003122-1012-73
Landbank of the Philippines
Batasan Branch

Swift Code: TLBPPHMMXXX

To donate via Paypal:
http://laborpartyphilippines.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=539&Itemid=50

Labor party and urban poor groups demand massive funding for decent housing

PRESS RELEASE
29 October 2009

Carrying salvaged house wares to symbolize what remain of their lives after the onslaught of Ondoy and Pepeng, labor and urban poor groups led by labor partylist group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) and the Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino (AMP) trooped to the historic Mendiola bridge this morning demanding massive funding for decent housing and to protest the government’s planned forced relocation of poor settlers living in danger zones.

PM chair Renato Magtubo, said without allocating enough funds for building decent houses and safe habitat for the poor, talks about rehabilitation and reconstruction are mere dead words and housing problems cannot be substantially addressed.

The groups are asking the government to declare a moratorium on debt payments to free the funds intended to it for massive rehabilitation and reconstruction program. Citing the latest debt statistics from the Freedom from Debt Coalition, foreign debt service for 2010 amounts to P253.459-B and domestic debt service to about P492.716-B. Government puts the rehabilitation and reconstruction costs to only about P50-B.

Resisting what he described as ‘anti-poor’ prejudice being peddled by the government against the poor, Magtubo turned the table against the failed housing programs of the past and present governments, saying this was the main cause why millions of poor Filipinos are forced to subsist in houses made of light materials and stay in places prone to natural disasters such as floods and man-made disasters such as fires.

Magtubo said further that workers both in the formal and informal sectors whose incomes could not even meet even half of the current cost of living surely do not have the options to live in a less dangerous way, more so for the unemployed.

“Thus, the poor have long been ‘in danger’ living in this kind of miserable conditions,” stressed Magtubo.

Hence, instead of blaming the poor for waiting their deaths in unsafe and inhabitable places, “the government should help them rise with dignity by addressing the housing problem and not by pulling them down further with anti-poor prejudice and threats of government-sponsored forced relocations,” added Magtubo.

The labor leader explained that any relocation plans and new housing program should now be premised on the right to housing of all Filipinos and environmental concerns. “This means that housing units should be built of strong materials but affordable, and placed in areas that are not only safe but also sustainable,” added Magtubo.

The Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino echoed the same position, saying that the usual ‘balik-probinsya’ and the hit and miss, unfunded relocation programs do not solve the problems of the urban poor.

The group cited the case of informal settlers from Manila who were relocated in Marilao and Sta. Maria Bulacan, as well as in Rizal suffering the same miserable conditions as well as devastations from natural calamities such as Ondoy and Pepeng.

Meanwhile, in opposition to the general view that it is the millions of poor who pollute and destroy nature, both PM and AMP point to the bigger roles played by industry owners, mining companies, and land developers in exploiting natural resources and destroying our natural habitat.

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.