Workers slam RevGov in Bonifacio Day rallies

The militant Partido Manggagawa (PM) called for a stop to the RevGov proposal in nationwide rallies commemorating Bonifacio Day. “Bonifaco led a real revolution to gain democracy for the Filipino masses. Duterte’s RevGov is instead a coup d’etat to install a dictatorship over the people,” asserted Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.

PM joined the group Kalipunan ng Kilusang Masa in a several-thousand strong march from Espana to Mendiola this morning. PM and allied organizations also mobilized in Cebu, Davao and Bacolod.

Bonifacio Day was a litmus test for RevGov as anti and pro groups had separate for rallies today.

“We call on workers not to join any RevGov events. The first to be sacrificed in a RevGov-cum-dictatorship are the freedoms and rights of workers. Workers need political and civil liberties to advance their fight against capitalist exploitation and state abuses,” explained Magtubo.

Kalipunan assembled at Ramon Magsaysay High School along Espana by 8:00 am before marching by 9:00 am to Mendiola. In Cebu, the broad coalition Cebu Citizens Assembly marched at downtown Colon St. in the morning. Workers and urban poor led by PM and Sentro assembled at Orcullo Park in Davao, marched around the city and then returned to the park for a program. In Bacolod, sugar workers converged on the city for a rally at downtown.

Magtubo added that “RevGov seeks to capitalize on people’s discontent on the brutal failings of the EDSA democracy. But the alternative to the democracy of the trapos is not a return to a dictatorship of one man but forward to a democracy of the masses that was the agenda of Bonifacio’s revolution. A revolution from the top by a dictator is a fake. The real revolution is a the result of a movement of the masses.”

He added that the Bonifacio Day rallies against RevGov is just the opening salvo and the campaign will escalate towards the commemoration of International Human Rights Day on December 10. More events and mobilizations are slated in the run-up to the remembrance of human rights day. ###

November 30, 2017

Social protection network pushes for agenda-based ‘13 polls

KAMP
PRESS RELEASE
08 October 2012

After an annoying week of ‘circus’ at the Commission on Elections, a network of grassroots organizations campaigning for social protection is pressing for a more empowering, agenda-based conduct of the 2013 national and local elections. In a “Caravan of Electoral Agenda” organised this morning by the Kampanya para sa Makataong Pamumuhay (KAMP), a priority list of social policy agenda was presented in public as the campaign network plans to make active intervention in next year’s polls.

The list includes the agenda on:
Decent work and guaranteed employment
Universal Health Care
Humane housing and the right to the city, and
De-privatization of essential services

“Political campaigns in the past insult the intelligence of people, candidates entertain us with song and dance numbers and empty promises. Unholy alliances among parties show that winning is more important than presenting clear and coherent programs,” declared KAMP lead convenor, Ana Maria R. Nemenzo, adding that “It’s time to make our elections agenda-based.”

The KAMP caravan with some 300 representatives coming from communities of the network made its first stop at the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) where workers demanded full compliance to government’s obligation to promote the workers’ rights and provide full employment to all Filipino workers.

“Yesterday was the World Day for Decent Work.  The celebration was obviously empty here in the Philippines where contractual/outsourced jobs dominate the industries while more and more members of the labor force are trapped in chronic unemployment and underemployment problems,” said Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) chair, Renato Magtubo.  He likewise called on the government to formulate a public employment program that can offer guaranteed public jobs for the millions of unemployed.

From the labor department, KAMP members proceeded to the Comelec where they handed a letter to Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes, requesting the poll body to organize a series of national debate among the candidates on the said policy agenda. Nemenzo said the Comelec is in the best position to organize this national debate, “so that candidates can also be given a fair chance to explain their position on those particular issues.”  She added that better still if the poll body can organize the same at the local level to bring it closer to the people.

Magtubo on his part explained that, “A national debate is thought-provoking and participatory, and therefore will be more empowering compared to sugar-coated political ads created by spin masters.”

From the poll body, the caravan headed toward the Department of Health office in Manila where KAMP members called for more radical reforms in the country’s health care system which they said, needs to institutionalize the principle and programs of primary health care to attend to people’s health needs at the onset, before they even reach the hospital. Nemenzo pointed out that in Cuba “hospitals are considered just a step away from the cemetery.”

The group said the KP program remains limited as the system merely converges with the government’s targeted conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and therefore is not universal.  “KAMP is pushing for a system where quality health care is accessible and available to anyone, anytime, anywhere,” explained Nemenzo, who is also the leader of WomanHealth Philippines.

The caravan’s last leg was at the National Housing Authority (NHA) where the demand for on-site/in-city housing program is being pushed by urban poor groups.

Bubuy Magahis, coordinator of Kilos Maralita said, “The present off-site relocation program denies the poor the right to the city.  Cities are not only for the 1% and the middle class.  The poor have the right to be with them and the State has the obligation to ensure that city spaces, including parks, are mutually shared by all its citizens whose majority in fact happens to be the poor.”

Labor group protests Danny Lim’s disqualification

Press Release
December 17, 2009

The labor party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) declared its opposition to the Comelec’s disqualification of senatorial candidate Danny Lim. “We ask the Comelec to reconsider its decision since it is simply not true that Danny Lim is a nuisance candidate. Gloria Arroyo is more of a nuisance candidate than Danny Lim if we base it on public opinion,” asserted Renato Magtubo, chairperson of PM, one the groups that have openly endorsed and are supporting the rebel general’s electoral bid.

The group revealed that it is considering launching mass actions to protest Lim’s disqualification. “Danny Lim is not a decoration in this election; he is instead a decorated officer. While Danny Lim is not a candidate of the elite, he is the leader of the elite group of the armed forces,” argued Magtubo.

The labor group is appealing to the Comelec to give due recognition to Lim’s motion for reconsideration and reverse its decision “lest the poll body be charged of politically motivated decisions and being an apparatus of the GMA regime in suppressing its political enemies.”

Magtubo added that “Danny Lim is not adopting to trapo politics that is why he ran as an independent, and he is being adopted the mass movement and the forces fighting for social change.”

PM was one of the several national groups that accompanied Lim when he filed his certificate of candidacy last November 27. The labor group also filed on the same day its manifestation to participate in the party-list elections.