PRESS RELEASE
4
October 2013
The
labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said that the Million People March Part
2 in Ayala today will be an opportunity for workers to “register their voice
against the pork barrel and patronage politics.” “Both the venue and protest
date are significant to workers. The Ayala district is home to at least one
million blue and white collar job workers.
Beginning today workers in NCR are due to receive a P10 crumb from the
new Wage Order,” stated PM Chair Renato Magtubo.
Insisting
that “Through the system of withholding taxes on our salaries and wages, and
VAT on the goods and services we buy, workers do not only pay the right amount
of taxes on time, we also disproportionately provide a greater share of our
income to the national treasury,” the group expected Makati employees and workers
to participate actively in the protest.
Magtubo
said workers are enraged at how billions of pesos of taxes that were paid out
of workers’ productivity are appropriated by corrupt politicians among
themselves. “The new economic formula called Disbursement Acceleration Program
(DAP), since illegal, is nothing but contraband smuggled into the pockets of
lawmakers for a special job well done,” said Magtubo, referring to the
additional allocation to lawmakers on top of their Priority Development
Assistance Fund (PDAF) after the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato
Corona.
The
labor leader and former party-list representative added that DAP, as explained
by Malacanang, is a stimulant for ‘miscarriage’ and not for ‘growth’ since its
implementation is worse than the PDAF. “The best thing it was able to achieve
was boost the spending spree or personal savings of politicians not the
purchasing power of ordinary workers,” Magtubo concluded.
PM is advocating the rechanneling
of funds freed by the abolition of pork barrel to universal social protection
such as universal healthcare, mass housing, public education, public
employment, climate programs, and other services. Magtubo appealed to anti-pork
protesters “Not to stop at abolition and push for an alternative fund
distribution system in which social services will be as accessible as a right
and not subject to the patronage of politicians. The anti-pork protest should
develop into a movement for universal social protection and also converge with
the anti-epal, anti-trapo and anti-dynasty advocacies of the last elections. Such
is a roadmap towards lasting political change in our country.”
Upon
its issuance last month, PM described the P10 wage order an insult and a
classic case of bigay-bawi since its
value eventually eroded by the impending MRT rate hike, increase in price of
rice, and the looming power and water rates increases. Amidst the backdrop of
protruding corruption scandals in the highest levels of government, Magtubo
said, “the workers’ need to deliver its strongest condemnation of this system:
Enough of this kind of rule!”
No comments:
Post a Comment