The militant group Partido Manggagawa (PM) is opposing the Philippine government’s request at the ongoing International Labour Organization (ILO) annual conference to be taken off the list of countries to be monitored for compliance with international labor rights standards. “Contrary to the assertion of the administration of President Bong Bong Marcos, Jr., no concrete action on labor-related killings has been done. One illustrative case is the five-year old killing of PM union organizer Dennis Sequeña,” declared Rene Magtubo, PM national chair and a Marikina city councilor.
“The government’s submission to the Committee on the Application of
Standards which is reviewing the complaints against the Philippine government at
the ongoing ILO annual conference states that concrete action has been
undertaken by concerned agencies. We know that there has been none regarding
the case of Dennis. This despite the fact that the provincial tripartite monitoring
body resolved that the killing of Dennis was labor-related and that the AO 35
Committee headed by the Department of Justice acquired jurisdiction of the case
years ago,” Magtubo explained. The ILO annual conference is currently in
session in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sequeña’s fatal shooting days before the annual ILO conference in 2019
sparked outrage among delegates and led to the decision to send a High-Level Tripartite
Mission (HLTM) to the country to investigate the series of labor-related
killings and other violations of the right to unionize in the country. It
however took more than four years since that ILO decision for the HLTM to
actually conduct its probe in January last year. The ILO HLTM concluded that the
“presence of a ‘mindset linking’ unions to the insurgency without the benefit
of due process, [which] has led to a climate of impunity and violations of
workers’ rights” and recommended the formation of a presidential body to
resolve the 72 unsolved cases of labor-related killings as of the end of 2023.
PM is calling on the ILO to reject the government’s request that the
Philippines be taken off the list of countries that need to be examined by the Committee
on the Application of Standards regarding compliance with international labor
standards, including freedom of association and right to collective bargaining.
“It has been five long years of seeking justice for our friend and comrade Dennis who was shot to death on June 2, 2019 while speaking at a labor rights seminar for Cavite export zone workers in Tanza. The brutal murder of Dennis has become a cold case after five years because of inaction by the government despite the presence of leads and findings by bodies such as the provincial tripartite body and the AO 35 Committee. His case reveals the disconnect between words and actions by the government on the prevailing impunity against union leaders and activists. We call on President Marcos Jr. to pursue the case as part of his administration’s commitment to the ILO HLTM,” stated Magtubo.
June 7, 2024
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