Same Bankrupt Job-generating “Strategies”
Contrary to his oft-repeated promises of “change,” Aquino’s recent US trips revealed to workers that he is simply aping Arroyo’s job-generating strategies, said the Migrante International. His government’s recently released employment figures also revealed his government’s aping of Arroyo’s “magic trick” with the figures, said the KMU.
President Aquino gave millions of unemployed Filipinos “false hopes” when he dangled the potential 10,000 jobs he created from his US trip, said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator. The said jobs are fruits of Aquino’s talks with businessmen in California, USA, where Aquino got a letter of intent from HP, a computer company, that they would expand operations in the Philippines.
If these jobs were indeed realized, Monterona said, it would more likely be in the mold of the jobs created when the Philippine government attracts transnational corporations to do business in the country— “contractual, paying lower than the prescribed minimum wages, without enough benefits and compensation.”
“The selfish interests of foreign investors are contrary to the interests of the working people, thus, they would not give just wages and better compensation package and benefits for its hired workers; they would always tend to alienate Filipino workers to amass more profits,” Monterona said.
(Photo Courtesy of KMU / bulatlat.com)
Three months into Aquino’s presidency, the National Statistics Office released the latest employment data in the country, which maintained the “same distortions wrought in it by the past administration,” said the KMU.
“Such data were arrived at using the same old magic trick that Gloria did – which is to exclude from those who are considered ‘unemployed’ people who have been discouraged from finding work precisely because of the chronic lack of job opportunities in the country,” said Elmer Labog, chairman of KMU. He added that we do not need more news and boastings on employment figures. “We need real, stable, and decent jobs. We have already exhausted ways to earn a living, done all possible sidelines, and entered into all kinds of hardships, precisely because of the gross lack of jobs.”
“Same OBL-Worsened Trade Union Repression”
The KMU and non-government labor rights advocate Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) have listed at least four proofs that the Arroyo-style repression of workers’ rights remains in place under Aquino:
1. “Extra-judicial killings have continued, with Edward Panganiban, 27, secretary-general of the workers’ union in Japanese-owned Takata Philippines Corporation, as one of the victims.
2. “https://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/09/05/in-jail-on-trumped-pp-charges-kmu-regional-leader-pines-for-freedom/, KMU National Council from Eastern Visayas, remains in jail over trumped-up charges for more than three years now. The Aquino government has refused to heed appeals for his release.
3. “Workplaces that were militarized by the Arroyo regime remain militarized, and military personnel in these places continue to meddle in union affairs: Dole Philippines, Lepanto Mining, Consul Farms, Robina Farms in both Rizal and Bulacan, banana plantations in Compostela Valley, among many others.
4. The filing of trumped-up charges against leaders of labor and people’s organizations continues: last September such charges were filed against seven progressive labor and people’s leaders in the Bicol region, including KMU National Council member Leo Caballero.”
OBL or Oplan Bantay-Laya is the Aquino administration’s “blueprint for state terrorism,” according to human rights group Karapatan. The group said OBL has distinguished itself from other anti-insurgency campaigns by lumping legal activists together with underground revolutionary organizations. OBL has been blamed for the extra-judicial killings of more than 1,000 activists under Arroyo.
In Aquino’s first 100 days, 16 activists have been added to the list as Aquino has extended OBL. “The spate of criminalization against activists is again part of the state’s legal offensive against organizations and individuals they arbitrarily accuse of being members of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines,” said the CTUHR. The group pointed to labor leaders in Bicol who at present are being accused by the military, much like what had happened to another KMU National Council member Bebot Borja, who remains languishing in prison in Tacloban until today. (Bulatlat.com)
