“Magbanua’s continuing disappearance shows that state security agencies can simply ignore writs of amparo and other court decisions that favor labor rights defenders."
"This happens every year—once harvest season comes, prices crash. Farmers can no longer recover their investment. Now, they can’t even sell their produce; they’re forced to give tomatoes away or throw them out. There must be immediate compensation for the farmers who have suffered losses."
“Mike is a known cultural worker and labor leader who dedicated much of his life organizing workers in Baguio City and miners employed by exploitative large-scale mining corporations in the Cordillera. He has consistently advocated for workers’ rights and welfare while also bringing his advocacy from the communities to performance stages in the streets."
Coca-Cola Cebu is set to retrench the workers following the termination of their contract with manpower agency Exeltech Manpower and Services Incorporated. However, the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights noted that the retrenchment actually comes following an order from the Department of Labor and Employment to regularize the workers, calling the move a “naked display of corporate greed."
Invisible Labor's director Joanne Cesario said that the documentary’s success was a collective effort by the workers’ movement and advocates dedicated to preserving labor history. Reflecting on a 2022 gathering of labor rights advocates, Cesario shared how they recognize the urgent need to mainstream labor history, even within the workers’ movement itself.
It has been more than a month since his disappearance but Lariosa remains missing. The effect of his abduction rippled down to other organizers in the Southern Mindanao region. The United Nations (UN) has identified that enforced disappearance is a frequently used strategy to spread terror, not only to the close relatives of the disappeared but also to their communities.
The fact-finding team on the disappearance of a labor organizer said that there are eyewitness reports that the Philippine military is involved.
A global research showed how more than 70 percent of industrial greenhouse gases have been linked to only 100 companies since 1988.
"Jude Thaddeus Fernandez was organizing workers in communities to enjoin them to campaign for wage increases and other workers’ rights. He is a labor organizer and does not bear arms.”
"We mourn behind the face mask. We rage over the token relief promised but not received. We rage despite the physical and social distance."
Contrary to how the Pepmaco brands itself as leading surfactant manufacturing with innovative and advance technology, respiratory masks barely protect the workers.
“We have the worst hunger, unemployment, killings and when we protest and organize we are called ‘criminals.’"
“As hardworking Filipinos who struggle to support our families through honorable means, we deserve no less than wages and salaries that would afford us humane living conditions. We say enough of the Duterte government’s neglect of our plight.” By ANNE MARXZE D....
“We need to continue organizing contractual workers, especially now that there have been favorable decisions released under Duterte which he just failed to implement."
The Philippines was among the top 10 countries across the globe to be worst for workers, according to the Global Rights Index for 2018 released last June 8 by the International Trade Union Confederation. In a scale of 1 to 5, the Philippines is a 5 with “no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of law.
“We tried to talk to the inspectors because we were the complainants but the management, the security, prevented us from going near them.”
"The charges are pathetically not worth the paper they were written on.”
Elmer Labog of KMU urged workers to keep organizing and forming or defending their unions, saying the plight of workers won’t improve without their own action and organization, without unions, and without genuinely pro-worker unions in particular.
“The special treatment being given to [Ret. Col,. Eduardo ] Kapunan and being denied to his co-accused further exposes the rotten judicial system in the country. It definitely bodes ill for the quest for justice in the Olalia-Alay-ay double murder case.” – Kilusang Mayo Uno
As prices of basic products and services continue to increase, national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno asked the public to participate in the “Protestang Bayan vs. Nagtataasang Presyo at Demolisyon.” Holding of protests is the only way Filipinos can have the chance of preventing price hikes and demolition of poor communities, Roger Soluta, KMU secretary-general, said in a statement.
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