On the occasion of the first State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” C. Aquino III, workers under the banner of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) would march to Batasan to call on the president to unveil his government’s roadmap towards generating secure jobs for all.

“The unprecedented high trust rating of President Aquino is a clear mandate for change – for good government and pro-poor policies,” Daniel L. Edralin, APL Chairperson said. “As such, today we march with other progressive forces to ensure that the Aquino government would live up to its mandate,” he added.

To lift large sections of the working class from poverty, the APL is urging the president to adopt the Labor Agenda, a set of policy reforms aimed at promoting full employment, increased social services and social protection, labor justice and strengthened protection of labor rights.

“The only way to fight poverty is to end the unemployment crisis,” Daniel L. Edralin, APL Chairperson said. “Government needs to generate jobs, secure and quality jobs, jobs wherein workers’ and trade union rights are full respected,” he added.

According to government statistics, as of April 2010, more than 3 million are unemployed and 6.3 million are underemployed. Addressing the plight of the unemployed and the underemployed – which comprise a quarter of the labor force – requires thoroughgoing reforms in the country’s trade, fiscal, monetary and investment policies.

More importantly, it requires having a clear industrial policy. “To industrialize, we can no longer rely on the export-oriented policies of the past,” Edralin said. “We need to develop the domestic economy,” he added. It is for this reason that APL finds President Aquino’s 22-point marching orders for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) short of what workers are expecting.

At the same time, we cannot develop the economy without a firm commitment to adhere to basic workers’ and trade union rights. To signal its commitment to workers’ and trade union rights, the APL is calling on President Aquino to fully investigate the trade union killings perpetrated under the previous administration.

“The climate of impunity must stop,” Edralin said. “It will if we put to jail those who are responsible for the assassinations of trade unionist, activists and journalists, including the perpetrators of the Hacienda Luisita massacre,” Edralin added.

The country is a signatory to ILO conventions, specifically Convention 87 or the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention. Pending before the ILO is ILO Case No. 2528, where a total of thirty-nine (39) cases of extrajudicial killings of trade union leaders, members, organizers and union supporters and informal workers are alleged.

The APL will march in the NCR, Cebu, Davao and General Santos. In the NCR, the APL, together with Akbayan, will march towards Batasan in the morning. In the afternoon, APL will link up with the Kowalisyon Kontra Kontraktwalisasyon (KONTRA), Freedom from Debt Coalition, and Kampanya para sa Makataong Pamumuhay (KAMP).

ADDING its support to the possible appointment of Loretta Ann “Etta” Rosales as the new head of the Commission on Human Rights, the Alliance of Progressive Labor dismissed all the fuss about the former Akbayan solon as mainly prompted by the worldview of some quarters that rejects anything and everything not to their liking.

In particular, the Akbayan-Citizens’ Action Party said that the opposition to the selection of Rosales “was motivated more by ideological biases against her and Akbayan rather than by a sincere effort to make (CHR) more efficient in promoting human rights and securing justice for the abused.”

Akbayan, which is now assured of at least two seats in the incoming 15th Congress after an impressive showing in the recent May 10 party-list election, added that Rosales “has shown objectivity and openness in dealing with the intricacies of human rights and has repeatedly proven her firm and steady resolve to pursue and defend the people’s rights and freedom.”

APL cited Rosales’ long track record in championing various facets of democracy and human rights, including labor and trade union rights and national sovereignty, through her deep involvement in different mass organizations since the heyday of the Marcos dictatorship – from teachers’ union and alliance to national multisectoral coalition to political groupings to human rights advocacy networks and to NGOs.

One of the tens of thousands of human rights victims of the Marcos regime, Rosales also became a political prisoner and was tortured and abused by her military captors.

Rosales was also the very first Akbayan congressional representative after the party won a seat in the first ever party-list election in 1998. She eventually served the maximum three consecutive terms, from the 11th to the 13th Congresses or from 1998 to 2007. She is now the party’s chairman-emeritus.

During her nine years in Congress, Rosales earned both the respect and fear of allies and foes, respectively, for her no-nonsense stance for progressive legislations and social advocacies as well as fierce criticism against corruption, patronage politics and many forms of abuses from within and outside the government, including her former comrades and even current colleagues in the broad Left movement.

For her all-encompassing activism and engagements, including her eventful chairmanship of the then House Committee on Human, Civil and Political Rights, Rosales gained not only many supporters and admirers but likewise virulent enemies and critics, ironically both from the state-security establishment and a segment of the Left.

This might partly explain, the APL said, the well orchestrated objection of several closely allied organizations to the supposed “offer” of President Aquino to Rosales – which she herself clarified as not yet final or still “unofficial” – to become the successor of ex-CHR Chair Leila de Lima, who’s now the Justice Secretary.

NOYNOY Aquino’s overwhelming electoral victory is a testimony of a widespread clamor and a clear mandate for change, especially for good governance and pro-poor policies, after the nation endured more than nine years of endless and large-scale corruption, worsening poverty, blatant violations of human and democratic rights, and systematic duplicity under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime.

This makes Aquino’s responsibility bigger and the masses’ expectations of him higher, the Alliance of Progressive Labor said, as he begins his presidency following his inauguration today as the 15th Philippine president.

Vowing this early to press Aquino to live up to his “people’s mandate,” the APL and other progressive forces in the labor and social movements are urging the new president to make “full employment” one of the centerpiece programs of his administration.

“The only way to fight poverty is to lift large sections of the working class from poverty by providing them jobs,” Daniel Edralin, APL chair, said, adding: “But we are not just for any jobs, we want secure and quality jobs. Of equal importance, we want jobs where labor and trade union rights are fully respected and implemented.”

Despite the much ballyhooed “36 quarters of uninterrupted growth” allegedly initiated by Arroyo, the number of poor Filipinos or those five-person families living on a little over P1,200 a month has risen to 27.60 million in 2006 from 25.47 million in 2001, the year when Arroyo assumed the presidency after the ouster of the similarly corrupt government of Joseph Estrada.

Government data also revealed that underemployment rate has declined in April to 17.8 percent of the labor force or about 6.3 million workers, but the number of those without jobs has posted a two-year high and thus could further aggravate poverty incidence, when unemployment rate swelled to 8 percent or comprising of 3.1 million jobless Filipinos.

The APL stressed that addressing the plight of the unemployed and underemployed – their numbers are still conservative, but they already represent at least a quarter of the 38.8 million labor force in January – requires comprehensive reforms in the country’s trade, fiscal, monetary and investment policies.

“More importantly, it requires having a clear industrial policy that strengthens domestic economy which no longer relies on the export-oriented strategy of the past and aims to reverse the current neoliberal programs that have killed the Philippine agriculture and industry,” Edralin explained.

Amid these economic restructurings, however, the APL underscored the need for the Aquino administration to ensure basic human, labor and trade union rights, including a stop to the climate of impunity which intensified during Arroyo’s rule as well as the prompt punishment of the perpetrators.

“Noynoy should guarantee that within his six-year term, those involved in big-time corruption and other anomalies – for example, the ZTE broadband deal and the fertilizer scam – as well as in the killings, abductions and harassment of trade unionists, activists and journalists – including the gruesome Maguindanao massacre – are without delay sent to jails,” the APL added.

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION TO DENOUNCE BURMA’s 2010 ELECTIONS:

PHILIPPINES—Filipino solidarity activists under the Free Burma Coalition – Philippines (FBC-Phils) today staged a “PEOPLE’s ELECTION” in front of the Burma Embassy in Makati City to denounce Burma’s 2010 military elections, which according to the group is “a one-sided and undemocratic plan that will just legitimize the junta’s hold to power.”

Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralitang Taga-Lungsod (KPML), Asian Bridge, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women –Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), APL-Youth, Akbayan and the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) were the organizations present during the rally.

“We urge Noynoy to adopt his late mother’s critical position against the ruling military generals in Burma. As the next Philippine president, he can even lead the ASEAN in applying stronger political pressures to the junta. He has to prove that Filipinos abhor tyrannical regimes like the one in Rangoon,“ Bans explained.

The group added that the ASEAN must also take bolder steps to compel the military regime of Burma to democratize. Bans continued, “it is no longer possible for the ASEAN to defend Burma at this stage. The ASEAN must now confess that the policy of constructive engagement to Burma is a miserable failure.”

Other international actions:

In New Delhi, India: People’s Elections and Rally. A People’s Election Commission was formed with Church and community leaders who will collect postcard ballots. Events will be held between 27 and 30 May on the Thai-Burma border, in India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, US, Canada, and Brazil, marking a Global Day of Action as part of the Global Campaign Against Burma’s 2010 Military Elections.

Despite the Arroyo regime’s efforts to disrupt the 107th celebration of International Labor Day through its dubious “holiday economics”, tens of thousands of workers belonging to the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) and its allied organizations inundated the streets of major cities around the country to renew their commitment to the historic struggle for the emancipation of the working class and social transformation.

“Gloria never ceases to insult the working class,” Daniel L. Edralin, APL Chairperson said. “She is obviously ignorant of the historic importance of Labor Day,” he added.

May Day was born from the struggle for the eight-hour day. It has since come to symbolize the working class itself and its struggles.

With just a few days to go before the national elections, the elite-dominated electoral contest has yet to tackle issues that are dear to the working people. This would result to people trooping again to the polls without a clear idea of what they could expect from their candidates after being elected.

It is for this reason that the APL and its allies marched to project the “Labor Agenda.” The Agenda identifies specific programs aimed at promoting security of tenure and quality jobs for all or full employment, improving labor justice, strengthening the protection of labor and trade union rights, and advancing the economic and social justice.

“We are calling on all workers to vote for candidates who are committed to implement the Labor Agenda,” Edralin said.

The APL also endorsed Akbayan in the party list election and supported the senatorial bid of Risa Hontiveros.

At the same time, APL enjoined workers to use its collective vote to end the Arroyo regime’s Kleptocracy. “Enough of Arroyo and her ilk,” Edralin declared. “Let’s make sure that she and her anointed candidates, including “Villarroyo”, are roundly beaten in the coming elections,” Edralin asserted.

APL held rallies in Manila, Lipa, Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and General Santos. In Manila, the APL linked up with the Labor Agenda Coalition in Mendiola.