“We add our voice to the STOP the War coalition’s call on Israel to immediately stop the carnage it unleashed upon Lebanon its defenseless people,” said APL Secretary-General Josua Mata. “Israel’s arrogant stance is not only laying waste to hundreds of innocent lives but also pushing the precarious situation in the Middle East further to the edge.”

“The current crisis is not an act of ’self-defense’ as Israel and its supporters claim. Rather, it is an Israeli war for domination, a regional war aimed at reshaping the map of contemporary Middle East,” Mata said.

“At the core of the Middle East conflict is the unflinching US support for Israel’s aggressions,” explained Mata. “For vetoing a UN ceasefire resolution and for providing the Israel with the military wherewithal to devastate its neighbors, we hold the US jointly liable for this atrocity,” Mata added.

“The region is a powder keg and Israel’s actions are needlessly putting Filipinos in the line of fire,” Mata said. “We call on the Philippine government to denounce the Israeli action and to take all necessary steps to ensure the continued safety of our OFWs in Lebanon and the Middle East in general,” added the labor leader.

The now common storyline that the war was initiated by Hezbolla’s July 12 raid across the Israeli border – which led to the capture of 2 Israeli soldiers – fails to emphasize that such action was limited to a military target. Israel’s response – a full-scale attack on civilian targets – is hugely disproportionate and stands in total disregard of the Geneva Conventions which prohibits collective punishment, targeting of civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure and more. It is, in short, a war crime.

Actually, the immediate trigger has its roots in Israel’s murderous policy in Gaza and the extraordinarily hypocritical US-led boycott and international sanctions against the Palestinians that started after Hamas democratically won the Palestinian Authority government in January 2006.

More importantly, beyond the immediate trigger, the current crisis is rooted Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and confiscation of land and water sources. Without this conflict, Hezbollah, Hamas and other similar groups would not be in today’s news.
————-

The Alliance of Progressive Labor today joined in mass demonstrations to challenge GMA’s version of the State of the Nation Adress, denouncing the Arroyo administration’s inability to create jobs.

“With a growing labor force population now at 35.2 million, this administration is still in denial as to just how grave the jobs deficit is,” said APL Secretary-General Josua Mata. “Instead of protecting our industries, it is trading them away through the WTO and continued adherence to liberalization and deregulation.”

“As a matter of fact, the latest Labor Force Survey of January 2006 revealed that of the country’s workforce, 8.1% is unemployed and 21.3% is underemployed,” explained Mata. “The underemployed rate is up dramatically from 16.1% a year ago — workers aren’t picky when it comes to jobs, they are stuck with what little jobs there are around!”

“To augment the havoc wreaked by her free trade doctrines, GMA would rather promote industries that have no value-added in terms of national industrialization, such as call-centers and other outsourcing work,” added the labor leader, “and job fairs that offer contractual work in which turn-overs are obscenely quick and pay is disgustingly low.”

Also from the LF participation survey, it was noted that the agriculture, fishery and forestry sector posted the highest increase in employment at 475 thousand. Employment in this sector grew by 4.2%, from 11.4 million in January 2005 to 11.8 million in January this year.

“It is in this sector that government should focus its efforts. Only in an adequately protected and supported domestic economy can a better future be provided for Filipino workers,” said Mata, “instead of driving them out as OFWs and putting them in harm’s way.”

“But this administration cannot adequately respond to workers’ concerns, as evidenced in particular by the NCR wage board decision to grant a measly P25 wage increase,” added Mata, “because it is deeply mired in one controversy after another with its very legitimacy continuing to be in doubt.”

For the labor leader, the jobs deficit will nto be solved under GMA. “Under an administration whose overriding concern is staying in power, the pressure is there to rely more on big business and capitalists for concessions, instead of upholding the Constitutional clauses on social justice and labor rights.”

According to Mata, “GMA has swept these fundamental principles in the highest law of the land under the rug, and seemed to have chosen to rely heavily on her military lapdogs instead to go out and hunt, threaten and kill any ang all who oppose her.”

“It is this deadly concoction of violence perpetrated against activists and civilians, the pathetic programs in place attempting jobs creation, and continued pursuit of neoliberal economics that makes the GMA administration stink to high heavens,” he added, “and it is past the time to end it!”

————-

The Philippine government is failing in its target of creating more jobs because its economic policies are misaligned from the interests of the majority of Filipinos. Upon the prodding of neoliberals like GMA who subscribe to the false promises of “free” trade through deregulation and liberalization, the country drastically lowered tariff levels on a whole range of products without careful study of its repercussions.

The effect has been the entry of cheap imported products, which may have had short-term gains for consumers, but had proved poverty-inducing in the end, because as more workers lost their fragile jobs, more families ended up below the poverty line, and now contribute to an already distressed economy hard pressed by political turmoil caused by the very same people eroding further our economy.

The Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) again calls attention to the dire consequences awaiting the country’s economy if the government rushes headlong into the deceptive text of negotiations for the Non-Agricultural Products Market Access (NAMA) agreement from the Doha round of WTO negotiations.

The NAMA covers just about everything that does not fall under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture: from raw materials to manufactured products, minerals, lumber and notably fish and fish products. The demand of the NAMA agreement is for the eventual elimination of tariffs on all these products to allow for the entry of foreign products into the Philippines, to the detriment of workers everywhere, from shoe workers in Marikina to steel workers in Calabarzon, to tuna fisherfolks in General Santos City. For a country that hasn’t even industrialized, we cannot afford to abandon our industry lines without a fight! In short, it will put millions of workers out into the streets with an anger which this illegal administration will not be able to contain!

The GATS, on the other hand, centers on services, threatening to open up vital areas, such as education, health and utilities, to the profiteering of dubious multinational corporations out to make a quick profit at the expense of our people. The only reason why these services are being targetted under the GATS is because these are the most lucrative at present. But as in the case of the MWSS privatization, this will not result into an efficient nor cheaper service.

In a country where universal access is a right that hasn”t even been realized, attaching a dollar sign to such services will only further keep them away from the reach of poor households. The GATS wil also effectviely take away control of regulation from government on sensitive areas such as tourism, retail, telecommunications and broadcasting, which are sensitive due to their impact on either our natural resources or our national sovereignty.

The APL demands that these WTO agreements be brought down and that the Philippine government craft policies that will truly pave the way for national industrialization and people-centered development! These agreements are not beneficial to the general public and workers who stand to lose what few jobs are available to us locally. It will only further enrich private entities and their cohorts who are only too willing to sell out Filipino workers for an uncertain and disastrous future.

Two years since President Arroyo vowed to step up job creation, the jobs crisis has taken a turn for the worse. Job creation has been weak, keeping unemployment and raising underemployment. The sustained weakness in the labor market threatens to push poverty up.

This assessment of President Arroyo’s job performance was made by the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) and the Labor Education and Research Network (LEARN) on the eve of her State of the Nation Address before Congress on Monday. The report was presented by Clarence Pascual, an economist working with the two labor organizations.

At the start of her contested second term in 2004, Arroyo pledged to generate 10 million jobs in six years. In the last two years, the economy generated some 1.5 million jobs, less than half the 3 million jobs needed to meet the government target.

“Job creation has been weak on account of lackluster economic growth,” according to the two labor groups. GDP growth during Arroyo’s second term has averaged 5.3%, below the 7-8% growth required to meet the government’s jobs target.

“Inadequate job creation has ensured that unemployment stays at near record levels,” notes Pascual. Unemployment stood at 11.3% in the first two quarters of 2006, down from a high 11.8% in 2004. This brings the number of jobless workers to over 4.1 million in 2006, slightly lower than the 4.2 million in 2004.

The two labor groups continue to use the old official definition of unemployment since there are no comparable figures with the revised figures before April 2005. The new definition of unemployment shows a much lower rate of 8.3%. It gives an unemployment level of 2.9 million, 1.3 million less than the old definition.

“There has been a serious deterioration in the labor market,” notes Pascual, citing surging underemployment since April 2005. Total underemployment went up from 9% in 2004 to 12% in 2005 and 14% in the first half of 2006.

Invisible underemployment, that is, the proportion of full-time workers wanting additional work hours, appears to have stabilized to 9.6% in April 2006 compared with 9.8% in the April 2005.

But visible underemployment, the proportion of part-time workers wanting additional work hours, remains on the uptrend, hitting a 20-year high in the first half of this year.

“Surging underemployment is important because it may indicate rising poverty incidence,” argues Pascual, “something that is not yet reflected in currently available income statistics.”

“Underemployed workers are likely to join the ranks of the working poor, their incomes insufficient to carry themselves and their families above the poverty line,” according to the group. The APL/LEARN cited past studies on poverty which noted that underemployment is strongly associated with poverty. Regions with high underemployment also tend to be the poorest.

Until recently, the lack of jobs has not made a dent on poverty as visible underemployment has been contained. Invisible underemployment or full-time workers wanting additional work hours even declined.

Unemployment, which has hovered above 11% since 2000, has largely hurt non-poor and middle-income families. Between 1997 and 2003, real incomes fell faster among non-poor families than poor families, based on data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

With unemployment kept at high levels, surging underemployment this time is likely to hurt poor families. This could have a negative impact on the poverty incidence.

Pascual traces the surge in underemployment to the low quality of jobs the economy is creating. Bulk of the new jobs came from agriculture, followed by jobs in services like vending. Agriculture accounted for 48% of jobs created in the last two years. Retailing contributed 25% of new employment. Most of these are part-time, low-paying jobs.

At the same time full-time jobs are being lost, resulting in record visible underemployment. Full-time jobs fell by 1.3 million in April this year from its year-ago level, while part-time jobs rose by close to 2 million.

Today, there are 12 million unemployed and underemployed Filipinos, up by 2 million in two years.

————-