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.