MEMBERS of different bank unions described as a sham the signing today of the AFP and PNP top brass of a guideline pledging that the military and police establishment will respect and uphold labor and trade union rights

In what should have been a momentous event, leaders of the armed forces and the police, as well as the labor (DOLE), defense (DND) and interior and local government (DILG) departments, will sign today the guidelines on the conduct of the said agencies on ensuring that workers’ rights will not be curtailed.

The guidelines are merely reiterations of many existing laws and policies, but what made this document valuable is that it allows workers and trade unions another instrument to help compel the military and the police – amid their alleged involvement in rampant human and workers’ rights violations – to obey the laws that promote and defend workers’ rights, the League of Independent Bank Organizations (LIBO), an alliance of different unions in the banking industry, grudgingly admitted.

“The guidelines look good in paper, but we doubt if the AFP and PNP are truly committed to uphold our rights as workers and trade unionists,” Ricky Ballesteros, LIBO president, retorted.

“In fact, our fellow unionists in the AFPSLAI (Armed Forces and Police Savings and Loan Association) bank were victims of injustice perpetrated by military and police officers in active service and those that have already retired but whose influence and connection with the bank remain strong,” Mr. Ballesteros reported.

The LIBO president is referring to the protracted labor dispute in AFPSLAI, in which last year 15 union officers were dismissed by the AFPSLAI management for allegedly staging an illegal strike in 2009 during the deadlock in their collective bargaining negotiation.

LIBO said that any lawyer would agree that lunch-time picket done by the AFPSLAI union was not illegal and actually a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, and because it did not cause disruption in the normal operation of the company, the protest action could never be classified as a strike.

The “illegal strike” case is still pending in the Court of Appeals but the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) has earlier decided, last January 31 and March 7, that AFPSLAI was guilty of illegal dismissal and ordered for the immediate return to work of the officers of the AFPSLAI Employees Association (AEA).

Thus, LIBO explained, even if there is a pending case in the appellate court, the AFPSLAI management is obliged to readmit the illegally dismissed workers.

“Unfortunately, in utter disrespect to the NLRC’s ruling, the AFPSLAI management still refuses to readmit all the officers and disallows them to function as union officers,” Ballesteros said.

“How can we trust the AFP to sincerely implement the said guidelines when they remain callous to the rights of workers right inside Camp Aguinaldo and other AFP and police camps nationwide, and when they cannot even discipline their fellow soldiers,” Ballesteros added.

The AFPSLAI’s head office is inside Camp Aguinaldo, the AFP headquarters, and has branches located in various military and PNP camps nationwide.

LIBO vows to fully support the struggle of their fellow bank unionists in AEA and together with the Sentro ng Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO) will continue to hold the AFP leadership as responsible for the continuing violations of workers and trade union rights in AFPSLAI.

THE NAGKAISA, the broadest coalition of Philippine trade unions, held a lightning rally near the PICC to denounce the full-scale privatization program of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, dubbed as “Public Private Partnership,” as a complete sell-out of consumer interests and workers’ rights.

NAGKAISA described the ongoing Asian Development Bank conference in PICC, Manila as the final nail on the coffin in which to bury consumers’ protection and workers rights, as Aquino uses the affair as a stage to accelerate the transfer ownership of all remaining power, healthcare and local water assets of the Philippine government to private investors.

Workers belonging to different groups within the coalition waved banners and placards as they attempted to deliver their own messages while Aquino was making his speech before hundreds of foreign delegates.

NAGKAISA linked the ADB privatization agenda and the Administration’s flagship Public Private Partnership to Aquino’s May 1 Labor Day speech, where he practically told workers petitioning for better workers protection, by supporting their security of tenure bill, to drop dead.

He also essentially discredited the pending congressional wage increase proposal by erroneous computation during a Labor Day dialogue that never was.

Aquino even cited cheaper labor in Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, without comparing the cost of living in those countries with that of the Philippines.

NAGKAISA said that Aquino clearly doesn’t see that increasing the purchasing power of workers thru wage adjustments as a way of raising consumption, as a means of pump priming the economy. Aquino in effect supports a race-to-the-bottom in the name of building Philippine competitiveness by artificially keeping workers salaries’ low.

NAGKAISA likewise noted that during the power summit in Mindanao last month, Aquino had told the audience that they will now have to pay higher power rates from coal and oil plants, and that the government-owned 850mw Agus-Pulangi plants would be privatized.

He seemed to have ignored the warning of local government officials in Mindanao that selling these assets would the electricity industry cartel to invade and cause dramatic increases in rates in the island.

NAGKAISA called on workers and consumers to resist the Aquino government’s initiatives to privatize the healthcare and local water districts in the country. Like the failed privatization of the National Power Corporation in 2001, which was supported by ADB with a $300 million loan, these efforts would not truly benefit the people.

NAGKAISA denounced the failure of the ADB to fulfill its anti-poverty mandate and reason for continued existence.

NAGKAISA reiterated its demand for security of tenure and decent jobs as the best anti-poverty measure and urged the President to favorably act on the workers’ need for increased wages.

THOUSANDS of trade unionists and activists poured into the streets of Manila and other key cities to celebrate May Day amid renewed hopes that the two latest efforts at labor unity will provide strong impetus to their uphill battle for labor and trade union rights.

At least 5,000 affiliates of the Sentro ng mga Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro), a newly organized labor center, joined a more massive march and rally in Manila of the recently launched Nagkaisa! labor coalition.

From five converging places along España Blvd., about 20,000 Nagkaisa! members linked up and marched towards Mendiola, near the Malacañang Palace, for an unprecedented unity calling for an end to rampant contractualization, enactment of the Security of Tenure bill in the Congress, across-the-board wage hike, among others.

Similar Sentro and Nagkaisa! mobilizations were simultaneously held in main cities or provinces nationwide, including Lipa, Pampanga, Baguio, Legaspi, Cebu, Iloilo, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, and Cotobato.

“Labor unity, however elusive is not totally impossible; but it must be actively pursued and nurtured because a fragmented and weak labor movement can never effectively defend and advance the interests of the workers and the masses, especially at this time of relentless global attacks from the neoliberal clique,” Frank Mero, SENTRO spokesperson said.

“The ‘Labor Unity March’ is a signal that the majority of the mainstream trade unions and other workers’ organizations are ready to take on the policies issues that have been ignored by governments for a long time,” Mero said.

Both SENTRO and NAGKAISA are calling on the Aquino government to: address the worsening precarious work in the country and certify as urgent the passage of security of tenure bill for the private sector (HB 4853) and for the public sector (SB 2875) that is now pending in Congress; support the workers’ demand for across the board wage increases for both the public and private sectors; address the failures of market-oriented policies in public utilities by scraping the EPIRA law and the Oil Deregulation law; prevent the violent demolitions of informal settlers by issuing an Executive Order that would stop the demolition of informal settlers and fast track the development of decent and adequate housing for the poor; provide solid guarantees for workers’ right to self-organization; and, protect and generate secure and decent jobs for all.

Launched only on April 12, Sentro is a national labor center composed of unions and federations in different industries and their subsectors – metal, including automotive, hotel and hospitality, postal, banking, broadcast media, food and beverages, seafaring – as well as the public sector and sectoral groupings of informal sector and urban poor, women, and youth.

Sentro is a member of the broad labor coalition aptly named Nagkaisa! (or united) that was also established last month and comprised by about 40 major trade unions and federations in the country.

Described as an issue-based, multiform and multi-ideological labor alliance, Nagkaisa! is nonetheless a breakthrough in the Philippine labor front as the last time a comparable coalition existed was in 1989 – the Labor Alliance for Wage Increase of P35 (Lawin 35).

The Sentro affiliates are the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), APL-Youth, Federation of Coca-Cola Unions (FCCU), Kapisanan ng Maralitang Obrero (KAMAO), League of Independent Bank Organizations (LIBO), MARINO seafarers’ group, National Alliance of Broadcast Unions (NABU), National Confederation of Transportworkers’ Unions (NCTU), National Union of Workers in Hotel, Restaurant and Allied Industries (NUWHRAIN), Philippine Independent Public Sector Employees Association (PIPSEA), Philippine Metalworkers’ Alliance (PMA), Pinag-isang Tinig at Lakas ng Anakpawis (PIGLAS), Postal Employees Union of the Philippines (PEUP), and Workers’ Solidarity Network (WSN).

On the other hand, the roster of the Nagkaisa! include the Alliance of Filipino Workers (AFW), affiliates of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), members of SENTRO, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Confederation of Independent Unions in the Public Sector (CIU), Federation of Free Workers (FFW), Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (MAKABAYAN), National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU), National Mines and Allied Workers’ Union (NAMAWU), National Confederation of Labor (NCL), Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA), Philippine Government Employees Association (PGEA), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK), Philippine Transport and General Workers Organization (PTGWO), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority-Association of Concerned Employees (TESDA-ACE).

The Kapisanan ng Maralitang Obrero (KAMAO-APL-SENTRO), condemns in the strongest possible way the violent demolition of informal settlers in Silverio Compound in Parañaque last 23 April 2012.

“The violence, the injuries of scores of people and the death of a resident can all be blamed on the ineptitude and the insensitivity of the Parañaque local government and the police forces who are supposed to keep the peace,” Fatima Cabanag, KAMAO Secretary General said.

“For ignoring our long standing demand for the issuance of an executive order calling for a moratorium on demolition, the president, Noynoy Aquino, should also be held responsible for this despicable act,” Cabanag added.

Even as they condemned the local government and the police, KAMAO calls for an impartial investigation to ensure that those who are responsible are exposed and held to account for their crimes.

“We stand by the informal settlers. They are well within their rights to defend their homes and fight for a decent and adequate housing,” Cabanag said. The right to housing is recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to which the country is a signatory.

“A mere court order could not legitimize an immoral and illegal act – the demolition of informal settlers’ houses without adequate relocation,” Cabanag said. The Urban Development Housing Act of 1992 explicitly states that, there should be no demolition without relocation.

“Informal settlers are the victims of the government’s inability to live up to its responsibility to provide socialized housing. So why blame the informal settlers?” Cabanag emphatically said.

Cabanag explained that for more than a decade, local governments have yet to comply with an UDHA provision to hold an inventory of available land and to distribute the same to the urban poor.

“Even the national government has been remiss in its obligation to provide proper relocation to informal settlers,” Cabanag lamented. “Our own investigation in Towerville in Bulacan shows that the houses provided to the poor, if you can call it that, are dangerously substandard and are devoid of the necessary facilities,” she added. Towerville is a massive relocation site where many of the victims of Ondoy have been relocated.

“Enough of these violent demolitions! Issue a moratorium on demolition now!,” Cabanag declared.

KAMAO is a member of SENTRO. At least 1,000 KAMAO members will march with SENTRO and link arms with NAGKAISA! on May 1.