[APWSLMembers 181] Malacañang red alert on people power KMU warns PGMA of the Day

[Kilusang Mayo Uno]

KMU News Release
February 24, 2006


Malacañang red alert on people power
KMU warns PGMA of the Day

As thousands of police and soldiers were placed 
on red alert nationwide and rally permits 
cancelled, the militant labor center Kilusang 
Mayo Uno (KMU) warned Malacañang that armed 
personnel carriers (APCs), truncheons and tear 
gasses will be no match for the thousands of 
workers and patriotic Filipinos that will join 
the commemoration today for the 20th  anniversary 
of the 1986 People Power uprising.

KMU National Chairperson Elmer Labog said, "We 
urge President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to be her 
"best person" as she claimed by leaving her post 
and giving way to a transition council that will 
take the people's cause. She is the one to blame 
for the people's disgust on this administration 
for its anti-people and anti-worker policies."

The labor leader expressed outrage for the 
president's derision of the people's power. 
"Shame on Mrs. Arroyo because it was the people's 
power that catapulted  her to the presidency and 
yet, during her steer, she has relentlessly 
ignored and disregarded the welfare of millions 
of ordinary workers by denying them decent 
salaries through increases, job security, and 
protection from unfair labor practices."

Labog said that the president have thus found a 
staunch opposition from the labor sector and 
likewise reminded the president that the workers 
active struggle against the dictatorship of the 
late President Ferdinand Marcos became one of the 
decisive factors of the dictators' downfall at EDSA I uprising.

During the martial law years, the dictatorship 
launched a systematic attack on organized labor 
through orders and decrees banning strikes and 
freedom of expression. Trade union leaders were 
targets of political and trade union repression. 
Felixberto Olalia and other labor leaders were 
martyred during Martial Law.   Medardo Roda, 
currently chair emeritus of the transport group 
PISTON, and Crispin Beltran, the former National 
President of KMU and now Anakpawis 
representative, were also jailed during those years.

"But regardless of heightened political 
repression," Labog asserted,"the workers have 
continually affirmed their basic rights as 
enshrined by the constitution to launch the 
strike movement in fighting against low wages and 
inhumane working conditions. Kilusang welga 
(strike movement) became the staunchest weapon of 
the workers since the 1930s that defeated the fascist strike ban."

Actual strikes have continually climbed since the 
onset of PD 1081 or the declaration of Martial 
Law through EDSA 1. In 1983, actual strikes 
numbered at 155 and 282 in 1984, 371 in 1985 and  a peak of  581 in 1986.

Several anti-worker decrees were drafted and 
implemented such as PD 823 which curtailed the 
right to strike. It was also during those years 
that the labor code ensuring cheap labor was 
stalled and the Trade Union Congress of the 
Philippines (TUCP) was formed as an official 
labor center supporting the dictatorship.

"Presently, Mrs. Arroyo cannot be different  from 
the late dictator Marcos. Even worse, because 
under her trade union leaders and supporters were 
treated and killed 'like animals'," Labog added.

The labor leader warned the president, "We were 
there in EDSA 1 and 2, we will assure her that we 
will be there when the DAY that she will be ousted comes."###