Year: 2018

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan celebrates Mass at the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila, July 19, 2018. ROY LAGARDE

By Roy Lagarde
July 19, 2018
Manila, Philippines

A Catholic bishop has condemned the murder of a drug war widow who was leading a support group for families of victims of extrajudicial killings.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan said Jennifer Taborada, 27 and a mother of two young children, was gunned down by masked killers in Caloocan City at around 8pm on Wednesday.

As shepherd of a diocese that has become a “killing field”, the bishop said he is saddened that he cannot protect his flock from the “wolves”.

“And so today in utter shame and frustration I declare I have not been a good shepherd to my flock,” David lamented in his homily during a Mass for the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization in Manila on Thursday.

“The wolves, they have been prowling the streets and alleys of Caloocan, Malabon, and Navotas for almost two years now! They have killed hundreds already, and I am unable to protect them with my life.”

“I will bow in shame if the Good Shepherd will denounce me as a mere hireling who remains very safe and very secure, who can get a good night’s sleep in his warm bed while his sheep are being slaughtered. And this is what i was saying in tears to myself last night,” he said.

Citing a report from his informant who was at the crime scene, the prelate said what’s appalling was the killers were not even rushing and just took their “sweet time”.

He claimed that the police seemed to be alerted about presence of the killers “because they are not supposed to meddle”.

“If the police wanted to pursue them, they could have, because they stayed for more than three hours,” David said.

After the killing of Taborada, he said that the killers just moved a few blocks and killed Alvin Teng, 36, at around 11:30pm.

He recalled that Taborada was one of the widows who applied for a scholarship for her kids just a few months ago.

“At that time I remember how she narrated her husband’s death, how Ryan was mutilated by the killers. He had to be abducted and tortured first. They gouged his eyes and cut off his private parts,” added David.

“Now her two little children aged five and seven, named Princess and Prince, are complete orphans,” he also said.

The Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (LAIKO) believes that the 1987 Constitution is founded on reverence to God, democracy and social justice. Therefore, in unity with all Filipinos who are freedom-loving and defenders of truth, we strongly oppose the Charter Change. We do not believe in the timeliness of the process and its lack of transparency because we are witnesses to a House of Representatives that acts as puppets of a totalitarian executive.   We do not believe in the proposal to adopt a federal form of government that would apparently guarantee a fairer distribution of resources among the regions, more participation in the political process and a better life for all, yet giving vast powers to President Duterte between 2019-2022, and impose more taxes on the people to support new structures and officials.

Based on the March 2018 Pulse Asia Survey the number of Filipinos opposed to Charter change went up from 44 percent in July 2016 to 64 % in March 2018, and the opposition to federalism went the same way, except by a larger margin from 33 percent to 66 percent. (1) LAIKO therefore joins this growing number of Filipinos to call on our legislators in Congress to STOP CHA-CHA. Instead we urge them to:

• craft enabling laws that will fully implement the provisions of the 1987 Constitution especially on the Freedom of Information and the Anti-Dynasty Law.
• make the wider consultation process in the country for the Filipinos to fully understand the effects of tampering with the 1987 Constitution
• call for a constitutional convention wherein the different sectors of society are represented and in a democratic venue express their stand without being afraid for their life.

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Duterte’s Strongman Rule: The Gathering Storm?
A CenPEG Public Forum will be moved to July 24, 2018. Venue toi be announced. Apologies for the late update.

The policy think tank, Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), is holding its 10th State of the Presidency (SOP) – entitled “Duterte’s Strongman Rule: The Gathering Storm?” – on July 18, 2018, 8:30 a.m. -12 noon, Assembly Hall of the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of the Philippines, Diliman campus, Quezon City.

Bulatlat Contributors July 15, 2018

“Workers are no longer hoping for a favorable action from the government to respect their dignity.”

Part 1 of 2: Strikes, Protests erupt against worsening contractualization, wage

By ADAM ANG and MENCHANI TILENDO
Bulatlat.com

MANILA — In the two years that President Duterte has been in power, two government regulations on contractualization have been released – the DOLE Department Order (DO) No. 174 and Executive Order (EO) No. 51. But most workers say these did not respond to their problems, resulting in the persistent eruption of labor disputes.

In the past two years, at least 25 workers’ protest actions and strikes have been launched, all traceable to the problem of contractualization. Of these strikes, those monitored by the labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) were disputes due to regularization, union-busting and illegal job termination.

Kilos Na Manggagawa (KNM) chairperson Jen Pajel told Bulatlat that workers’ rights are being suppressed. “Contractualization brings distress to workers and their families.”

BULATLAT FILE PHOTO by Carlo Manalansan

“In the factories, a contractual worker has no permanent livelihood, wages are low, and working conditions are unsafe.”

Finding these intolerable, some Filipino workers have launched strikes and protests.

But in the strike area, most workers are being harassed by the company they used to serve. Last June 14, the picket in Bulacan of NutriAsia workers was forcibly dispersed by the police. On July 3, in Laguna, the police and security elements also forcibly entered the Middleby factory in Laguna to dislodge the workers from their sit-down strike. For days before that, the striking workers’ food support had been barred from entering the Laguna Technopark where the workers were on strike.

Aside from launching strikes, workers have launched boycott campaigns to further raise their calls for regularization, direct employment relations with the principal, and wage increase. Laid-off workers of NutriAsia and Jolibee have asked consumers to boycott NutriAsia and Jollibee products.

“Boycotts are one of the weapons of the workers to push the capitalists and even those in DOLE to take concrete actions,” Pajel said.

Circumventing labor laws

Amid the strengthening calls for regularization and national minimum wage, the deliberate disregard of companies and establishments have intensified the labor disputes in the country.

Jollibee workers call on the public to stop patronizing the products of Jollibee and its subsidiaries until the workers are regularized. (Photo by Adam Ang/Bulatlat)

In Nutriasia, over half of its workforce, or no less than 900 workers, have remained contractuals despite working in the same company for more than a decade.

In the Pangilinan-led PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company), about 7,000 workers have been demanding for regularization for almost two years now. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) rejected the telecommunication company’s request to reverse the decision on regularizing its workers. Instead, it gave PLDT 10 days to process its compliance order.

“The compliance order has been issued to PLDT since 2016 but until now, it is one of the top companies in the country that practices illegal contracting. Based on our initial inspection, we have discovered that the company has been illegally contracting almost 9,000 workers. Time and again, we have ordered them to undergo mandatory conferences and regularize their workers”, DOLE Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod said in an interview.

PLDT is one of the country’s biggest, if not the biggest, telecommunication companies. Aside from it, 3,337 companies in the country have been identified by the Labor Department as practicing illegal contracting. These include big-brand companies such as the Jollibee Foods Corporation, Monde Nissin, Unipak Sardines, Middleby Corporation.

The Labor Department has seen that labor laws are being violated and the workers who render services for more than six (6) months remain contractuals without benefits.

“Our compliance order is inclusive not only of the regularization of thousands of the workers, but the refunding of their underpayments, salary deductions and other benefits. It should guarantee them their rights to unionize, collective bargaining, security of tenure, strike in accordance to the laws, and right to just and living wages. For numerous times, the department has already called for exit conferences to make this clear among employers, contractors, agencies, and workers”, Maglunsod said.

As for PLDT, DOLE has issued a cease and desist order to PLDT’s service contract providers, but instead of providing relief to the workers, it’s now a justification being made by the telco for poor quality service.

“They (companies) have been skirting the laws. Now they want to pin down DOLE, and claim that it was our fault. What we want is for them to comply with the law, because the workers are the ones at stake here,” Maglunsod said.

“PLDT, Jollibee, Nutriasia, and other companies that have long been practicing illegal contracting have circumvented the laws, beyond what are stated in the Labor code. The main principle is clear; if the company directly hired the workers, then they shouldn’t be transferred to agencies and other contractors. Doing so is illegal”, Maglunsod concuded. (http://bulatlat.com)

Part 2 of 2: Philippines ‘worst’ for workers – global report

By ADAM ANG and MENCHANI TILENDO Bulatlat.com

MANILA — The Philippines was among the top 10 countries across the globe to be worst for workers, according to the Global Rights Index for 2018 released last June 8 by the International Trade Union Confederation. In a scale of 1 to 5, the Philippines is a 5 with “no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of law.

The local labor rights group Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) said the report “re-validated” their findings that the “Duterte administration is no different from the previous governments or even worse in its attacks against the rights of Filipino workers.”

CTUHR recorded 29 victims of extrajudicial killings in the labor sector from June 2016 to March 2018. About 3,345 individuals whose labor rights have been violated were documented by the CTUHR in 133 cases. These include “809 victims of red-tagging, 358 victims of threat, harassments and intimidation and 98 victims of arbitrary arrest and detention resulting from filing trumped up criminal charges.”

Dissent and protests, however, remain the labor sector’s recourse amid unresolved jobs crisis, contractualization and low wages.

After President Rodrigo Duterte’s contractualization order on May 1, labor groups have boldly criticized the administration’s move and described it as nothing but a ‘tokenistic’ approach to the long-time issues of contractualization in the country.

The workers’ newly constructed tent at the sidewalk across the headquarters of the Department of Labor and Employment in Intramuros, Manila (Contributed photo / Bulatlat)

“Contractualization is getting even worse because of the continuous foreign investments in the country which the government allows to implement contractualization. Because of this, they (the companies) are free to create mechanisms to exploit the Filipino workers,” Joel Maglunsod, a Labor Undersecretary who was once also a labor leader, told Bulatlat.

Maglunsod also admitted that Duterte’s DO 174 did not differ with the existing labor laws on labor-only contracting. “In essence, it only prohibits agencies to engage in illegal contracting, but it could not supersede the existing laws that allow contracting and subcontracting.”

Maglunsod defended the Labor Department for its lackluster performance in the promised banning of contractualization.

“We have submitted a workers’ version of demands to the president, even before he signed the executive order last Labor Day. It is beyond the department’s accountability if the president did not align his version with that of the workers,’” , the labor undersecretary explained.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and other labor rights’ groups have criticized DOLE’s action, calling it a mere ‘lip service.’ The labor center said they have had enough of nearly a decade of the Labor Department’s “disregard and incompetence when it comes to the employees’ calls for regularization.”

Still the same calls uniting labor: ‘Junk government laws on contracting, subcontracting’

According to the contractual workers’ alliance KNM (Kilos Na Manggagawa), the so-called “legal contractualization” or any employment of contractual workers is actually illegal.

“Any form of contractualization, whether seasonal, project-based or casual, whatever it is called, as long as you are considered contractual, it is illegal,” said KNM chairperson Jen Pajel.

Despite hyping his administration’s thrust to end ENDO (end of contract signifying contractualization), the contractualization policies issued by the Duterte government continue the old policies’ distinction between legal and illegal contractualization. On March 16, 2017, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III issued the DO No. 174 providing for stricter guidelines on contracting and subcontracting. It does not ban contractualization; it just banned labor-only contracting or “an arrangement where the contractor or subcontractor merely recruits, supplies, or places workers to perform a job, work, or service for a principal.”

On Labor Day this year, President Duterte signed the EO No. 51 which banned illegal contractualization schemes like end-of-contract. Labor groups were quick to denounce the gesture as “nonsense.”

KMU said in a statement that the order does not end all forms of contractualization but legalizes it. They also consider it to be worse than DO 174 as it sets labor contracting through agencies as the standard for employment in the country.

PLDT contractuals in a picket in front of the Department of Labor and Management office in Intramuros, Manila. (Photo from Defend Job Philippines Facebook page)

“Whatever kind of position and livelihood, all should be considered as regular workers with direct relation to the principal owner,” Pajel said.

Revealing action from the DOLE

The Duterte administration and the Labor Department may continue claiming it is taking action against contractualization. But its action reveals the opposite. For example, after the dialogue between PLDT management and its workers facilitated by the DOLE on July 2, it assured the workers the DOLE order to regularize thousands of them is final and executory.

DOLE reports that it is also intensifying its thorough inspections and assessments of various companies, especially those involved in labor disputes.

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Should we wait for more blood on our altars before we march from our parishes to the halls of justice?

A priest carries a cross during a march in Manila on May 17 to protest the spate of attacks on church people in recent months. (Photo by Jire Carreon)

UCAN News Mark Saludes, Manila Philippines
July 16, 2018

Shepherding is among the oldest occupations in the world, beginning about 5,000 years ago in western Asia. A shepherd would put his life in danger to protect his flock.

If a sheep got separated from the group, the shepherd would search for it and not come back without the lost sheep. Once found, the shepherd would use his crook to hook and recover the fallen animal. If any predator threatened the flock, the shepherd would use the crook as a weapon to protect the congregation and fight any menace without hesitation.

The crook has been used as a religious symbol of care by the Catholic Church. It has become the crosier or the pastoral staff of Catholic bishops.

The bishop’s crosier or crook or staff symbolizes his being the shepherd of the flock of God. It signifies his authority and responsibility over the Catholic community under his canonical jurisdiction.

In the Philippines, Catholic bishops are using the shepherd’s crook to draw back those who have gone astray from the faith and to guide the flock to the right path.

Only a few of our church leaders are using the crook to hit hard at adversaries of the faith, the promoters of killings and impunity, and the murderers of the church’s gallant knights.

Many of our bishops are only tapping a soft blow with their not-too-lengthy press statements, theological reflections, and do nothing at all, especially if their dioceses are not affected by a pressing issue.

Another Catholic priest was gunned down recently while preparing for the celebration of Mass in the northern Philippine province of Nueva Ecija. Father Richmond Villaflor Nilo was killed on June 10 inside a chapel in Zaragoza town in the Diocese of Cabanatuan. He was the third Catholic priest to be killed in the country in the last six months.

The killings of the priests were condemned by religious leaders around the country. The bishops of the dioceses where the killings happened issued strongly worded pronouncements. But out of the 86 dioceses in the Philippines, few other bishops have really made strong statements against the killings and against the individuals who endorsed the acts.

To say that Filipino bishops do not speak out against killings is an overstatement. They claim to be against the culture of death and are supposed to defend the sanctity of life. But instead of loud shouts, we hear whispers. Instead of outrage in the streets, we see protests inside churches.

Concrete actions from Catholic Church leaders to press authorities to solve and prevent the killings are lacking. Statements remain soft, cautiously written, wanting or even insignificant.

This culture of silence, or should I say culture of softness and carefulness, among church leaders is nothing new. Many have been silent even as President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has killed thousands of people.

Bishops have been denouncing the spate of drug-related killings, but only a handful mobilized their flock to put more weight to the protests.

We have already tried the soft and gentle way to urge the government to act on the killings and to diplomatically appeal to the president to stop endorsing them. Soft and cautious press releases seem not to work. Catholic Church leaders have to do more by organizing and mobilizing the flock to collectively defend the faith.

Should we wait for more dead priests before we decide to get out of our comfort zones and stand against tyranny? Should we wait for our priests to be shot before we utter stronger words of condemnation?

Should we wait for more blood on our altars before we stand, congregate and march from our parishes to the halls of justice?

As Catholics, it is our duty to pray for the realization of justice, peace and integrity of creation. As followers of Christ, it is our mission to defend life even with our own lives.

Filipino Catholics need a shepherd who can dare use the crook to hit the fox that is preying on the flock.

Mark Saludes is a freelance journalist who covers social justice issues for ucanews.com.