Workers deplore lack of “Bonifacio-type” leaders

Hanap ng Manggagawa: Makamanggagawang Lider ng Bansa

With the 2016 elections occupying the air and time of most of the country’s politicians, the labor coalition Nagkaisa! today hit both the current administration and political wannabes, “for putting their personal political ambitions above the pressing demands of the working class.”

Nagkaisa!, the biggest labor coalition in the country today, led a march by thousands of workers from the Mabuhay Welcome Rotonda to the historic Mendiola Bridge, in commemoration of the 151st day of working class hero, Andres Bonifacio.

“Despite its open channels for communication with labor, we remain disappointed with this administration because the weight of anti-labor policies remain in full force. And this early we feel the same degree of apprehension seeing the possible 2016 line up, practically the same parties and personas,” said Nagkaisa! in a statement.

Marching under the theme, “Hanap ng manggagawa: Makamanggagawang lider ng bansa”, workers from different unions and labor organizations voiced out their indignation over the anti-labor policies that remain intact under the Aquino administration which include:

• the intensifying degree of contractualization,
• cheap labor,
• high cost of power and other goods and services, and
• the deepening inequality under the regime of jobless growth.

The group said the same problem will hound the 2016 candidates, adding that the more the working class are getting frustrated with the presumed failure of “tuwid na daan” the more they will be looking for better ones.

“Unfortunately we still don’t see ‘Bonifacio-type’ leaders from the present crop of politicians,” conceded Nagkaisa!

The group cited as example the way the foreign-backed economic cha-cha is winning the vote of the members of Congress (possibly before Christmas as announced by Speaker Belmonte) compared to the workers’ wage hike and security of tenure bills.

The group said when they say ‘Bonfacio-type’, they refer to men and women leaders who will commit themselves to the immediate and long-term agenda of the working class.

“They who can provide full protection to labor; say NO to the dictates of IMF-WB and foreign powers; dismantle political dynasty; stop corporate fraud; and provide quality public service to all our people,” stressed the group.

The group is preparing for direct actions next year. At the same time it will craft political strategies for effective electoral intervention come 2016.

Power crisis real, strategic but gov’t doing mere quick fix – labor coalition

The emerging power crisis is a cruel outcome of a bad policy under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that cannot be resolved by the proposed emergency power President Aquino is seeking from Congress, the labor coalition Nagkaisa said in a statement.

The group said it is not common for ordinary workers to comment on techno-economic aspects of the power industry, but for this coming celebration of Bonifacio Day on November 30, labor will come out loud on this along with other big issues because the high cost of power in the country is making the lives of ordinary workers more miserable.

According to Wilson Fortaleza, spokesperson for Partido Manggagawa (PM) and one of the convenors of Nagkaisa, “this quick-fix solution via an emergency power to address a decade-old problems of escalating rates and diminishing supply reignited labor’s apprehension that once again, a power crisis is being transformed into business opportunity for the private sector.”

Fortaleza was referring to the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) and power contracting being pursued through a joint resolution in Congress that would grant the President emergency powers to address the expected power shortage in 2015.

He said the ILP can be pursued by the Department of Energy (DoE) even without the President exercising emergency powers because it is merely a demand-side management issue and not production of additional generating capacity as required under Section 71 of EPIRA.

"Likewise, the foreign and privately-operated National Grid Corporation must first be made to account for its primary responsibility to secure reliable supply, including sufficient reserve capacities," argued Fortaleza.

The group explained that the ILP is a mode for utilizing standby power or embedded generating capacity available in several establishments such as malls and commercial buildings. During shortage, their utilization means an x amount of freed megawatt capacity that can be supplied by Meralco to other users.

Fortaleza, however, said that for this alone an emergency power is not needed. So why is Malacanang asking for it? The group can only think of the following scenarios:

• Under the ILP enrollment is voluntary but enrollees will be compensated to incentivize their participation
• But because there is no system currently in place to exactly determine the price of compensation, imposing a universal levy – an x amount per kWh to be charged to consumers take-or-pay – is the most likely scheme.
• Retail electricity suppliers (RES) who already posses contracted capacities under the open access (but which they cannot supply to their contestable market because most of them are also ILP players) will also be compensated.

These, in effect, will result to rate increases. But Fortaleza insists that a take-or-pay levy cannot be charged to consumers under ILP since embedded generation sets were designed or were practically built by industry players to address expected and non-expected outages.

“So why do we have to pay them for that temporary sacrifice? And why will Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and Jaime Ayala charge an x amount per kWh from everyone, including non-mall users?”

The group argued further that the only valid excuse for utilizing emergency powers is when the government goes back to generation, stop industry fraud, and makes a decisive shift to renewable energy and energy democracy.

Peoples Action against the World Bank – Philippines

Manila – This WB safeguard review started almost 3 years ago, but communities and organizations in the Philippines barely understand its process and contents. And to our knowledge, this is the first actual official interaction with Philippine organizations. Yet, there has been too little time and lackluster effort to enable meaningful engagements. Meanwhile, Southern and Northern organizations expressed their struggles and frustrations with the dismal handling of the Bank of the safeguards review over the past 2 years. The WB meetings last Oct. 8-11, 2014 in Washington DC was a clear reflection of peoples’ deep resentment over the poor consultation and bad safeguards draft. And here is the Bank doing a repeat of the same failures in running effective consultations: you give us too short notice to prepare and incomplete documents to consult. No draft business procedures, no implementation plan, no translations.

The affected communities and their support groups demand that the WB safeguard policies must be strengthened to ensure real protections for people and the planet. The draft does not promise to deliver that.

We are concerned that right now, Filipinos are not overcoming poverty, inequality and hunger are increasing, our natural resources are threatened by industrialization and extractive industries while labor rights are diluted or informalized. Contrary to the Bank’s rosy narratives of Philippine growth linked with its financing, this growth is widening inequality. Bank financing has not helped in preventing the intensified privatization of commons and has contributed to the systematic dismantling of essential public services. It has been muted in dealing with the discrimination against marginalized groups such as PWDs, IPs, children, and sexual minorities who are the most vulnerable sectors. They have been threatened by projects that were partly-funded by the World Bank Group. Remember the Manila Sewerage Project? Remember Chico dam in Cordillera? Remember IFC’s support to a mining project in the ancestral domain of the Mamanwas in CARAGA? In many instances, safeguards were useful in ensuring some basic minimum levels of protection were available. But the Bank is moving to moving to eviscerate these basic human rights protections. You’re dumping people with more debts but you’re removing your environmental and human rights accountability.

We have watched with rising concern that your new “safeguard” proposals betray these expectations and represent the opposite. In this process, we believe that the World Bank is stepping back on its promise to reduce poverty.

Instead of ensuring protection of vulnerable communities and the project affected people, your draft proposes dismantling of even existing protections that have been built over decades of hard work, hard won protections that people have fought and died for here in the Philippines, including social justice laws for indigenous peoples, environment, land reform and people’s participation in governance.

We cannot remain mute spectators of this regressive journey and must convey to you the rising frustration and anger amongst the many communities that are facing these impacts from Bank-supported projects, and also within many people’s movements and supporting civil society groups, networks and alliances from all over the Philippines.

Our colleagues have watched with growing dismay – the increasingly insensitive responses to the passionate appeals by cornered and distressed communities affected by bank supported projects. I personally appealed that this consultation be re-scheduled to give time for communities and organizations to understand better the process and substance of the safeguards, but my appeal was rejected.

We are also alarmed by the rising talk of the Bank venturing into riskier investments, coming from as high positions as the WB President! Hundreds of indigenous peoples and forest dwellers organizations are terribly concerned with the proposed ‘opt out’ clause, and the dilution of protection hitherto given to biodiversity rich and protected areas. You also propose to venture into uncharted territory of biodiversity offsets! These are gambles more suited to a venture capital fund, not fit for a “Development Bank”, and the Filipinos cannot allow this to happen.

We, the dozens of people’s movements and organizations present here from all over the Philippines, and the many thousands we represent back from our communities, are rejecting this current draft of safeguards. The protections you now seek to dismantle, the safeguards that we fought for over decades – do not belong to you, they are not yours to throw away, they belong to the world and its vulnerable people.

We are also aware of a handful of saner voices from within the bank, and urge them to fight inside the system, for protecting the very rights they themselves enjoy – also for the people and communities around the world facing potential threats from this proposed dilution of protections. We strongly believe this protest action that we are compelled to take, will strengthen those voices and create a better environment for creating a really progressive safeguards policy. This will be in the interest of the bank itself, as well as for the entire Philippines, and the rest of the world.

That is why we are forced to take this action now and join our partners in the protest outside. Today we are going out of this consultation, to defend the safeguards and to stand with the World and against the Bank that is trying to destroy it! We sincerely hope that this will help a better tomorrow, within & outside.

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Signatories:
AKBAYAN
Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA)
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM)
Bank Information Center (BIC)
DANGAL
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
NAGKAISA
NGO Forum on the ADB
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ)
SANLAKAS

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