Militant workers demand “Nationalization and People’s Control” of Maynilad
As Manila Auxiliary Bishop Teodoro Bacani criticized the Lopez family last Tuesday for “corporate greed”, the socialist labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) today suggested that Maynilad Water Services Inc. should be “nationalized and controlled by the people”. The Lopez family earlier decided to return its water concession in Metro Manila to the government after failing to get an increase in water rates.
Victor Briz, BMP president said, “Militant labor lauds the good bishop for exposing the perverted motive behind the Lopezes’ return of Maynilad to the government. Yet, no amount of Christian conscience can impede the capital’s insatiable drive for profit.”
He added, “As long as public utilities are privately owned and government relinquishes its control over its operations, the people’s needs would be secondary to corporate profit. Once again, as in the case of the onerous PPA, the state policy of privatization has revealed its bankruptcy.”
Briz censured the Lopezes as the “grinch who stole Christmas”. He said, “For the workers and the poor, it is Paskong Walang Gloria since the Lopezes are again inflicting more burden on the people with water rate increases.”
The labor leader likewise blamed globalization - and its cornerstone policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization as “the root cause of state abandonment of its constituents, particularly of the workers and the poor. In order to protect the common good, public utilities should be state-owned and must be controlled by the people. Nationalization will ensure that these firms will prioritize the common good over private profit while people’s control will safeguard it from being milking cows of corrupt government officials,” he said. He explained that people’s control means that consumer representatives with veto power sit on the policy making board of public utility companies.“Meanwhile, the BMP expressed its support to Bishop Bacani’s national signature campaign for the repeal of the EPIRA and the revocation of the burdensome provisions in the contracts with the independent power producers. Briz concluded,”The militant labor movement will inscribe our demand for nationalization and people’s control of public utilities not just with our signatures but with militant mass actions."
Withdraw from all military and “security” accords with Australia
In a blatant show of imperial arrogance Australian Prime Minister John Howard has declared that he would launch “pre-emptive” strikes against terrorist threats in South East Asia. “Preemptive strike” is nothing more than a code word for brazenly violating the national sovereignty of Third World nations, which is now the centerpiece of the post-September 11 doctrine of the Bush gang in the Whitehouse, as it seeks to strengthen US global hegemony and world domination. The Australian government intends to piggyback on the US, in order to grab for itself a piece of the action.
Australia has historically always assumed the role of regional super-cop policing the Asia-Pacific region in the interests of imperialism. It has been the United States’ loyal junior partner, assisting the US in its wars of intervention against every single attempt by the peoples of the region in their struggles to overthrow the yoke of foreign domination, from Malaya and Korea, to Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Bougainville. Australia has also played a key role in backing the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia. Australia dominates the economies of the Pacific, being the number one exploiter of the economies and the peoples of countries such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Australia is also an integral part of the US global military network, through its membership of the ANZUS alliance and other military agreements that have provided key military facilities, including bases, for US intervention in different parts of the world. Australian bases at Pine Gap will be used against a US war on Iraq.
In the last few decades Australian capitalism’s investments in the region have increased substantially, and it has sought to increase its own regional hegemony vis-à-vis other powers in the region, especially Europe and Japan. It has sought to increase its markets in Indonesia by backing the Suharto dictatorship (until the embarrassing end), is the largest investor in East Timor and the main contestant for oil in the Timor Gap, is positioning itself for a slice of the Chinese market, and is a major threat to rice and sugar producers in the Philippines. The Australian government has now gleefully seized the opportunity provided it by the post-September 11 events and the Bali terrorist attacks to increase its regional hegemony.
It’s not easy to take the puny Australian Prime Minister seriously and one is even tempted to brush aside his comments. But John Howard not withstanding, the Australian government’s record in the region indicates that this is the thinking of Australia’s capitalist rulers and they are serious about using every opportunity to put their plans into action.
Any military or security agreement that the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) regime signs with the Australian government will only benefit Australian capitalist interests and will be detrimental to the interests of the Philippine nation and its people.
The GMA regimes response should go beyond mere words of indignation and if its words are not mere rhetoric, then it must act. It should immediately withdraw from signing any accords under the pretext of combating terrorism. No to the signing of any military and/or “security” pacts with Australia!
We also demand that the GMA regime review all existing trade agreements with Australia and withdraw from those that are detrimental to the Philippines and its people. Already our rice farmers, sugar farmers and other food producers are reeling under the impact of cheap Australian agricultural products that are flooding the local markets.
Finally, we can only be cynical about the words of indignation by the GMA regime to John Howard’s statement. After all, Australia is merely following the Bush gang’s doctrine. While the government condemns (albeit only through words) the Australian government, it praises the US government’s actions and kneels at Washington’s feet with begging bowl in hand in a sickening display of servility to US interests. Now that the US has given its support to John Howard’s threat of attacks against Philippine sovereignty, will the GMA regime backtrack even on its words? It will come as no big surprise if it does.
The BMP has just marked Bonifacio Day on November 30. One of the lessons of the 1896 revolution is how the ilustrados betrayed the people and the nation. The ilustrados’ regime of GMA is merely continuing this treacherous tradition as it betrays the people and the nation’s sovereignty.
Workers demand “instead of zero tarrifs, zero layoffs and zero casualization”
Some 20,000 militant workers, together with the urban poor and student youth, celebrated National Heroes Day on November 30 with a vow to “continue Gat Andres Bonifacio’s struggle by resisting imperialist globalization and war”. Bonifacio was a left-wing leader of the 1896 Philippine revolution against Spanish colonial domination.
The big worker-led mobilization slammed the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (known as GMA) for selling out the country “to imperial America”.
Renato Magtubo, chairperson of the Partido ng Manggagawa (Workers Party), claimed that the impending implementation of the zero tariff regime - as demanded by the World Trade Organisation - will be the “straw that breaks the back of Filipino industry and agriculture”. Tariffs on a majority of imported goods will be slashed to between zero and 5% by 2004.
Magtubo stated that “with zero tariffs and unfair competition staring them in the face, even Filipino capitalists are now calling for a delay, if not a stop, to unbridled liberalization. But the worse hit will be the workers who will bear the burden of factory closures, retrenchments, contract work, casualisation and wage freezes”.
The socialist labour group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Philippines Workers Solidarity - BMP) chairperson Victor Briz declared that “workers and the poor are wallowing in destitution and dying of hunger, yet GMA spends plenty of time to look after US interests. Poverty not terrorism is the number one problem and should be the primary priority of the government”.
The BMP leader noted that the threats of terrorist attacks that recently forced the closure of foreign embassies and have created prejudice against Filipinos seeking work abroad is a “blowback from Macapagal-Arroyo’s all-out support for America’s imperial war of aggression. The republic of GMA is nothing but a puppet republic of the USA”.
The socialist workers of the BMP pledge to complete the unfinished revolution of Bonifacio for national sovereignty and social justice, Briz declared. “In 1896, it was a battle against Spanish and American colonialism. Now it is a struggle against imperialist globalization and war. This time the people’s struggle will not be betrayed because it will be led by the revolutionary workers and will target the rabid promoters of globalization and the diligent lackeys of war”, Briz promised.
See also, Sonny Melencio: The Socialist Tradition in the Trade Union Movement in the Philippines