Socialist group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) expressed grave concern that several members of the cabinet are actively working against the fulfillment of the economic reforms vowed by President Rodrigo Duterte himself.
Days ago, the government’s so-called economic managers ganged-up and rejected the P125 national wage increase proposal, that according to them would push inflation rates to 9.7 percent and spike unemployment by 1.2 percent
The group identified Secretaries Ramon Lopez, Ernesto Pernia, Benjamin Diokno and Silvestre Bello of the trade, socioeconomic planning, budget, and labor departments respectively as ‘obstacles’ to the realization of the president’s wishes that the BMP said “could have made positive impacts in the lives of millions of ordinary folks”.
“The alter egos of the president in the economic cluster are clearly on the opposite side of their superior and the heavily taxed ordinary folks who pay for their salaries. The secretaries have been consistently active in countering measures that the president has explicitly declared. More importantly, they are not only defying the president’s orders but betraying the trust between him and the nation,” the group’s spokesperson, Attorney Luke Espiritu said.
Among the economic reforms that the secretaries have opposed despite the president’s open support, according to Espiritu is the abolition of all forms of contractual employment, the establishment of a national wage board, a substantial wage increase for the public and private sector as well as the ban on land conversion.
He also accused the cabinet officials of “poisoning the mind” of the president into withdrawing his promises and to fear mongering.
“If they are not fulfilling the wishes of the president or that of the taxpayers, then whose interests are they working for, Espiritu inquired.
BMP fears that other measures that will substantially raise the quality of life of millions living below the poverty line will receive the similar fate as the wage increase proposal.
He likewise reminded the officials that, “It is the overwhelming support of working class that catapulted Duterte to power for they believed that he can affect change they seek. This government must serve the interests of the many and not of the elite”.
“With the way things are going and not unless they are removed from their posts immediately”, Espiritu warned that the recently issued Executive Order No. 5, adopting the “Ambisyon 2040”, a long-term development plan aimed at tripling Filipinos’ per capita income to $11,000 in 24 years’ time “will remain to be a bureaucratic pipedream”.
“If the President really sides with the overburdened workers then he must on guard at all times from his subordinates and terminate them at the smallest infraction they commit,” Espiritu asserted.
The group, last week demanded the president to fire trade Secretary Lopez for his efforts to block the abolition of all forms of contractualization.
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)
* https://manggagawangpilipino.org/2016/10/22/labor-warns-duterte-of-rasputins-in-his-cabinet/
Workers group challenges Duterte to fire pro-contractualization Trade Secretary
Socialist workers’ group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) today called on President Rodrigo Duterte to fire his Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez.
Lopez has been defying and contradicting the President’s own campaign promise to end the practice of contractualization so the President must remove him from office if he is still serious about fulfilling his promise, BMP said.
The group was reacting to Lopez’s most recent statement saying contractualization will only scare away foreign investors.
“Since he assumed office, trade Secretary Ramon Lopez has consistently opposed measures to end contractualization,” the group noted in its statement.
“At every step of the way, Lopez has represented and defended not the interests of Filipino workers but of capitalists—Filipino and foreign. He fails the test that the President set because he wants to “add more to the abundance of those who have much” rather than “provide for those who have little,” the group added, quoting the President’s inaugural speech.
Expressing frustration at the lack of progress in eliminating contractualization, the group said the President needs to do more to demonstrate his commitment to workers by firing Lopez.
“This is an important moment for the President—another early test by forcing him to choose whose side he will take and whose interests he will protect.
If the President really cares about Filipino workers, if he really wants to “provide for those who have little,” as he said in his inaugural speech, then he should match his rhetoric with action and do what needs to be done: he should immediate fire those in his Cabinet who favor contractualization.”
In addition, the group called on the President to take concrete steps needed to end labor flexibilization. This include: 1) certifying as urgent – and mobilizing all his party mates to pass – a bill to amend Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code in order to prohibit the contracting and subcontracting of “usually necessary or desirable” work in the normal operations of a business, which should be performed by regular employees, in line with Article 280 of said law; 2) revising the BMBE law so as to remove the exemptions to labor standards compliance of small and micro establishments, which comprise more than 90% of the employers’ sector; 3) repealing DOLE’s DO 18-A and issuing a new order which reviews all existing subcontracting arrangements and cancels those that encroach upon the duties and functions which should done by regular employees.
Finally, the group challenged the President to actually prosecute employers that practice contractualization, starting with the country’s richest families such as Sys, the Ayalas, the Gokongweis and others.
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)
Duterte: Fire Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez now
During the election campaign, President Rodrigo Duterte won the hearts of many workers when he promised to immediately end “contractualization,” or the practice of not giving workers the wages and benefits they should receive under the law by hiring them as “contractual” rather than regular workers.
Then, during his inaugural speech, President Duterte said that his government will be guided in part by former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s statement that, “The test of government is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide for those who have little.”
Today, one person in the President’s Cabinet has gone out of his way to prevent the President from fulfilling his campaign promise and from passing the test that Roosevelt set.
Since he assumed office, Department of Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez has consistently opposed measures to end contractualization that we at the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, along with other labor groups in the country, have been demanding.
Recently, Lopez even championed the so-called “win-win” but in fact win-lose solution that purportedly seeks a middle-ground between capitalists and workers but in fact again ultimately harms the interests of workers since it will continue to force them to live a life of precarity and near-destitution while allowing the rich to earn more profits and live a life of luxury on the back of contractual workers.
Yesterday, he again spoke out to defend contractualization by saying that ending it would make the country less attractive to foreign investors by removing their “flexibility”—as if “flexibility” for investors has not come and will not come at the expense of the well-being of Filipino workers.
At every step of the way, then, Lopez and his department has represented not the interests of Filipino workers but of capitalists—Filipino and foreign. He fails the test that Roosevelt set because he wants to “add more to the abundance of those who have much” rather than “provide for those who have little.”
In so doing, he is challenging and defying President Duterte himself since the President has said that he wants to “provide for those who have little” and he has promised to end contractualization.
This, then, is an important moment for the President—another early test forcing him to choose whose side he will take and whose interests he will protect.
If the President really cares about Filipino workers, if he really wants to to “provide for those who have little,” then he should match his rhetoric with action and do what needs to be done: he should immediately fire those in his Cabinet who favor contractualization.
More than this, he should immediately take steps needed to end labor flexibilization once and for all by: 1) certifying as urgent – and mobilizing all his party mates to pass – a bill to amend Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code in order to prohibit the contracting and subcontracting of “usually necessary or desirable” work in the normal operations of a business, which should be performed by regular employees, in line with Article 280 of said law; 2) revising the BMBE law so as to remove the exemptions to labor standards compliance of small and micro establishments, which comprise more than 90% of the employers’ sector; 3) repealing DOLE’s DO 18-A and issuing a new order which reviews all existing subcontracting arrangements and cancels those that encroach upon the duties and functions, which should done by regular employees; 4) actually prosecuting employers that practice contractualization, starting with the Sys, the Ayalas, the Gokongweis and others.
Otherwise, if he allows the pro-contractualization Lopez to stay in his Cabinet and if he does not carry out all these steps immediately, it will become harder and harder for us not to confirm what many of us have long suspected but wanted the President to refute:
That he did not really mean what he said when he said he would end contractualization, that he does not really care for all Filipinos but just for his fellow elites, and that he will not really bring about real change—just like all his predecessors.
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)