Updated 08:35am (Mla time) Dec 23, 2004
By Inquirer News Service
MILITANT groups that barged into the Department of Labor and Employment building and occupied it for three hours last month will be charged with disrupting public service, Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said Wednesday. “We will file charges against a number of people who entered our premises forcibly to hold their rally. I have instructed our lawyers to file the case,” she told reporters.
Sto. Tomas was referring to leaders and members of the Sanlakas and the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, the party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa, and their affiliate labor unions that occupied the DoLE building in Intramuros, Manila.
“When they hold their rally, they should do it as civilized persons and not break our doors, manhandle our security guards and disrupt public service,” the secretary said.
After overpowering the security personnel, about 300 protesters occupied the lobbies of six of the building’s seven floors and unfurled banners from the windows. A thousand others blocked Muralla Street in front of the building.
The rally forced the DoLE to dismiss employees early and postpone hearings. Sto. Tomas, who was to attend a congressional hearing, had to leave her office through a side entrance.
The “occupation” ended peacefully after top labor officials met with the protest leaders.
Sto. Tomas said the DoLE’s legal department already had the list of leaders of the militants and that the case may be filed either next week or the first week of January. She did not specify the nature of charges being prepared by the department.
The DoLE lawyers, she explained, were completing the affidavits of the security guards and employees who witnessed the takeover.
Sto. Tomas stressed that the issues raised by the groups were not even pending with the DOLE.
The bulk of the protesters were former employees of the garments firm Novelty Inc. who were demanding payment of their wages. Sto. Tomas said the case was already pending before a liquidation court.
The militants also demanded the scrapping of the labor secretary’s discretionary power to assume jurisdiction over labor disputes following the death of several sugar workers at the Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.
Sto. Tomas said the protesters should have gone to Congress and pushed for an amendment of the Labor Code, which provides for the secretary’s power to issue assumption of jurisdiction orders.
“I think the things they did, they were milking certain issues to put the DoLE down. They should not be doing this to any government office or official,” she said.