Despite the setbacks, however, workers in the Southern Tagalog region have continued to assert their rights and fight back. For Mario Fernandez and his fellow unionists in TEPWU, it meant meeting state forces head on. This meant actively challenging attempts to tag them as “communist sympathizers.”
“In the Philippines there is no such thing as finality when you are poor and political. Because if you are rich or the son of a king of a department, you are a very important prisoner, your case will get decided for 75 days but for the poor and political and those targeted by the government, there is no end to their legal problems.”
When the global pandemic reached Hong Kong, the once busy streets in Chater Road became quiet. Domestic workers were not allowed to go out and were forced to work longer hours, including Sundays, as their employers were working at home. Others had their contracts arbitrarily terminated.
“It is ironic because they said they will make health care a priority and that this is the leading agenda of this administration. But until now, there is still no portfolio, no health secretary. That remains a big vacuum.”
One of the legacies of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship is how it blatantly used the state and bureaucracy to plunder the economy and enrich itself and its favored elite, including foreign interests. Marcos. Jr., with his economic blueprint, is setting the stage to do the same.
In the Philippines, victims of rights violations face dead ends as they turn to the Office of the Ombudsman for justice and redress.
Poor Filipino families cannot afford to eat three meals a day.
This year, workers intensified their calls for a wage hike and the lowering of prices, saying that the pay should be able to cover the needs of a family of five.
“Silencing valid voices through harassment and intimidation or through arbitrary website blocking weakens discourse and democracy and puts free speech at risk.”
The current cosmetic changes in the country’s labor export policy will not provide due protection to Filipino workers overseas. Worse, this will only exacerbate the already dire conditions they are facing.
The campaign asserting their rights and welfare won for them some of their much-deserved benefits, and led to the expansion and consolidation of their unions and organizations.