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NAGKAISA denounces liquidation of labor leaders, organizers
Inter Aksyon - September 24, 2016
Labor leaders expressed concern that this may just presage the start of more violence directed against grassroots labor organizing.
On Friday, September 23, 64-year old Edilberto Miralles, formerly president of the union at R&E Taxi transport service, was gunned down by unknown assailants right in front of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) in Quezon City. He was scheduled to attend a labor hearing that day.
On September 17, union organizer Orlando Abangan, 35, was shot by unidentified gunmen on the way to his home in Barangay Maghaway, Talisay City, Cebu.
Abangan was a full-time organizer for Partido Manggagawa (PM) in the province since 2001. During the 2016 elections, he built an organization in Talisay that campaigned for social protection and social services for persons with disabilities. He was also engaged by the labor center Sentro as organizer for informal sector workers.
Earlier this month, four farmers, Emerenciana Mercado-De la Cruz, Violeta Mercado-De Leon, Eligio Barbado and Gaudencio Bagalay, were shot dead by unidentified men in a farm located inside Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija. The assailants were reportedly delivered by helicopter that was seen hovering over the military reservation camp.
The four were members of the Alyansa ng mga Mamamayang Nagkakaisa, tilling part of a disputed 3,100-hectare tract of farmland inside Fort Magsaysay. Several others were wounded.
On September 7, farm worker leader Ariel Diaz was shot to death by three men in his Villa Pereda farm in the town of Delfin Albano, Isabela. Diaz is the chairperson of the Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon ti Isabela and was the head of the provincial chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Isabela.
"Union and community organizers are the quintessential vital cogs of our still nascent and highly vulnerable grassroots democracy," a statement of NAGKAKAISA said.
Their collective struggle, NAGKAKAISA added, is key toward realizing inclusive growth and the prevention of the so-called "race-to-the-bottom particularly for the majority poor and their families, where the gap between the poor and the rich just kept growing wider and deeper every day."
NAGKAISA called upon Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to immediately convene the high-level labor-government-employer Tripartite Industry Peace Council (TIPC) to prevent attempts to short-circuit the Constitutional right of workers to organize, bargain collectively or engage in legitimate concerted action.
Source: http://interaksyon.com/article/132746/nagkaisa-denounces-liquidation-of-labor-leaders-organizers.
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