PRESS RELEASE
January 25, 2015
Workers to hug ‘invisible trees’ to protest SM’s profit-driven destruction of nature in Baguio
Around 100 members of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, a socialist labor center composed of trade unions and other workers’ groups, will march up to SM Baguio today to hug the trees cut down by SM’s owners last week.
The protest action seeks to dramatize the groups’ opposition to what they called the “profit-driven destruction of nature” in the City of Pines.
“What we’re seeing here today is just the latest incident of the escalating violence that large capitalist oligarchs like the Sys have been perpetrating against Nature in pursuit of profit,” said Leody de Guzman, president of BMP.
“The trees that were felled down and that we will be hugging here in memory are just the latest victims of a system that is driven to constantly and systematically exploit not just people but also nature,” de Guzman added.
The BMP called for an immediate investigation of the tree-killings and for the resignation of government officials who allowed the killings to happen.
It also called on workers around the country to rally behind the Baguio community, and other communities being attacked by profit-driven natural destruction.#
