Solidarity Message to BMP - from SENTRO

Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO)
LEARN Workers' House, 94 Scout Delgado St., Brgy. Laging Handa, Quezon City
www.sentro.org

23 January 2015

Comrades in BMP,

Militante at maka-sosyalistang pagbati mula sa Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa para sa Kongreso ngayong Enero 24-25 ng Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino!

SENTRO warmly congratulates the members and leaders of the BMP for your Congress today, which signifies another milestone and advance for your organization and the broad labor and social movement inside and outside the country.

Since BMP's Founding Congress in 1993, your organization has shown its wavering commitment to defend and promote workers' and trade union rights, to press forward the welfare of the masses, to boost labor and multisectoral solidarity, to uphold non-parochial nationalist ideals, and to propagate and enrich a socialism that is not Stalinist and not reformist. These, in turn, have prompted the APL, and later SENTRO, to forge linkages with BMP - from the initial issue-based cooperation to relatively loose collaboration in the labor coalition NAGKAISA! and to a more cohesive BMP-SENTRO partnership in various labor and social advocacies and campaigns.

In this regard, SENTRO lauds and fully appreciates your Congress theme "Palawakin at Palalimin ang Sosyalistang Kilusan sa Hanay ng mga Manggagawa!" There is indeed a need to reassert and reinvigorate the historical, ideologial and even "symbiotic" relationship between socialist and trade union movements. Socialist trade unionists must strive to end the "separation" or the dilution of the close connection in the past between socialism and trade unionism due to relentless capitalist suppression and co-optation or divide-and-rule tactics. We should also intensify our struggle against the current global neoliberalism for it has further widened the divide between the great and noble socialist and trade union principles and aspirations.

Likewise, it is truly timely to revitalize socialism among the workers. After all, the capitalist system - in its rehashed neoliberal face - has never been exposed as it is now. But workers need a clearer alternative or understanding of socialism. Hence, the need for strenthening and developing socialist education, action and unity within the labor movement - without both the Stalinist and reformist errors of the past. BMP, SENTRO and many other workers' organizations could very well work together in this effort.

Mabuhay ang BMP!
Mabuhay ang NAGKAISA!
Mabuhay ang kilusang paggawa!
Mabuhay ang sosyalistang kaisipan!

This solidarity message was read during the second day of the 7th BMP Regular Congress at Skyrise Hotel in Baguio City, January 24-25, 2015.

Solidarity Message to BMP - from Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)

FREEDOM FROM DEBT COALITION
11 Matimpiin St., Brgy. Pinyahan, Quezon City 1100
Tel.: +63-2-9211985; Telefax: +63-2-9246399

Enero 24, 2015

PAHAYAG NG PAKIKIISA AT PAGBATI MULA SA FDC

Isang mainit na pagbati at taas-kamaong pagpupugay ang ipinaaabot ng Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) sa matagumpay na Kongreso ng Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP). Kaisa ninyo ang FDC sa mga laban at adhikain ng manggagawa at ng sambayanan.

Ang BMP ay mahigpit na kapitbisig ng FDC sa mga pakikibaka para sa hustisyang pang-ekonomiya, kalayaan at kaunlaran ng sambayanan, at hindi ng iilan. Sa loob ng mahigit 25 taon sama-sama tayo, sampu ng iba pang kasapi at kaugnayan ng FDC sa paglaban at pagsagka sa mga kontra-mamamayan at dagdag na pahirap na mga polisiya at programa ng mga nagdaang mga rehimen matapos maibagsak ang diktadurang Marcos - hanggang sa pamamahalang lubak at baluktot na daan ng gobyernong Aquino. Isa sa mga nanguna at nangahas manawagan ng pagtakwil at paglitis sa kurap, elitista at kontra-mamamayang gobyernong ito - ang BMP, at kasama nito sa kalaunan, ang FDC - sa harap ng pagpatumpik-tumpik at pag-aalanganin ng ilang mga "progresibo" kunong mga organisasyon at grupo.

Laging kasama ng FDC ang BMP sa parlamentaryo ng lansangan at naging mahigpit na kasama sa mga laban sa paglalansag ng neoliberal at elitistang polisiya at adyenda na sinusulong ng bulok na sistema at naghaharing iilan, at patuloy na nambubusabos at naglugmok sa papatinding kahirapan at pang-aapi sa sanlaksang manggagawa at mga anakpawis ng bayan.

Hindi matatawaran ang ambag ng BMP para sa pagsusulong ng malawak at pambansang kilusan para sa kalayaan, kaginhawaan at kaunlaran na nakabatay sa hustisya at pagkakapantay-pantay. Ang mahigpit na samahan natin ay napapanday at patuloy na pinatitibay ng mga pagsubok, tagumpay at mga aral na nagsisilbing tanglaw at inspirasyon natin na patuloy na magsikhay sa ibayong pagsulong hanggang tagumpay.

Hangad namin ang tagumpay ng inyong pambansang kongreso. Hangad din namin ang mas matibay na samahan natin at higit na sama-samang pagsulong at mas malaking tagumpay. Kapitbisig tayo para sa mas ibayong laban tungo sa pambansa at panlipunang paglaya. Hanggang sa makamit natin ang lipunang wala nang pagsasamantala at pang-aapi ng iilan sa kapwa, at lubusang lumaya ang mga anakpawis at uring manggagawa mula sa tanikala ng pagkaalipin.

Asahan ninyo na lagi kaming kasama sa inyong laban, pagsubok at tagumpay!

Mabuhay ang uring manggagawa! Mabuhay ang Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino!


(nilagdaan)
Sammy Gamboa
Pangkalahatang Kalihim, Freedom from Debt Coalition

This solidarity message was read during the second day of the 7th BMP Regular Congress at Skyrise Hotel in Baguio City, January 24-25, 2015.

Workers to hug ‘invisible trees’ to protest SM’s profit-driven destruction of nature in Baguio

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.#

Militants hit gov’t plan for consumers to bear Napocor settlement

Press Release

06 December 2014

Militants hit gov’t plan for consumers to bear Napocor settlement

“TOTALLY unacceptable!,” this was the reaction of militant labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) to the government’s plan to let the consumers bear the brunt of the Supreme Court-sanctioned  60.2 billion peso labor dispute settlement between Napocor and labor union, Napocor Drivers and Mechanics Association (NPC-DAMA).

Facing the Senate Committee on Energy the other day, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla and Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima proposed that the consumers will be the ones to pay the illegally dismissed workers their back wages.

In an emailed statement to the media, BMP accused Petilla of trying to hit two birds with one stone. First, he tries to blame the labor union for the power hike if ever the garnishment of Napocor assets will proceed and second for passing the workers’ claim to the consumers coupled with his patented blackmails of power outages. At both instances, Petilla is evading the issue of his liability and his  incompetence.

The labor group cited that Petilla’s incompetence streak was first manifested in the simultaneous maintenance shutdown of power plants causing a spike in electricity prices, the failed promise to electrify Tacloban before Christmas last year and just recently for his alarming statements that a power supply crisis is to take place next year and now with his proposal to implement grossly unjust policy. 

“Petiilla and Purisima have no sense of fairness or even logic to implement an unjust imposition. Firstly, the consumers had no participation whatsoever in the mismanagement of the Napocor assets for them to pass it on to the consumers? Moreover, there is no connection legal or otherwise between the consumers and the labor case of NPC- DAMA,” said Gie Relova of BMP.

“With the privatization of Napocor assets almost complete, the debt stock of Government has not been dented, it remains to be standing at 16 billion US Dollars from 2001 up to today, if that is not mismanagement then I don’t know what is,” he added.

The militants say that such a proposal may constitute as grave abuse of authority and will be consulting lawyers on its legality as well as the accountability of the PSALM officials.

“By all means, the dismissed workers must receive what is rightfully theirs. Same as us, they are but victims to the privatization schemes this government has been peddling for the past two decades but this must not be the burden of ordinary electricity consumers but by those accountable for such mismanagement, Relova clarified.

The BMP likewise echoed the call of the Freedom from Debt Coalition that those who benefitted from the EPIRA Law must be the ones that must shoulder the burden of compensating the claims of the workers and not the ordinary consumers who have long been bled dry by the deregulation of the power industry.

EPIRA to blame

“Time and again, this present dilemma can be easily rooted to the EPIRA. This is but another manifestation of the colossal failure of the EPIRA and the people shall continuously be haunted by until it is repealed,” Relova asserted. 

“To begin with, ordinary wage-earners were the most defiant opposition to the EPIRA law and the consequential privatization of the Napocor assets because we always knew that retrenchment was next step once it was enacted. Lo and behold, we were right. The oppositionists to EPIRA have been vindicated, the labor leader explained.

The BMP has long called for the junking of EPIRA and the nationalization of the power industry to veer away from the profit orientation it has taken.#

Militants welcome Ombudsman decision against corrupt labor arbiter, calls for "lifestyle checks" and "thorough cleansing" in NLRC

PRESS RELEASE

December 4, 2014

Militants welcome Ombudsman decision against corrupt labor arbiter, calls for "lifestyle checks" and "thorough cleansing" in NLRC

Socialist labor center Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), as part of the broad labor coalition Koalisyon Kontra Korupsyon (KKK), welcomes the indictment of labor arbiter Jesus Orlando Quinones by the Office of the Ombudsman for violating the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

According to the Ombudsman, “Records show that Quinones offered to facilitate the reversal of a decision rendered by the NLRC in a labor dispute in exchange for P2 million.”

Quinones’ act of “soliciting a fee in exchange for assistance in obtaining a reversal of a decision was unquestionably intimately connected with his official functions since he himself was its author.”

Ombudsman’s findings proved and verified KKK’s long-time campaign that indeed, corruption exists in the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and true enough, corruption involves millions of pesos.

KKK has previously exposed the NLRC as a “millionaires' club” after the release of their 2013 Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN), which show that all labor commissioners and arbiters have wealth accumulated wealth more than what they can accumulate based on their salaries.

Leody de Guzman, BMP president said, "The Ombudsman decision exposes the well-established modus operandi of unscrupulous arbiters at our labor courts. They act as devious fixers, auctioning their decisions to the highest bidder. Aggrieved workers, thus, suffer a double whammy of injustice - at the workplace and at the NLRC. Worse, the salaries of corrupt labor officials come from withholding taxes and value added taxes borne by salaried employees".

"The BMP is calling for lifestyle checks of NLRC arbiters and commissioners. A thorough cleansing is imperative if the commission wants to regain the trust and confidence of distressed workers, who regard the labor courts as the last resort against maltreatment from abusive employers," he concluded. #

House Joint Resolution 21 is Blatant Capitulation to the Whims and Caprices of Oligarchs in the Power Industry

Press Release
December 3, 2014

Profiteering at the expense of the already burdened Filipino consumers:

House Joint Resolution 21 is Blatant Capitulation
to the Whims and Caprices of Oligarchs in the Power Industry

DOZENS of militants from the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and other allied organizations staged a picket in front of Congress today to condemn the imminent passage of House Resolution 21, which will grant emergency powers to Pres. Noynoy Aquino in order to immediately address an alleged power shortage next year.

Hoax and Bogey

Leody de Guzman, BMP president said,  "The so-called pending crises in the country's power supply is a hoax contrived by the unholy alliance between the Energy Department, the Chief Executive and the oligarchs in the power industry".

"It is a bogey meant to force the public into accepting a seeming quick-fix that would bypass all safeguards against unjust profiteering in government transactions with private power producers", the labor leader added.

"Secretary Petilla of the Department of Energy (DOE) may have learned from Hitler's Goebbels in his monotonous warnings against a crisis in power supply, hoping that his lies may appear truthful as he untiringly repeats it like a broken record. Yet, his statements are refuted by a director from the DoE, who said before the House Committee on Energy, that we are only facing a shortage of 31MW in our reserves for the first two weeks of April," de Guzman expounded.

At the picket, the protesters carried placards that read: "Tutulan ang Emergency Power ni PNoy!", "Ibasura ang EPIRA!", "No to Coal-Fired Power Plants!".

Same Old, Same Old

The labor leader clarified, "The Philippines now has the highest electricity rate in Asia. Industrialists perennially complain against power costs as the primary deterrent to investments in the country".

"The economic cause of the problem is plain and obvious: the full privatization of the power industry. It is a sector that is not only primarily controlled and owned by oligarchs (Sy, Consunji, Aboitiz, Lopez, Ty, etc.). It is also characterized by 'regulatory capture', as government mechanisms for regulation are rendered inutile and ineffective by private capital. The legal basis of said problem is the passage of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001," he explained.  

De Guzman asked, "But what is the answer of the Noynoy administration to high power costs caused by privatization? Not the reversal, repeal, or amendment of the 13-year EPIRA scourge. He wants more privatization! Noynoy is even asking emergency powers for more, unbridled, and unchecked transactions with private power producers".

The BMP declared that "House Joint Resolution 21 is a blatant capitulation to the whims and caprices of oligarchs in the power industry. It is unjust and immoral profiteering at the expense of the already burdened Filipino consumers.

Suspension of Environmental Laws for Coal Power Plants

With House Resolution 21, all government agencies - from national to local government units - will be authorized to suspend laws and regulations that would restrict initiatives to increase the power supply.

The BMP fears the "emergency powers" may lead to a wholesale suspension of environmental laws to favor the construction of coal-fired power plants. De Guzman said, "The world is now rejecting coal as an energy source because it is patently harmful to the environment and to human health. It is also a major contributor to carbon emissions and global warming, which is linked to the occurrence of super typhoons such as Haiyan (Yolanda). Noynoy may not know it but he is courting a disaster of epic proportions".

Uninterrupted Profit for Mall Owners

Meanwhile, the BMP criticized the "convoluted logic of the Uninterrupted Load Program" (ULP) of House Joint Resolution 21.

De Guzman said, "With the ULP, government funds would be used to pay capitalists such as mall owners who would use their generators during peak hours. The proponents say that this incentive would ensure a steady power supply for ordinary consumers who get their electricity from an unburdened National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP). What convoluted logic this is! Public funds would be used entice the privileged few to use privately-owned utilities for private gain".

He averred, "Honestly, the ILP is nothing but an uninterrupted profit scheme for big capitalists, in particular, for mall owners. Who owns the malls and the NGCP? No other than Henry Sy - the richest man in the Philippines".

"When his mall complexes get their electricity directly the NGCP, he is merely transfering his profits from one pocket to another. When the shrewd Mister Sy would use his own generators, he is incurring a "cost". It is this expense that Noynoy and our crooked legislators want to be shouldered by the public through the ILP," he concluded. #

Labor Joins National Day of Action Against Aquino’s Emergency Powers

Labor Joins National Day of Action Against Aquino’s Emergency Powers

MILITANTS belonging to labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) held an early morning protest at Mendiola Bridge to jump start the nationally coordinated Day of Action against Aquino’s Emergency Powers organized by the Power to the People Coalition.

“The emergency powers granted by Congressional panel on Energy will not even make a dent on the power crisis ordinary folk like us wage-earners are painfully bearing for the past thirteen years,” Leody de Guzman chairman of BMP fearlessly forecasted. 

“Since the government has already erred in identifying the problem, whatever measures it will take borne out of the emergency powers shall miserably fail and will ultimately exacerbate and prolong the economic yoke the people have long been bearing,” he added. 

De Guzman was referring to the inception of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) in 2001 which allowed the “entry and the establishment of an oligopoly” wherein a very limited of powerful industry players are competing in the market. 

Other vital provisions of EPIRA include the self-inflicted prohibition to participate in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, the deregulation of the entire power industry. It likewise directed the disposal of all the assets of the state-run NAPOCOR. 

“Whether they call it a power reserve deficit or a power supply deficit does not matter much because this is not the real predicament we are facing. Whether the officials admit it or not, the crux of the matter is that, these are mere products of the broken promises of EPIRA,” the labor leader alleged. 

De Guzman further explained that, “despite the declared intents of EPIRA which were the reliability, quality, security and affordability of the supply of electric power, not one of these goals has been met in the span of thirteen years of implementing an oppressive decree”. 

“Besides the obvious excesses of private sector participation in the power industry, the EPIRA is also the prime culprit in the electricity price manipulations which occurred last year due to the suspiciously-timed maintenance schedules of several power plants,” he claimed. 

“The clamor to repeal EPIRA is already deafening but still the government chooses to listen only to its patrons and not the heavily-burdened majority of our people,” he likewise asserted. 

De Guzman likened President Noynoy Aquino, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla and the Energy Regulatory Commission chair Zenaida Ducut to the three monkeys that see, hear and speak of no evils of EPIRA, consciously acting in favor of the corporate interests of the Aboitiz, Lopez and San Miguel Corporation. 

The BMP believes that electricity should be treated as a basic necessity ergo, must be one of the social services of the state to its people and not allow opportunistic companies to impose predatory electricity rates. 

“Once the emergency powers of Aquino are granted, it will make ordinary consumers more susceptible to price hikes due to electricity price manipulations, collusion with corrupt officials, lopsided contracts with private entities to name a few. All these are on top of the environmental carnage the House Joint Resolution shall trigger with the suspension of environmental laws,” said another BMP leader Gie Relova. 

. 

“Not unless the government swerves away from the neo-liberal policies of deregulation and privatization which feeds the unbridled appetite for profit of power companies, the people shall eternally bleed and endure unreliable and expensive electricity rates,” Relova warned. 

The militants warn that continued failure to address the institutional injustice inflicted by EPIRA upon the people will only contribute heavily to the building of critical mass not only against the market-driven EPIRA or the oligopoly but also towards Aquino’s elitist and callous regime.