Labor leader: Eton would have caught Ka Popoy's ire

Labor leader: Eton would have caught Ka Popoy's ire

PATERNO ESMAQUEL II, GMA News

02/06/2011 | 06:44 PM

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/212372/labor-leader-eton-would-have-caught-ka-popoy39s-ire

Marking a decade since his mentor’s death, a labor leader on Sunday said the Eton construction accident, which claimed the lives of 10 workers last month, was an issue the slain Filemon “Ka Popoy" Lagman would not have allowed to pass.

In an interview with GMA News Online, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) chairperson Leody de Guzman said Lagman would have protested the death of the 10 Eton workers, the likes of whom the latter would have considered as victims of poor safety conditions, low salaries, and contractualization.

“‘’Yung Eton ay totoong mukha ng panggigipit ng mga kapitalista sa mga manggagawa ngayon (The Eton incident looks a lot like capitalists suppressing workers nowadays)," de Guzman said. The labor leader said of Lagman: “Lalabanan niya ‘yan (He would have fought against that)."

De Guzman’s group, also founded by Lagman, joined other militant groups in front of the Eton construction site on Saturday to light 10 candles and offer 10 flowers in memory of the 10 construction workers who on Jan. 27 fell to their deaths.

To mark the 10th anniversary of Lagman’s death, activists on Sunday marched from the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina to the Bahay ng Alumni in the University of the Philippines, Quezon City — where the labor leader was shot on Feb. 6, 2001.

His sister Nida Lagman-Sevilla, in another interview with GMA News Online, said no suspect has yet been tried since a Quezon City prosecutor junked the murder charges against eight earlier suspects because the complainant — the son of Lagman — as well as other witnesses failed to appear in the preliminary investigation.

Sevilla explained that aside from not receiving summons at that time, their party did not give credence to the investigators’ findings then.

With her brother’s murder unsolved, Sevilla, also an activist, said she finds recourse in seeking justice for the people Lagman fought for — the working class. “Justice na rin ‘yon for him (That is also justice for him)," she said. — VS/MRT, GMA News