Workers claim that this is Noynoy’s “last” SONA, dubbed it SONA-ngaling

Press Release

28 July 2014

Contact person

Leody de Guzman 0920-5200672

Gie Relova 0915-2862555

Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino

Workers claim that this is Noynoy’s “last” SONA, dubbed it SONA-ngaling

THOUSANDS of ordinary Filipinos marched towards the fortified Batasan Pambansa to counter what militants dubbed as President Noynoy Aquino’s “last” State of the Nation Address (SONA), two years before his term ends.

Aquino’s Ouster

“Today, we boldly declare that by hook or by crook this will be Aquino’s last SONA. We are fed up with the same old lies, self-serving declamations and their cheap tricks just to salvage the rotten status quo and his parents’ legacies,” said Leody de Guzman, national chairperson of the militant Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP).

He added that, “like the majority of our countrymen, there are no more reasons left for us to hold back and desire that Aquino’s Daang Matuwid become a realization in the next two years. True enough, the past four year maybe not enough to eradicate all social ills, but to aggravate our already miserable condition is just too much to bear”.

The labor leader noted that since taking office, Aquino has legalized contractualization, doubled Social Security System and PhilHealth contributions, depressed wages in town and country, denied tax breaks for state and private employees and has never taken the side of the workers during labor disputes despite outright violations by greedy capitalists.

At their rally, the workers brought with them a giant wooden yellow cross that signified the burden they are enduring daily under the anti-poor policies of the Aquino administration.

“Simply put, Noynoy’s ouster is the only available route for all hard-working wage-earners to exit from Aquino’s deceitful and corrupt reign. His forcible removal from office must lead to the establishment of a government characterized with the full participation of the masses an all levels of government in order to guarantee that it will genuinely serve the masses,” De Guzman spelled out.

The BMP and allied organizations Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralita ng Lungsod, Sanlakas and Partido Lakas ng Masa have called for the ouster of Aquino one week after the Supreme Court decided that portions of his administration’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was deemed unconstitutional.

DAP: Artificial Economic Gains

Articulating on the content of Aquino’s address before Congress and foreign dignitaries, the labor leader pointed out that the presumed economic gains the chief executive and his economic team has been boasting off since last year is artificial and a bubble that will most likely burst in their faces as the political climate heightens.

“The whole brouhaha that the Philippines has the “highest growth rate in the region” and is made to appear as the “next economic tiger despite the calamities” is a complete travesty. The timing of supposed economic gains was consistent with the period when Aquino and Abad unleashed their illegal spending mechanism. As a matter of fact, investors complained of government underspending and excessive cautiousness during his first eighteen months”, De Guzman explained.

“The concept of DAP was conceived as a reaction to such criticisms. Now that the DAP is gone, it is most certain that the administration cannot sustain its growth levels any longer,” he predicted.

The labor leader surmised that, “the most successful result the DAP generated was not the investments and jobs produced but the massive disinformation drive of a concocted economic health of the country. Even with the DAP, the rich accumulated more profits and the poor starved more than ever”.

De Guzman emphasized that, “the real origin of the confidence of the foreign investors in Aquino’s watch is his stiff imposition of the cheap labor policy, contractualization and crush the last remaining vestiges of our constitutionally-guaranteed labor rights”. ###