Bulatlat News
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – The rains brought about by Tropical Storm Carina (Gaemi) did not stop activists and people from all walks of life from marching along Commonwealth Avenue on Monday, July 22, for the third state of the nation address (SONA) of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Leaders from various sectors held a banner with the call, “Singilin ang papet, pahirap, pasista at kurap na rehimeng US-Marcos!” (Hold accountable the puppet, repressive, fascist and corrupt US-Marcos regime!)
Ruel Severino, 50, a utility worker at the Philippine General Hospital, was among the protesters who joined the People’s SONA. For him, several state of the nation addresses were delivered, but there is no improvement in Filipinos’ lives.
“There is really nothing new,” Severino said in Filipino when Bulatlat asked if he had observed significant changes in the two years of Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s presidency.
“No one can blame us why we are here,” he said, adding that for the 30 years that he has been working in PGH there has been no significant change in his working conditions nor increase in his salary.
“We suffer from understaffing, not only in the utility staff but also the administrative work and nurses. Whoever sits in power, there is no change; they are just fooling us around with their promises,” Severino added.
Multisectoral group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said: “The true state of the nation is one of debilitating economic crisis, rising fascism, surrender of sovereignty, lack of accountability and endless fighting among the ruling elite.”
Economic crisis
In her speech, Mimi Doringo, secretary general of Kadamay, narrated how the urban poor struggle with the soaring prices of food.
“How are you going to feed your family with nutritious food if pork costs P320 per kilo, kangkong with P10 to P20, eight pieces of okra costs P20, eggplant P100 per kilo and pang-asim worth P30? Who can even forget the high cost of chili, onion and garlic?” Doringo said, adding other costs that an ordinary Filipino carries such as high cost of services such as the electricity, internet and transportation.
Read: Urban poor sector continues to suffer under Marcos Jr
Doringo stressed that Filipinos do not need tokenism, as she urges the government to fund social services that will benefit Filipinos.
Meanwhile, the lack of jobs and income forced Filipinos to seek jobs abroad. Josie Pingkihan, deputy secretary general of Migrante International, said that several years after his father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., institutionalized cheap labor export, the number of Filipinos going abroad for work continues to increase.
“The number of Filipinos leaving the country every day is more than 6,000,” Pingkian said.
She added that in two years, Marcos Jr. in his many trips abroad, continues to offer cheap labor.
“Nurses, domestic workers, construction workers, agricultural workers, name it, the Philippines have it,” Pingkian said, adding that these overseas workers are vulnerable to abuse, discrimination, low wages, and exploitation among others.
She also lamented the increase in contributions such as PhilHealth while lacking in services for distressed migrant workers.
“The Marcos regime has no genuine sympathy for the OFWs and our fellow Filipinos abroad. He is good at coming up with swindling schemes for him to be able to claim that remittance has reached $37 billion for 2023, the highest in history,” she said.
Rights violations
Rodel Marte, 42, of Unyon ng Panadero ng Gardenia Bakeries (PANADERO-OLALIA-KMU) has been working at Gardenia for the past 17 years. He said that through their union, they were able to negotiate with the management other benefits. Aside from signing a collective bargaining agreement, they were also able to negotiate for transportation allowance and health card.
Gaining these victories, however, was not easy as they were also met with repression. For one, Marte said that he and other union members were red-tagged due to their association.
“Our vice president, (Rhoel Alconera) was charged with financing terrorism but was junked by the court, which proves that the charges are trumped-up and what they (NTF-ELCAC) really intend to do is to abolish our union,” Marte told Bulatlat.
According to the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), the case against Alconera was junked by the court because the prosecutor failed to submit evidence.
According to human rights group Karapatan, terror laws are weaponized to suppress political activism which leads to the shrinking of civic space.
“Dissent in any form is maliciously misrepresented as providing political support to the armed rebellion — thus the prevalence of red-tagging as a means of threatening, harassing and intimidating perceived enemies of the state. Red-tagging has been broadly and indiscriminately brandished against human rights defenders, environmentalists, church people, development workers, artists and journalists, worker and peasant rights advocates, educators, lawyers, judges and many others, intending to create a chilling effect on a wide range of democratic expression,” Karapatan said.
The group asserted that “red-tagging inevitably renders victims vulnerable to more serious human rights violations.”
“The figures say it all: 3.4 million victims of threats, harassment and intimidation, including red-tagging, many of them ending up as among the 105 victims of extrajudicial killings, 12 victims of enforced disappearance, 754 political prisoners, 381 illegally arrested, 112 charged with terror law violations, 44,065 victims of indiscriminate bombings and 558 victims of forced surrender,” Karapatan said.
Bagong Pilipinas?
Mong Palatino, secretary general of Bayan said that under Marcos Jr.’s “Bagong Pilipinas,” the poor and the ordinary Filipino have no role.
Palatino said that Marcos Jr is only dragging the country into war.
“What occupies him are conflicts among the reactionaries and plunderers amid amid worsening hunger and crisis in the country,” he said.
“This is the crisis that has been plaguing the country for many years but Marcos Jr. seem to not care at all,” said Palatino in Filipino.
This is why, former Bayan Muna representative Neri Colmenares said that the 2025 elections would be crucial.
“This is a line between the rotten politics of the few and the politics of change. This is drawing the line between pushing for the welfare of the country or to continue to fall into the abyss of despair,” he said in Filipino.
Colmenares added that Filipinos are fed up with the clashes of the dynasties and politicians who only pursue their own political interests.
“We will not allow that people can only choose from Marcos or Duterte in the upcoming elections because both only lead the nation into poverty,” Colmenares said.
“The opposition we need is not only those who oppose the present administration but those who oppose the existing system that is dominated and taken advantaged of by a few political dynasties, big businessmen, landlords and imperialists. We will not allow that people will have no other choice (between Duterte and Marcos),” Colmenares said.
“A lifetime of poverty and repression is not our future. We can draw a path outside of dynasties and trapos. We can have our own candidates and a true opposition in the 2025 elections. In the coming elections, we heartily offer Makabayan, the country’s opposition who pushes for new politics and advocates for the platform of genuine change,” he said.
Aside from the capital, SONA protests were also conducted in the cities of Baguio, Iloilo, Roxas Kalibo, Albay, Camarines Sur, Cebu and Davao.
Due to heavy downpour, the traditional burning of the effigy was replaced with the people destroying the epitome of Filipinos hardship. (RTS, RVO)
