STANDING STILL. Some 6,000 Metro Manila police dealt with protesters during this year's SONA rallies along Commonwealth Avenue, according to Metro Manila Police Chief Director Alan Purisma. Photo by Ryan Y. Racca.
AS PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 23, activist groups took to the streets and marked what for them was just another year of violated rights and broken promises.
Driven by a desire for social justice, it seemed that no amount of effort was too much for the protesters as they rallied along Commonwealth Avenue to make sure that the country got what they deemed to be the real “SONA ng Bayan.”
Welfare of laborers asserted
For the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), founded by Juan Tan (AB ’41) and Walter Hogan, SJ, the marginalization of Filipino laborers continues to be of extreme gravity. The FFW was created in the hopes of liberating Filipinos from oppressive capitalist forces under the guidance of Catholic teachings. More than 70 years later, the organization said that it still finds itself in this same quagmire.
In his SONA, Aquino announced 3.1 million jobs created since he took office two years ago. However, FFW Assistant Vice President Julius Cainglet maintained that despite this quantitative increase, it is a less optimistic picture when it comes to the quality of the jobs. The Philippine labor sector, he said, still lacks the basic benefits that a government should be able to provide.
“Ang pinaglalaban namin, ‘yung kapakanan ng mga manggagawa (What we are fighting for is the welfare of our laborers),” he explained. By this, he referred primarily to the struggle for a more considerate minimum wage, greater job security through the elimination of contractualization, and lower prices of essential resources, petroleum products and basic costs like education.
A burning effigy of Aquino heightened the tense atmosphere in the rally as protesters voiced out their sentiments along the avenue.
Covenant with the urban poor
In an interview with The GUIDON on the scene, Bojie Mejilla of Pandayan para sa Sosyalistang Pilipinas talked about the decrepit housing conditions of the urban poor sector in the Philippines.
While acknowledging that corruption cannot be completely abolished within six years, Mejilla decried the blatant lack of efforts on the part of the Aquino administration to address the problem.
“The allocated budget for the urban poor housing increases almost annually, but the backlog of work is really huge. Why would you request a huge housing budget for the urban poor if the target of the government is in itself unattainable in its time frame?” Mejilla said in a mix of Filipino and English.
On March 29, Aquino signed Executive Order No. 69, which placed the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor under direct supervision of Malacañang. Mejilla said that they supported the president in this campaign, but were dismayed that no visible action plan has been crafted to provide improvements in the future.
Housing was not the only concern of the protesters from the urban poor sector. Residents of the Silverio Compound in Parañaque were also pushed to join the SONA rallies because of the tragic Silverio Massacre that took place last April.
Two residents were killed from gunshot wounds to the head and around 30 were arrested by the police for resisting the compound’s demolition. The 9.7-hectare land houses around 28,000 people.
Observations from foreign workers
Such social issues resonated even with foreigners from labor unions abroad who participated in the protests.
When asked why he joined the rally, Adam Bottomley, a social worker from Melbourne, Australia and a member of the Australian Services Union, sympathized with the Filipino rallyists. “Many workers in the Philippines are struggling,” he said.
For Alex De Jong, a member of the Socialist Alternative Politics from the Netherlands, the Aquino government has only presented “a lot of hope [in the] air, nice slogans, but little change.” De Jong said that he also came to know about the struggle against contractualization of the members of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association.
In the House of Representatives, all too near the rallying sectors that are livid and enraged, Aquino delivered his SONA to welcoming rounds of applause. In ending his speech, he said, “Hindi ko SONA ito. Kayo ang gumawa nito. SONA ito ng sambayanang Pilipino. (This is not my SONA. You are the ones who created this. This is the SONA of the Filipino people.)”
However, the word on the street, as it turned out, said otherwise.
With reports from Athena A. Batanes and J. A. de Lima
