THE ATENEO Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (CRUSADA) marked their fifth year on August 20 through a short roster of activities aimed towards raising awareness on laborers’ rights.
The said roster of activities consisted of a silent rally with representatives of the Philippine Airlines Employee Association (PALEA) and the Ateneo Employees and Workers Union (AEWU), a short forum with CRUSADA Premier Emeritus Miguel Rivera at the Social Science Conference Room and a mass held at the College Chapel.
CRUSADA is an accredited student political party of the Ateneo de Manila University.
PALEA and AEWU, on the other hand, are accredited labor unions comprising of employees who work for Philippine Airlines (PAL) and the Ateneo, respectively.
Uniting with labor groups
CRUSADA has fought alongside PALEA through conducting forums and joining rallies to call out for justice and raise social awareness after the management of PAL discharged 2,500 employees in 2010 to outsource its ground operations.
The issue was resolved through a settlement agreement between PALEA and PAL signed last November 14, 2013.
According to CRUSADA Deputy to the Secretary-General Chris Pino, PALEA was one of CRUSADA’s first partner labor groups whom they heard and rallied for. “During the height of [their] struggle, we were at the forefront, we implored the Ateneo community to pay heed to their plight.”
She stressed that awareness should be the first step towards addressing the issue and that proper discourse should follow as this is “what brings about concrete programs of action that are more than temporary.”
Furthermore, she pointed out that companies often fail to include laborers in the discourse when in fact, they are stakeholders as well who should be involved just as much.
”As long as there are still workers who are not justly compensated or workers who have been laid off for sketchy reasons, we will continue to stand by labor groups like PALEA,” she said.
On the other hand, development studies junior Lanz Espacio, who represented the Ateneans for Agrarian Reform Movement (AFARM) in the activities, believed that the issue is mainly rooted from the “dehumanizing nature” of capitalism, which “values capital most and views labor simply as an input to production.”
“Working within instructions and with democratic systems is something AFARM and I adhere to and we do our best to fight for those in the margins and to echo their story in the University,” he added.
AFARM is a student-led task force comprising of rural development advocates in the Ateneo.
“We exist”
During the silent rally, members of CRUSADA along with PALEA and AEWU representatives marched along the Science Education Complex walkway up to the Social Sciences Building, giving out red roses and raising placards which proclaim CRUSADA’s four primary advocacies: Justice, equality, solidarity, and freedom.
According to Pino, they distributed red roses during the rally to make the Ateneo community see and feel that they exist.
Furthermore, she added that the red rose symbolizes social democracy and has been widely used by social democratic parties and labor groups around the globe throughout history.
“The act is really just us recognizing our roots as a [social-democratic] party and making our presence felt, letting students know how much we’ve done and how much more we are planning to help re-imagine campus politics in the Ateneo,” Pino said.
Equality, solidarity, freedom, and justice
In his speech during the forum, Rivera cited social issues in the past which CRUSADA heard and helped to make the Ateneo community more critically aware of.
These include the plight of farmers from Casiguran, Aurora who strongly opposed the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Authority, a project that aims to turn 12,923 hectares of land into a business and tourism hotspot, and the issues of precarious work and unjust labor conditions among workers who receive a low pay and do not have security of tenure.
He said that CRUSADA’s active participation in the said issues allowed them to look at the parties whom they fight for not just as mere oppressed groups but as their “friends and neighbors.”
“To us, they are not just PALEAns, Casiguranons, laborers, or workers who demand for justice. They are to us the very mirrors of the contradictions and struggles we face as human beings each and everyday,” Rivera said.
Furthermore, he acknowledged the importance of working together towards a common goal and interest. “This is through solidarity that, in all our thoughts and actions, we realize that we do not live in an isolated world; that what affects us, affects everyone else.”
In talking about freedom, moreover, Rivera pointed out that Ateneans, despite being “inherently sinful,” still commit to reach out to the poor and the oppressed, which is precisely what freedom should mean.
“Despite our [little convictions, contradictions, sinfulness, privileges, who we are and everything we own], we choose the freedom to live for others,” he said.
Finally, Rivera stressed that social justice should be personal and that a just society should mean a society where “precarious work is considered an injustice and not the name of the game.”
