December 10 is human rights day. Its commemoration is celebrated all over the world. However, the rampant repression of our human rights and worsening terrorism clearly attests to the fact that we really have much to worry about the safety of our family and our future.
These days, we could easily point to terrorism as the worst kind of human rights violation. The Arroyo government has practically done everything to stop terrorism, though she denies some specifically those instigated by the US. From the blatant intrusion of the US armed forces through the series of Balikatan Excercises; filing of anti-terrorism bills which now has more than 12 versions in both houses of congress; and just recently, the signing of the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), which has given the US blanket authority to set up military facilities wherever they want in our soil.
On the labor sector, she warned those who “terrorize factories that provide jobs” that the government would not relent on tracking them down, too. However, if the President would wage war against those that “terrorize factories and provide jobs” then we might as well go after the people who are not nameless and faceless, but has been terrorizing the workers by giving them undue fear and panic through continuous retrenchment and lay-offs, closing down of factories, giving unjust wages, etc. For us, these people who own the factories and other business establishment but terrorize their workers through anti-worker policies and actions should be included in the list of terrorists that the government should go after with. In fact, most of them have used their money and influence to dictate the actions of some of our social institutions that should be the one protecting the rights of the people. Take the case of the Philippine Airlines workers where the Supreme Court upheld last January 2002 a 10-year moratorium on Collective Bargaining Agreement against the workers. Obviously, only Mr. Lucio Tan would rejoice on such decision just like Osama Bin Laden praising his god when the September 11 attacks occurred last year. Last March, Mrs. Arroyo herself suspended the Collective Negotiations Agreement against government employees and disallowed mass leaves, obviously to prevent them from holding strikes. We just don’t know on how she celebrated on what she did.
Terrorism, by its very nature, horrifies the people and is an utter disregard to human rights. Nonetheless, not only bombings kill people. This may not be at par with the seemingly gruesome effect of seeing dilapidated or mutilated bodies torn apart by a terrorist’s bomb, but its impact is more ruthless since more lives are bound to perish with its merciless attacks. At this point in time, what really terrifies the people and violate their human rights is the reality of a worsening poverty. The fear and terror of seeing your children hardly eat a decent meal for a day and not being able to send them to school, any more is certainly awesome. What is really gruesome is the fact that we have to survive a terminally ill economy borne out of irrational policies like those that fully uphold the free trade programs of foreign capitalists at the expense of the Filipino people and our local industries. Hope is getting thinner and thinner as millions continue to be out of job while the rest continue to lose theirs with only seasonal and contractual jobs available in the employment market. For the APL, the government should really go after the people who perpetrate this kind of terrorism because of its subtle and systematic approach in pursuing its economic ideology of neo-liberalism. Certainly, this terrorism is far more destructive and appalling knowing the genocidal effects that it will bring forth due to the annihilation of millions of people that will die of famine and other social costs.
Certainly, the government is not aiming on ending terrorism but to intensify the suppression of our basic human rights and make our country a haven of terrorists with their anti-social activities. The APL calls on the government to focus its anti-terrorism drive not on the result but on the causes of poverty. If the government would only be true in its effort of alleviating the plight of the poor and improve our economy by not submitting to the whims and caprices of the social elites and foreign capitalists, then we could hope to diminish if not totally end terrorism and for peace to finally reign in our land.
No to US and GMA’s war on terrorism!
No to anti-terrorism bills!
Uphold the peoples basic human rights!
No to globalization!
Long live the Social Movement Unionism!
Alliance of Progressive Labor · AKBAYAN
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