LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Another killing

The militant workers of the Cordillera Region under the Kilusang Mayo Uno-Cordillera condemns the latest killing against a labor leader who had done nothing wrong but to fight for workers’ rights and welfare.

Gerry Cristobal, the former union president of Japanese semiconductor firm Emi-Yazaki and an official of the Solidarity of Cavite Workers was gunned down on the morning of March 10.
This is the third time that Cristobal was ambushed, he managed to survive the first two. The first time was on April 28, 2006 when he was shot and seriously wounded by a certain SPO1 Romeo Lara of the intelligence division of the Imus police station.

The second was on February 9, 2007 where he was shot three times by unidentified motorcycle riding men, he escaped the attempt unhurt. Two years ago, the vice-president of the same union was also shot by a lone gunman in front of the gate of the semiconductor factory in Imus, Cavite.

The killing of Cristobal is one of the many attempts against the workers who are only struggling to survive and fighting against labor exploitations and repressions. The workers of the Cordillera and the rest of the country have seen many forms of harassments and persecutions against their ranks.

These they experienced from their workplaces, every time they try to practice their democratic rights and more in the picket lines where many of them were violently dispersed and illegally arrested and incarcerated by no other than the police and military being paid by merciless businessmen.

Whoever masterminded the killing of Cristobal will certainly be able to roam free just like the other murderers of trade union as well as peoples leaders unless the Arroyo administration will seriously look into protecting its people from extra judicial killings instead of branding people who are fighting for what they know is right as terrorists thus making them probable targets in its Us dictated “war on terror”.

We also condemn at the strongest point the latest violent dispersal against the workers together with their colleagues and friends who were only staging peaceful protests demanding justice on their plight and the same time the ouster of the President Gloria Arroyo.

Many of them were seriously injured and were hospitalized after the dispersal. Truly, at this time where our country is being ruled by a tyrant, workers and the whole Filipino peoples’ lives will never be better until she’s on power.

Kilusang Mayo Uno
Cordillera