Mystery over ‘missing’ Ifugao vice mayor / ‘Broken promises’
>> Tuesday, July 30, 2019
BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon
TINOC, Ifugao Vice Mayor
Fernando Gapuz, who was reported missing on Friday last week, surfaced on
Wednesday.
Police
confirmed that Gapuz is now with his family, but did not give details.
In posts on
Facebook, Gapuz’s family members thanked those who helped and prayed to find
the vice mayor.
When
contacted through his cell phone by newsmen, Gapuz did not give any explanation
on why he went missing.
Gapuz was
last seen boarding a bus in Barangay Impugong bound for Buguias, Benguet where
he was last seen before he surfaced. He did not contact his family since then.
Reports said
this prompted his family to report the incident to a TV station which aired the
incident. Netizens said his being “missing in action,” could have been due to
some factors, but we won’t speculate on this. Let us leave the family in
peace.
***
After three
years in power, the Duterte administration continues to fail workers and the
poor as labor and human rights violations heighten, according to the Center for
Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR)
“Broken
promises, broken further by a combination of laws and practices that Duterte
government created while making the Filipino poor poorer and sending the
Philippines to indebtedness to China,” the CTUHR said commenting on the
President’s fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) and three years in power.
“Duterte
actually inflicted more harm than uplifted the lives of the ordinary Filipinos,
especially the working class. He forced us to tighten further our belt with the
enactment of the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law and send
farmers deeper to destitution with the Rice Tariffication law,” said CTUHR
executive director Daisy Arago.
“His three years in power is marked with 43
killings of workers, informal and agricultural workers and labor rights
defenders; 15 major violent dispersal of workers strikes and collective protests
this year; vilification and persecution of critics, activists and human rights
defenders; allowing China plunder and trampling of country’s sovereignty and
high-handed governance that brings the police and military to rule the
country,”
Arago
said Duterte unleashed his wars on drug, terrorism and insurgency, simultaneous
to his threat to kill unions in late 2016.
“Attacks
became more vicious when he issued his Executive Order 70 last December 2018
red-tagging organizations and individuals critical of his policies as
communists and communist sympathizers. Murder of unidentified riding
in men and `tokhang-style’ EJK became a common pattern for those who fell
victims of government hysteria.
“Surveillances
and harassments became common against known trade union leaders – 17 cases of
surveillance and 22 cases of harassment. Moreover, arbitrary arrests and filing
of trumped up criminal charges also became a trend to vilify labor rights
advocates. Six (6) unionists and labor organizers in fact remain in detention
- Marklen Maga, Juan Alexander Reyes, Ireneo Atadero, Julio Lusania,
Oliver and Weng Rosales were arrested and charged with trumped-up cases. A
peace consultant on economic and socio-cultural rights, Adelberto Silva also
remains in jail. Rafael Baylosis who was detained for a year was
freed early this year after the cases filed against him were
dismissed due to lack of evidence. Two hundred seventy three (273) individuals
are slapped with various fabricated criminal charges due to their political beliefs
and involvement in labor disputes.
The CTUHR said
in a statement Duterte had open pronouncements and threats to kill unions and
unionists if they will continue to organize and hold strikes, because they kill
businesses.
“The
President must be reminded that
organizing unions and strikes are basic worker’s rights, constitutionally and
internationally recognized. If such statements is coming from a President, it
becomes a policy and it is not surprising that his men, uniformed and
non-uniformed are blatantly violating these rights, with impunity.”
According to
CTUHR, “Martial Law in Mindanao was used against the striking workers of Shin
Sun Tropical Fruits in Davao last June 2, 2017. Other violent strikes and
protest dispersals that followed were those of Coca-Coca in Davao; NutriAsia in
Marilao, Bulacan last June and July last year and NutriAsia Cabuyao, Laguna a
year after; and PEPMACO, also in Laguna over common issues of long-term
contractualization, low wages and unsafe working conditions. Hired
goons and police brutally dispersed and arrested the striking workers and their
supporters and then slapped with trumped up criminal charges.
“With
concern for businesses to thrive, while removing all barriers to businesses,
the Duterte government’s hatred to unions and unionists critical of his
policies is a dictum.
“He disregard
the clamor for P750 National Minimum wage, an end to all forms of
contractualization and considered them bad for business. His
supporters much peddled new law on occupational, safety and health and expanded
maternity leave won after decade of people’s struggle are yet to see its
implementation as employers express their reservations.
According
to the CTUHR, the administration’s combined use of violence and law on its
people, including Martial Law in Mindanao, is also plunging the
country’s unions to a mere 4.6 percent of an estimated of
almost 27 million wage and salaried workers or a total
of 4,689,568 workers. Majority or 64,933 (as of Dec 2018)
are actually workers’ associations that do not have bargaining powers to
improve their conditions in the workplaces.
Arago also
highlighted the impact of the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law
that the administration promised would help the poor. “This law plunged the
workers and the poor into deeper poverty, cut the amount of food that daily
wage can buy. The unemployed and precarious informal workers often sleep at
night with just noodles and eggs or just water. As oil prices continuously to
soar as high as more than P20/liter when TRAIN law was implemented, the prices
of basic commodities logically rose emptying the pockets of the poor,” she
added.
“If there is
something positive that this administration had done, it is emboldening workers
to assert their rights despite threats of reprisal. In fact, in Duterte’s 3
years, 155 unions covering 137,288 workers filed their Notices of strikes and
12,687 workers actually participated in 38 strikes, excluding those workers who
camped-out outside the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) office in
Intramuros. This figure already doubles the 15 strikes recorded in
Benigno Aquino’s six-year term.
“These labor
standards violations to extrajudicial killings and policies that favor the
capital, revalidate the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Global
Rights Index Report 2019 which included the Philippines as one of the 10 worst
countries for workers.
“The
consistent low ranking of the country in Global Rights Index reflects the
continual structural failure of the Philippine government to stem the
deteriorating state of human rights of the Filipino people. It also raises the
necessity to push for the ILO High level Mission to investigate these labor
rights violations.” the CTUHR concluded.
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