PHilippines - Message on the occasion of International Labor Day

Filipino workers are well aware that the struggle for their
emancipation is not only through the state-constricted legal arena of
unionism and strike movement, but primarily through the arena of the
ever intensifying people’s war." -- Jorge Madlos (Ka Oris)

Message on the occasion of International Labor Day

By JORGE MADLOS (Ka Oris)

Spokesperson, NDFP-Mindanao

** Only through victory of the People’s Democratic Revolution can
workers, together with entire Filipino people, be emancipated!
<http://www.ndfp.net/joom15/index.php/media-releases-mainmenu-53/messages-mainmenu-72/1417-only-through-victory-of-the-peoples-democratic-revolution-can-workers-together-with-entire-filipino-people-be-emancipated.html>
**

On the occasion of International Labor Day, the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines-Mindanao salutes the Filipino workers who
continue to wage their just and legitimate struggle under the most
oppressive and exploitative conditions of a semi-feudal, semi-colonial
system.

World monopoly capitalism is on its worst crisis and the workers,
especially those in neocolonies, are being used to absorb this crisis.
The workers are conscious that their class emancipation can only be
realized together with the emancipation of other oppressed classes not
only through the strike movement but decisively through the people’s
war and ultimately upon the total victory of the new democratic
revolution.

True to its semi-feudal and semi-colonial character, majority of the
workers in Mindanao are agricultural workers who do not even receive
the daily minimum wage. They get an average of 200-300 pesos per day,
way beyond the government’s daily standard of more or less 1,000
pesos for a family of six. In the Philippines, unemployment rate has
gone up to 11%; this means there are at least 800,000 jobless in
Mindanao.

To reap superprofit, multinational companies in the island, especially
the ones which are environmentally-destructive like Dole, del Monte
and Platinum Gold Metals Corp. (PGMC), impose the most exploitative
anti-labor schemes, such as contractualization, long working hours,
heavy quotas, undue deductions, and usury in the form of “5-6”
from intentionally delayed wages.

The formidable political strength that was wielded by the workers
since the second half of the 1980s has been systematically weakened by
capital and its state apparatus through “legal” means, such as the
assumption of jurisdiction, the criminalization of strikes,
retrenchments, union busting, collusion with reformist workers’
unions, arbitrary filing of trumped-up cases, bribery and others. Not
content with “legal” means, they resort to naked violence with
impunity, such as militarization and the bloody dispersal of strikes
and, worse, the extra-judicial killing of union leaders.

This worsening exploitation and intensifying repression have resulted
in further impoverishment and hunger, swelling the ranks of the poor
who continually cry out in anger and demand social justice; employment
and just wages for food, housing, water and electricity, health,
education and other basic needs of a decent human existence.

This has emboldened the workers in Mindanao as with their counterparts
in PAL and in Hacienda Luisita, ever conscious of their historical
role as a leading class, to continue to fight relentlessly, as what
they have daringly shown in their struggle in DoleFil, Alsons,
Filipinas Palmoil PIantation Inc. (FPPI), and in many others.

The workers of Mindanao, together with their comrades nationwide, are
well aware that the struggle for their emancipation is not only
through the state-constricted legal arena of unionism and strike
movement, but primarily through the arena of the ever intensifying
people’s war in the country today.

You, workers, mass leaders and activists: Welcome! Join the ranks of
the New People’s Army as Red fighters and political officers, where
you can fight unrestrained from bourgeois “legal” as well as
fascist constrictions in the parliamentary arena, and can fully work
for the total emancipation of the workers, peasants and the entire
Filipino people.

Workers are also aware that their ranks are led by the advanced
detachment of their class – the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Under the leadership of the proletarian party, they can surpass the
level of development they have attained in the late 80s to once again
be in the forefront of the open mass struggles, and to march in step
as the people’s war advances towards the strategic stalemate stage.

The advance of the workers movement that is led by the Communist Party
of the Philippines is our concrete contribution to the international
workers’ movement and to the International Communist Movement as a
whole.

Long live the Filipino workers!

 Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

 Long live the International Communist Movement!