FEATURES

Ithough news from the Philip-

pines is dominated by elections

and constitutional referendums

that suggest a stable democracy,

the reality is very different for Fil- ipino workers and peasants.

The Aquino government's creation of an electoral system in which the elites compete for the nation’s spoils has been accompanied by a strategy of delibrate civil war against those seeking fundamen- tal reforms of the country’s economic and political system.

The result has been savage conventional and psychological warfare in the country- side and a nationally co-ordinated terror campaign in the villages and cities.

It cannot be coincidental that recent vis-

itors to the Philippines have included such RSE oe , Pere Sag vicious proponents of U.S. President Rea-- + — on RS Bethe ae tt ix ot 5~ ity gan’s foreign policy as retired Maj.-Gen. . y ¢ é ? 17 (idk fl =

John Singlaub, a member of the private right-wing Special Warfare Advisory Group, which has helped to institute similar “low- intensity conflict (LIC)” plans in countries like El Salvador.

The touchstone of LIC theory is the development of “total war at the grass- roots” level. In pursuit of such tactics, the Philippines military has unified, co-ordin- ated and armed the nation’s ultra-right fanatic groups to terrorize the progressive movements.

A recent example was the brutal murder April 28 of Peter Alderite, a warehouse clerk with Ladeco, a subsidiary of Del Monte.

Alderite, a 31-year-old union officer of the Ladeco Workers Union, was hacked to death by Tadtad cultists in Davao, a city on the southern island of Mindanao. Tadtad means “to chop” and the cultists are armed with machetes.

Alderite was accosted in the canteen of his workplace in broad daylight, singled out by the Tadtad squad and hacked to death in the street. Ladeco management declined to intervene on the grounds that it was “military operation.”

The union, an affiliate of KMU, has confirmed that Tadtad and military oper- atives are working on the Ladeco planta- tion with the connivance of management. Tadtad is just one arm of the newly- organized Alsa Masa, a national “anti- communist uprising” which openly plans terror against labour and peasant groups on the pretext of fighting communism.

With the final collapse of ceasefire talks with the New Peoples Army, the national guerilla resistance, President Aquino has

Filipino

workers make no gains with Aquino rule

STORIES BY GEOFF MEGGS

——

’ their efforts. A sign of the workers’ mil-

endorsed the activities of groups like Alsa

Masa. At the same time, she has approved of savage conventional warfare operations against the guerilla movement.

“These things put to question the sincerity of the Aquino government in protecting workers,” said a KMU state- ment. “When Marcos fell the workers hoped that they would no longer be gunned down nor imprisoned for asserting their rights. But the murder of Alderite in the hands of armed vigilantes proves oth- erwise.” ;

(Messages of support to the family of Peter Alderite may be sent to KMU, 3rd floor, Jopson Building, M. Earnshaw St., Sampaloc, Manila, Phils.)

A recent review of the human rights situation in the Philippines by Currents, the publication of the Canada Asia Work- ing Group, bears out KMU’s charges.

CAWG is a research and solidarity pro- ject of Canada’s churches.

“The use of vigilante groups in the mil- itary’s anti-insurgency program has. reached most alarming proportions in the Davao region,” CAWG reported in April. “Groups such as the Alsa Masa, armed and directed by the regional military command, primarily serve to systemati- cally intimidate and spread terror through a virulent anti-communist campaign.

“As a result of their threats, more than 23,000 Davao residents have fled their homes, according to military figures. Of particular concern is the fact that Mrs. Aquino and other members of the cabinet appear to regard the Davao experience with vigilante groups as a model to be encouraged in other parts of the country.”

Despite the repression, peasant and workers’ organizations are continuing.

/

itancy was the fact that strikes in the notorious Bataan Export Processing Zone cost 1.2 million hours of lost time in 1986, up from 800,000 the year before. Almost ~ 25,000 workers took job action in the zone, up from 3,500 in 1985.

“At the time of the report in January, — 1987, only. three of the 31 firms in the zone were fully operational,” CAWG says. “Of the remainder, six were closed and 22 partially shut down because of walkouts by workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage, the repeal of restrictive labour laws, and improve- ments of their social conditions.”

Employers reacted brutally Jan. 28. That day they appealed to Aquino for government intervention to end the strike. By afternoon, CAWG says, “combined military and police forces burned workers barricades and forcibly dispersed the pickets. Three picketers were shot to death and 34 others wounded.”

To reassure the multinationals, the government has announced new guide-_ lines to encourage foreign business, includ- ing a two-year strike moratorium in new — enterprises. Nonetheless, the strike wave was continuing early in 1987, with 55 new disputes in January alone. )

What Aquino cannot accomplish with terror may be won by economic policy. Incredibly, the real per capita income of most Filipinos decreased by 2.23 per cent in 1986, CAWG reports. To put that in perspective, consider that almost no on¢ receives even the minimum wage, which would generate less than $4 a day.

Given the constitutional requirement tO repay the national debt, which was incurred by Marcos, Aquino will be forced to spend more than 44 per cent of the GNP on debt servicing this year rathet than increasing national production. Clearly, the World Bank and the Interna tional Monetary Fund figure higher in the government’s economic priorities than the income of workers. Z

The elimination of Marcos and the imposition of a new government carrying out the same economic and political poli- cies must be counted as one of the great _ foreign policy triumphs of the Reagan ef: A variation on the same theme now is being played out in South Korea.

The death of Peter Alderite is a reminder that after such coups the ae workers of those countries need our solid- : arity and support even more than they di " before. =

t is more dangerous today to bea

trade union organizer in the Phil-

lipines than it was in the darkest

days of the Ferdinand Marcos

dictatorship, says Stan Shewaga, president of the Pulp and Paperworkers of Canada.

Shewaga recently returned from his second visit to that country, a trip that took him to a national congress of pro- gressive trade unions and onto many picket lines.

“The situation hasn’t improved at all since I was there in 1985,” he says. “In certain situations it is worse and the eco- nomic situation has deteriorated even further.”

Shewaga, a member of the B.C. Com- mittee for Human Rights in the Philli- pines, was a guest of Kilusang Mayo Uno, the national federation militant trade unions created under the Marcos dictator- ship.

He found a country in which labour organizers increasingly face assasination and workers on the picket lines are sub- jected to military attack.

It was KMU which spearheaded labour opposition to Marcos and KMU, like other federations in the country, wel- comed the pledge of President Corazon Aquino on May 1, 1986, to repeal the Marcos labour laws and end the all-out war on labour.

Militant labour central ~KMU growing rapidly

But one year after that pledge, Shewaga was walking with KMU members in a more solenm May Day march that com- memorated, among others, former KMU chairman Rolando Olalia, gunned down by assasins in November, 1986. Olalia is the most prominent of a score of labour organizers killed by a growing reign of terror organized from the highest levels of the Aquino government.

A helicopter gunship circled over the May Day marchers — a far different atmosphere from a year before when Aquino made a keynote address to half a million workers. This year she did not speak at any labour gathering.

“The minimum wage is still not lived up to at all,” Shewaga said. “At every strike the military camps 50 metres away and they still enforce the employers’ wishes by breaking picket line barriers down. The

KMU and any progressive element in the country has given up on Aquino.”

Shewaga says the idea that Aquino “has to contend with a right-wing element ‘is just nonsense. The only progressive member of her ministry was the labour minister and she fired him; = :

The constant military manoeuvers that seem to threaten a coup are staged, Shew- aga believes, to create an atmosphere of tension that justifies continued repression. “When these coups are exposed Aquino does not strike back. The military is simply confined to barracks for a few days. It keeps everybody on edge, but in fact it’s all stage play.”

At the behest of the World Bank and multinational corporations investing in the Philippines, Aquino has maintained

tough economic policies. The result iseven

greater poverty among workers and pea- sants.

“The main struggle is to get wages up to the minimum wage,” Shewaga said. “Because the KMU is leading this fight, _

more and more workers are moving under its banner.”

were only about 50 per cent of the workers — in KMU two years ago. Now that number ~ is about 70 per cent, with 800,000 in KMU affiliates.

KMU is seeking to step up its international | solidarity efforts, particularly in support — of workers in specific struggles around the Philippines. KMU also has issued a call for Canadian unions to adopt a Phillipine organizer. ;

lippines costs only $100 a month. Through the KMU, Canadian unions can assist a0 organizer in their sector in the Philippines | and receive regular reports on how theif organizer is doing.

demanding that Aquino implement het labour reforms and end the terror cam —

writing to the committee, care of Suite 200, |

In Cebu, a major industrial city, there —

What can Canadian unionists do? The

To field a full-time organizer in the Phi-

“Inside the country the unions are —

paign,” Shewaga says. “It’s a measure 0 how far things have gone that when pea sants demanded land reform outside the presidential palace, 19 of them were gunned down.”

The BCCHRP can be contacted by

1955 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver.

8 @ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 22, 1 987

a em ee