Crisis and Disintegration of the Arroyo Fascist Regime

“Ang sagot sa dahas ay dahas, kapag bingi sa katwiran.” [The answer to force is force if the other party is deaf to reason.] – JOSE RIZAL, national hero of the Philippines

BY THE PHILIPPINE CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER
Posted by Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine
(www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org)
Vol. VI, No. 5, March 5-11, 2006

The end of the Arroyo fascist regime is fast approaching. It is bound to implode in one big catastrophic upheaval that will unleash violence and murderous abuses symptomatic of the decay of the bankrupt neocolonial system. Or it will exit peacefully if disciplined mass mobilization in the Metro Manila area and elsewhere can prevent the regime’s deployment of whatever armed elements it can use to postpone its ruin. To be sure, U.S. intervention – military and diplomatic – will try to save its lackeys, or sacrifice them for a new set of servants who will do Washington’s bidding –U.S.-tutored military officers and unscrupulous business technocrats tied to transnational financial-corporate interests. Either way, there is no escape from the intensifying crisis of a moribund clientelist system ridden with irresolvable contradictions.

Events seem to be unfolding with a vengeance. Since her access to government power through the flawed 2004 electoral exercise, Gloria Arroyo has turned out to be a huge disappointment to those who supported her in People Power II as an alternative to Estrada. Arroyo was definitely not a Cory Aquino with the charisma of the martyred Ninoy. Arroyo’s experience in politics conformed to the routine career of a member of local oligarchic dynasties; but her clan grew rich primarily from bureaucratic and business manipulation, not landlord exploitation. Today, criminal linkages surround her family and cronies. She might appear for some to resemble Ferdinand Marcos – without the savvy and pretense to intellectual substance of the latter. Despite U.S. tutelage, Arroyo’s managerial mode and policies demonstrate an essentially autocratic style of governance wholly subservient to the dictates of the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the Washington Consensus.

Right from the beginning, Arroyo’s ascendancy was characterized by rampant human rights violations. She presided over an unprecedented series of political assassinations of journalists, lawyers, church people, peasant leaders, women activists, and workers. The human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) has documented the brutalization of 169,530 individual victims, 18,515 families, 71 communities and 196 households. Arroyo has been tellingly silent over the killing and abduction of countless members of opposition parties and popular organizations. Most of those killed or “disappeared” belong to progressive groups such as Bayan Muna (People First), Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), Gabriela, Anakbayan (Nation’s Youth), Karapatan, KMU (May 1st Movement), and others. They were protesting Arroyo’s repressive taxation, collusion with foreign capital tied to oil and mining companies that destroy people’s livelihood and environment, fraudulent use of public funds , and other anti-people measures. Such groups and individuals have been tagged as “communist fronts” by Arroyo’s National Security Advisers, the military and police; the latter agencies have been implicated in these ruthless atrocities. Just as what happened to the torturers of the Marcos regime, no one has been brought to trial and found responsible for any of the killings and other outrageous brutalities.

Meanwhile, Arroyo has hired a U.S. lobbying firm, Venable, for national governance. The US firm will ostensibly raise money for the modernization of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). It will also propose crucial amendments to the Constitution so as to allow foreign ownership of land, public utilities, and the mass media. Arroyo is also heeding the Bush administration’s strategy of devising Anti-Terrorism Laws and National ID Systems to suppress the articulation of grievances by the poor, deprived majority. Because of severe unemployment, soaring prices of oil products and basic commodities, unjust salaries and wages, increased tax burdens, chronic corruption in government, insufficient and costly social services, lack of genuine land reform, alarming proliferation of gambling, drugs, and State violence against ordinary citizens, millions of Filipinos, including landed elite, businessmen and professionals, have called for Arroyo’s resignation (see March 2005 survey of Pulse Asia; Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 4, 2005).

Since 2004, Arroyo’s administration suffered a stunningly rapid erosion of support from the traditional comprador and oligarchic segments of the ruling bloc. On one hand, the ousted Estrada camp has really never reconciled itself to its loss of power, given its populist tendencies and residual nationalist leaning. On the other hand, the Arroyo clique failed to offer a viable compromise to those excluded, given its dependence on bureaucratic corruption, extortions from business and other criminal activities. Never really interested in popular mobilization, the Arroyo clique has relied on bribery and other mendacious machinations. It operates with a narrow circle of parasitic generals, “trapos” (traditional politicians), and mediocre hirelings from media and academy. Its popular base is non-existent. Its influence on landlord oligarchs and the Makati elite has always been superficial and precarious, mediated by brokers like Fidel Ramos, Jose de Venecia, and assorted confidence tricksters. In short, Arroyo’s mode of governance has always been fundamentally unstable, unconsolidated, and opportunistic.

One of the first signs of the vulnerability of Arroyo’s position may be found in her yielding to the massive popular demand for withdrawal of Filipino troops in Iraq following the Angelo de la Cruz kidnapping. Of course, she tried to exploit its “nationalist” potential. But her continuing servility to Bush’s imperialist aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, together with her obedience to the WTO neoliberal program of privatization and deregulation, reinforced her utter dependency on global forces that only served to undermine her authority, her claim to represent the Filipino nation. Arroyo followed Fidel Ramos in implementing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), together with other onerous treaties, thus maintaining U.S. control of the Philippine military via training of officers, logistics, and dictation of policies toward the Moro insurgents as well as to the New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas. This is the profound legacy of the persisting colonial subjugation of the Philippines and the instrumentalization of the local bureaucracy and military to carry out U.S. imperial strategy in the first half of the twentieth-century up to Cold War anti-communist policies and the current “war against global terrorism.” Without U.S. support, the Filipino elite cannot sustain the oppression and exploitation of the propertyless workers, peasants, and middle strata now driven to flee and settle in other lands.

This explains why the AFP continues to pursue a fanatical anti-communist program today even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the capitalist reversal in China and in Eastern Europe. Its Christian chauvinist orientation militates against any pluralist outlook or even multiculturalist sympathy for the plight of the Bangsa Moro people and other indigenous communities (Igorots, Lumad) who have organized and armed themselves to fight for justice and dignity, for regaining their ancestral habitats. But this AFP subservience to Washington does not insure the absence of internal rifts and breakdown of “professionalism” due to abuses and corruption of the politicized officer ranks (see Alfred McCoy’s book, Closer Than Brothers, Yale University Press, 2000). This is a pattern which has almost become institutionalized for lack of any genuine democratic, nationalist ethos, given the function of this organ of government (established by the U.S. colonial authority) to suppress the revolutionary forces of the first Philippine Republic, the Moro Sultanate resistance, and numerous peasant insurrections (including the Huk uprising) constantly reproduced by the fierce class divisions in a semi-feudal and neocolonized formation.

We can thus understand the “Hello Garci” episode, following the Oakwood “Mutiny,” as a symptom of the internal divisions in the AFP and the loss of Arroyo’s full control. Whatever sliver of moral legitimacy Arroyo’s administration still possessed then, gradually dissolved in the AFP squabbles caused by this exposure. Not even her successful attempt to stop impeachment proceedings in Congress could really repair the rupture of political legitimacy dating back to the May 2004 elections. The “Hello Garci” scandal may be read as a symptom of the advanced disintegration of the comprador-landlord hegemony eviscerated by the Marcos dictatorship, temporarily revived by Cory Aquino, and given extension by Fidel Ramos’ mock-utopian resuscitation of Marcosian rhetoric. Arroyo cannot rescue this coalition of conflicting political forces because of lack of the abundant foreign subsidies that Ferdinand Marcos then enjoyed. This is worsened by the depletion of natural resources and educated social capital (due to emigration, breakdown of schooling, etc.) and the strict limits of local capital accumulation (no independent industrial ventures) due to the pressures of globalization and the US “war” to re-establish its global hegemony by systematic torture and unrelenting bombing.

Arroyo has no other way out. The Economic Crisis of 1997-1998 destroyed any illusions of the Philippines becoming a new Asian Tiger. While Ramos and Estrada offered compromises to the working people and the intelligentsia, they failed to halt the advance of the armed struggle in the countryside and the national-democratic social movements in the cities. Civil society continues its resurgence despite State/military repression. With a profit-centered neoliberal hegemony in control, the unimpeded impoverishment of the countryside has resulted in mass exodus to the cities and outward, hence a million Filipinos leave every year for jobs abroad. The failure of the neocolonial regimes of Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo is also evidenced by the continuing Bangsa Moro insurgency led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the breakdown of the MNLF-Misuari accommodation. Hence the need of the U.S. after the 9/11 attack to stigmatize the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines as terrorist organizations, capitalizing on the repulsive acts of the Abu Sayyaf and the pervasive climate of fear following the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, and elsewhere. This will not stop the disintegration of the neocolonial order and the defeat of U.S. interventionary salvaging of its Frankenstein monster.

Structural conditionalities continue to extract enormous debt payments to the World Bank and other financial consortiums, draining two-thirds of the social wealth of the Philippines and depriving education and other social services of sorely needed funds. Neoliberalizing schemes enforced by U.S.-dominated agencies (WTO, IMF) continues to inflict havoc and misery on the majority of 86 million Filipinos. It has bred criminality, worsened corruption, inflamed reactionary Christian fundamentalism, and exposed everyone to the wrath of natural disasters (witness the Leyte flood, a repeat of previous devastating calamities in Luzon and elsewhere). It has contributed to the staging of the Wowowee tragedy, a glaring symptom of how the iniquitous system gambles the dreams of the desperate millions. Marcos’ institutionalization of “the warm body export” in 1974 to tax the poor and relieve labor-peasant unrest has structured the economy to be wholly dependent on regular remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers, the main source of dollar earnings required to pay the foreign debt. The remittance topped $18 billion last year, giving the impression that the country was becoming prosperous. Arroyo prematurely celebrated this index of an economic recovery entirely contingent on the unpredictable fluctuation of the global labor market. This infamous “warm body export” has led to nearly ten million Filipinos displaced to 140 countries, chiefly as OCWs (Overseas Contract Workers) in poorly paid jobs (mainly as domestics, caregivers, and semi-skilled labor), often victimized by unscrupulous racist employers, abandoned by their own government to fend for themselves – an average of five OCW corpses arrive each day at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. These “New Heroes” (“mga bagong bayani” to Cory Aquino) are now clamoring for Arroyo’s ouster.

Relentless corruption, cynical manipulation, and the outright lack of any concern for the people’s welfare have distinguished Arroyo’s unconscionable rule from its inception. Faced with the loss of moral and political legitimacy, Arroyo has institutionalized a pattern of terror throughout the country since taking the reins of government. Particularly with the election of party-list representatives from BayanMuna, killings, abductions and outright harassment of anyone criticizing the government have intensified. The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace has confirmed that the majority of human rights violations have been committed by the AFP, the Philippine National Police, and the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Government Units). And this could not have occurred without the tacit or covert approval of Arroyo and her advisers. As the Promotion of Church People’s Response put it in their Feb. 24 Statement: “GMA cheated her way to victory in the May 2004 elections, using public funds to secure votes in her favor and rig the election results… GMA’s record of political killings and violations of civil liberties, especially with her Calibrated Preemptive Response scheme, is now the worst since the downfall of Marcos.”

Having reviewed the history of this current conjuncture, we take the position of denouncing President Arroyo’s flagrant violation of the Philippine Constitution via the pretext of a “National Emergency.” In truth, it is Arroyo’s emergency. This has been convincingly demonstrated by the lawyers of CODAL (Counsels for the Defense of Liberties) and the Catholic Bishops. Arroyo’s suppression of civil liberties and democratic freedoms imposed by Proclamation 1017, carried out by the military and police, opens the way to militarist brutal dictatorship similar to Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule. Unlike Marcos, however, Arroyo does not have the full support of the comprador and landlord oligarchy; Ramos, Estrada, Aquino and other factions of the ruling class that they represent have demanded her resignation. Clearly these groups, with obvious support from the U.S., would prefer “business as usual”—a managed transition to a legitimate administration elected by the majority, with a program of economic and political reforms to solve rampant graft and corruption, endemic unemployment, deepening poverty and hopelessness of the masses. Can such a transition be peacefully administered by the traditional politicians (such as De Venecia) with U.S. patronage?

Utilizing the pretext of a coup by right, left and other anti-Arroyo forces, Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 chiefly to intimidate, harass and selectively punish her critics. With her emergency powers, she has arrested all the duly-elected representatives of Bayan Muna, thus intimidating others who might voice criticism and protest. Her police and military have suppressed street demonstrations and public rallies, raided the offices of newspapers and other media, and threatened the arrest of hundreds, including such prestigious members of political dynasties such as Jose “Peping” Cojuangco. It appears, however, that Arroyo is using the usual “divide-and-rule” tactic, isolating the “communist” elements, frightening their allies, and threatening others with “warrantless arrests.” Arroyo and her advisers believe that we are still engaged in the Cold War, fighting agents of the Soviet Union and Communist China. However, this bogey of a “coup” conspiracy fails to convince people because those arrested do not include the military officials that the regime has named as complicit in the plot to overthrow the Arroyo clique. Arroyo surely cannot afford to alienate the military hierarchy she depends on; but can she fool all the honest nationalist officers whose sympathies are with the people? Systematic State terror has been unleashed on the progressive and nationalist sectors of the citizenry. Clearly the hand of the U.S. and its agents has been exposed in directing this selective dragnet, even as the U.S. Embassy continues to refuse to surrender four American soldiers charged by the Philippine Court with rape. Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. Special Forces and their mighty warships are standing by, just in case….

Exposed for cheating, lying, and stealing the people’s money, Arroyo’s fascist rule can no longer claim even a semblance of legitimacy. Nor can the State apparatus controlled by Arroyo claim the authority that solely emanates from the Filipino people, assuming that a constitutional democratic republic is still the framework of order and security. The Arroyo regime’s moral rottenness and political decay have precipitated its total repudiation and condemnation by the Filipino masses.

We call on all conscienticized Filipinos, democrats and nationalists to unite and rally against the Arroyo fascist group imposing terror on the whole country. Civil liberties promulgated in the 1987 Constitution and by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights can only be guaranteed by public demonstrations, street rallies, strikes, and other visible manifestations of the exercise of social and civic rights. We call on all peoples around the world concerned with justice, democracy, and human dignity to express solidarity with the Filipino people in overthrowing the Arroyo regime, releasing all political prisoners, and restoring full and genuine sovereignty to the Filipino people. Posted by Bulatlat

© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications

THE OTHER VIEW: The Academe and Elite Politics

By Elmer A. Ordoñez
The Manila Times
Saturday, January 14, 2006

IDEALLY the university is a place for research, teaching and extension (off campus) service and occupies a traditionally revered (now tenuous) position as the "conscience" of the nation, sometimes "agent of social change."

At least this was how UP presidents (like Rafael Palma, Bienvenido Gonzalez, Salvador P. Lopez and even Jose Abueva) saw academe's role. Palma, Gonzalez and Lopez ran afoul with the powers that be and were eased out of office before the end of their terms.

Left intellectuals actually see academe as part of the "ideological state apparatus" of the ruling class which (together with the coercive agencies of the state) manages to reproduce or perpetuate its hegemony.

Hence, the first president, an American, Murray Bartlett, said at his investiture that the state university's function was to produce Filipino English-speaking professionals and bureaucrats. Scholars, called pensionados, were sent to the US and came back to serve in the
colonial regime.

After Osmeña and Quezon there was a succession of presidents who studied law in UP like Jose P. Laurel, Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos. More recently two other presidents were in UP—Fidel Ramos (MA) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PhD). The executive
departments, judiciary and Congress at some time were dominated by UP alumni.

The UP itself has had at its helm and faculty mostly its own graduates. Study abroad (mainly US schools) for most of them rounded up their Western education.

The postwar US-sponsored scholarships (like Fulbright, Smith-Mundt, Ford, and Rockefeller) for faculty and administration in top US schools ensured a continuous supply of "properly oriented" faculty and researchers easily co-opted by the elite-controlled national government.

Hence, it is not surprising that select units of the UP like its schools of economics, public administration, agriculture and fisheries were awash with grants and various forms of aid. UP Los Baños boasts of its higher number of PhDs than those in some units like science and
engineering in Diliman because of the "generosity" of funding agencies, including the IMF-World Bank.

Hence, it is also not surprising that a former UP president (who had long advocated a federal system of government) was asked to head a handpicked constitutional commission (itself composed of many allies of the regime) which would do the bidding of the appointing power.

Expectedly the proposals were tailor-made for a President now struggling to survive.

Tinkering with the 1987 Constitution (by no means perfect) at this stage runs the risk of abolishing provisions for broader representation in Congress like the party-list and reviving parity rights (this time for all foreign investors) by opening up the national patrimony and sensitive areas like media and education for TNCs. The elite see party-list representation as superfluous, even dangerous to their interests, but they also know how to use it by forming surrogate party-list groups.

Neoliberalism is now the dominant thinking among economic planners and managers, many of whom are UP products. Hence, free trade, liberalization, globalization and privatization—even as these have wrought havoc on local manufacturers, farmers, fisherfolk and other productive forces in the country.

Now come two controversial proposals: no-election in 2007 (ensuring the tenure of a perceived corrupt and illegitimate regime) and abridgment of civil liberties by coining the phrase "responsible exercise" of freedom of speech, press and assembly—when there are enough laws (like those on libel and public order) to check "irresponsible" exercise of those rights. The elite at this point seem inclined to more repressive measures and fascistic methods reminiscent of the martial-law period.

The academe would do well to steer clear of dubious projects of the regime fighting for its survival in the face of growing opposition from those below. While tainted by the prostitution of some of its best minds, the university still harbors people (faculty, students and workers) who understand the roots of the impasse we are in and have aligned themselves with the interests of the vast majority who live in poverty and misery because of elite politics—marked by patronage, corruption and plain misgovernance.

In 2008 the UP constituency will celebrate its centenary and may well take the opportunity to reconfigure themselves—not as ideologues and subalterns of a decaying elite-controlled state but as scientists, intellectuals and artists in the service of a long-suffering people.

Copyright (c) 2001 The Manila Times

UP Staff, Professors Protest Non-payment of Back COLA

About 1,000 administrative staff and professors in different campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP) staged pickets from Nov. 21 to 25 to protest the UP administration’s refusal to pay unpaid cost-of-living allowance (COLA). The strikers, who are members of the All-UP Workers Alliance (AUPWA), have been demanding the release of their COLA since 2001.

BY BULATLAT

About 1,000 administrative staff and professors in different campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP) staged pickets from Nov. 21 to 25 to protest the UP administration’s refusal to pay their back cost-of-living allowance (COLA).

The strikers, who are members of the All-UP Workers Alliance (AUPWA), have been demanding the release of their COLA since 2001, Buboy Cabrera, one of their leaders, said in an interview.

The AUPWA is composed of the unions of the rank and file (All-UP Workers Union) and the faculty (All-UP Academic Employees Union). Cabrera, who works at the UP Press in the Diliman campus, is president of the All-UP Workers Union.

Along with other government workers, UP administrative staff and professors have been calling on the national government to give back the COLA that was integrated into their basic salaries in line with the implementation of the Salary Standardization Law in 1989. However, it was not until 1999 that the law’s implementing rules and regulations got published.

Government employees have struggled for the release of their back COLAs from 1989 to 1999. Cabrera said other state colleges and universities like the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) and the Rizal Technological University (RTU) have issued back COLA to their employees.

Cabrera said the Board of Regents, UP’s highest policy-making body, decided in 2003 to defer the payment of back COLA until the Supreme Court (SC) decides on the issue. Early this year, the SC ruled that the payment of the back COLA is legal.

“But UP has not paid our back COLA,” said Cabrera. “The UP administration cites a Department of Budget and Management (DBM) memorandum stating that only government-owned and -controlled corporations are covered by the Supreme Court decision and not national government agencies which include UP.” The Supreme Court decision, Cabrera said, makes no such distinction.

He added, “President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued an order to release P1 billion ($18.5 million, based on an exchange rate of P54.15 per US dollar) for payment of back COLA, only to suddenly take it back.”

The strikers went on mass leave on Nov. 22 and 24. There was also a series of vigils through the week, as well as negotiations with the UP administration.

All-UP Academic Employees Union President Judy Taguiwalo, a professor at the College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD), said it was time to take the fight to a higher level. “For three years, the All-UP Workers Alliance has done many ways to send its message to the UP administration and the national government like dialogues, open letters and a rally at the DBM.”

Cabrera said the AUPWA will be holding consultations among its members in the coming days to plan for its next protest activities, among which is participation in a nationally-coordinated rally for the release of back COLA scheduled on Dec. 7.

The AUPWA also participated in the “People’s Procession” for truth, justice and human rights held in Manila Nov. 25. Bulatlat

© 2005 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications

Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.

All-Government Employees’ COLA Coalition's: MANIFESTO OF UNITY

The following Manifesto of Unity by the "All Government Employees COLA Coalition was adopted by the convenors during its 2nd meeting held at the CSWCD, U.P. Diliman on November 8, 2005.


WHEREAS, the Congress enacted Republic Act No. 6758 otherwise known as the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) for Government Employees effective July 1, 1989;

WHEREAS, section 12 of the said law provides for the consolidation of allowances and compensation into the basic salary of government employees except for those allowances enumerated therein and those that may be determined by Department of Budget and Management (DBM);

WHEREAS, to implement the quoted provision that DBM will determine such other allowances/and or additional compensation that may be deemed integrated into the basic salary, Sec. Diokno issued DBM Corporate Compensation Circular No.10, DBM National Compensation Circular Nos. 56 & 59 integrating among others the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) into the basic Salary;

WHEREAS, the DBM failed to inform the employees concerned by way of publication, and as required by law, its plan to integrate the COLA into the basic salary;

WHEREAS, the DBM published DBM CCC No. 10 only on March 16, 1999 and DBM NCC no. 59 and 56 only on May 3, 2004;

WHEREAS, since the time the law on salary standardization became effective, we as government employees have been unlawfully deprived of our COLA;

WHEREAS, salaries of the vast majority of government employees fall below the ever-rising cost of living, resulting in increasing economic hardship for the rank-and-file;

WHEREAS, the unlawful deprivation of COLA further eroded the living standards of government employees;

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court in the case of Philippine Ports Authority employees vs. Commission on Audit (G.R. 160396) held in favor of the grant of COLA to the employees of PPA covering the period from July 1, 1989 to March 16, 1999;

WHEREAS, under the doctrine of stare decisis, the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of PPA vs. COA shall be applicable to all government employees because we are all similarly situated with the PPA employees, the issue being non-publication of DBM Circulars which were supposed to integrate COLA into the basic salaries;

WHEREAS, the National Government should pay COLA not only to the employees of the GOCC and GFIs but also to the employees in the National Government Agencies under the principle of equal protection of the law;

WHEREAS, in a Cabinet meeting on September 9, 2005, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the DBM to release P1 billion as initial “staggered payment” of the unpaid COLA of government employees;

WHEREAS, said order was rescinded following a recommendation by DBM that payment of COLA be deferred;

WHEREAS, the DBM, in its National Budget Circular 2005-502, dated October 26, 2005, continues to prohibit the payment of the COLA of national government agency employees based on the argument that COLA was already integrated into the basic salary and that payment of the same will allegedly cause double compensation;

WHEREAS, said argument was already thrown out by the Supreme Court in the case of PPA vs. COA;

WHEREAS, Malacanang’s continued refusal to pay the back COLA constitutes a denial of justice to government employees nationwide, who have long clamored for restitution;

WHEREAS, government employees nationwide have banded together to form the All-Government Employees’ COLA Coalition;

WHEREFORE, the Coalition hereby demands the following:

1) The immediate payment by the National Government of the unpaid COLA of national and local government agency, state universities and colleges, government-owned and controlled corporation and government financial institution employees;

2) That each individual employee entitled to back COLA be provided with an individual computation of the amount due him/her, based on official payroll records;

3) The allocation by National Government of a budget for the payment of said COLA.

Convenors:

Alliance of Health Workers (AHW)
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)
Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE)
Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA)
Quezon City Public School Teachers Association (QCPSTA)
All-UP Workers Union
All-UP Academic Employees Union
Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital Employees Union
National Children Hospital Employees Association
San Lazaro Hospital Employees Association - AHW
Tondo Medical Center Employees Association - AHW
National Orthopedic Hospital Workers Union - AHW
National Center for Mental Health Employees Association - AHW
Makati Public School Teachers Association
Department of Labor and Employment Employees Union - COURAGE
Social Welfare Employees Association of the Philippines - COURAGE
Department of Education Employees Union

Public Health Workers Go BOLD For COLA Back Pay

Press Release
October 20, 2005
References:
Mr. Jossel Ebesate, Secretary General, AHW
CP # 09189276381
Ms. Emma Manuel, AHW President
CP # 09178008634


Hundreds of Public Health Workers from the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), San Lazaro Hospital, National Center for Mental Health and other hospitals under the Department of Health (DOH) in their bold painted bodies gathered in front of the PGH today to press their demand to the government to pay their back pay of the cost of living allowance (COLA) amounting to P85,000.00 for each of the government employees. “The GMA government is hell bent in imposing E-VAT to the already impoverish Filipinos just to pay its foreign debts, but its debt to the health workers is taken for granted”, said Ms. Emma Manuel, AHW president.

The rallying public health workers lead by the All U.P. Workers Union and the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) demanded that the national government through the Department of Budget and Management and respective government agencies immediately release P1 Billion for an initial payment of COLA as prescribed by Cabinet memorandum dated September 9, 2005.

Mr. Jossel I. Ebesate, President of the All UP Workers Union in Manila and Secretary General of the AHW concluded that: “Now is the time for the government to walk the talk that it cares for its own health care givers. If it really served the interest of the people, no other concrete example would suffice than paying its own debts to its own employees.”

It must be recalled that in 1989 during the implementation of R.A. 6758 (Salary Standardization Law), the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) failed to publish in the National Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation the Implementing Rules and Regulations as required by law. It was only in 1999 and 2004 that said guidelines was published for employees in government owned and controlled corporations (GOCC) and other government employees, respectively. Said DBM guidelines stipulated among others that allowances and other income (COLA included) were already incorporated in the basic salary hence, the payment of which were no longer authorized, eliciting series of charges from concerned government employees that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Subsequently, in a series of Supreme Court decisions (7 as of last account) starting from De Jesus, et. al .vs. Commission on Audit (COA) in 1998 to PPA vs. COA on September 6, 2005, the Court consistently ruled that said DBM Guidelines were declared “ineffective” in the absence of publication, hence “inapplicable.” The Court further ruled that: “in consonance of the equal protection clause of the Constitution, and considering that the employees were all similarly situated as to the matter of the COLA… they should all be treated similarly. All – not only incumbents as of July 1, 1989 – should be allowed to received back pay corresponding to the said benefits from July 1, 1989 to the new effectivity date…”

Kuryente

Noong nakaraang linggo, ang unyon ay pinutakte ng kaliwa't kanang tanong kung totoo daw na mayroong ibibigay na humigit-kumulang na P20,000 bawat isang kawani ng UP (kabilang ang PGH) bilang paunang bayad sa back COLA. Ang balitang ito ay mariin nating pinasinungalingan at anumang balita tungkol sa napipintong pagbibigay nito sa mga kawaning UP ay pawang walang batayan.

Ang totoo ay ang Unyon ay mayroon nang sulat noong nakaran pang dalawang linggo sa ating Vice President for Legal Affairs, Prof. Marvic Leonen kaugnay sa isyung ito pagkaraang ipinalabas ng Supreme Court ang bago nitong desisyon kaugnay sa back COLA (G.R. No. 160396, PPA Employees vs. COA, September 6, 2005). Pagkasagot ng ating sulat (na ating inaasahang paborable sa ating posisyon) ay magkakaron ulit tayo ng panibagong kampanya sa loob ng UP para sa ating COLA back pay. Ito ay habang wala pang desisyon ang Supreme Court kaugnay naman sa kasong isinampa ng OSG Employees noong 1992 laban sa DBM na siyang dapat babalikat sa pagbabayad ng back COLA at hindi lamang ang bawat ahensiya dahil sa ang DBM ang siyang nagkamali sa pagpapatupad ng RA 6758 (Salary Standardization Law) noong 1989.

Matatandaang ang All UP Workers Union din ang unang nangampanya nito pagkatapos ng CNA signing sa pagitan ng UP at ng AUPWU noong 2002, na ang kinalabasan ay ang pagsampa ng UP (at pagtanggap ng Supreme Court) ng Motion to Intervene sa kasong isinampa ng OSG Employees sa Supreme Court at ang pagtanggi ng Board of Regents ng kahit paunang bayad sa back pay kahit pa humantong ang ating kampanya sa panandaliang "pagkulong" natin sa mga kasapi ng BOR sa Board Room ng UP Diliman at UP Manila.

Kayat ang pakiusap natin sa mga kapwa kawani ng UP (kabilang ang PGH) ay huwag tayong padadala sa mga nagkukunyaring naglalakad daw ng ating back COLA sa UP. Ni HA ni HO ay wala nga tayong narinig sa kanila noong sila pa ang kinikilalang "sole and exclusive bargaining unit" (1994-2000) kung saan sila ang kausap ng UP noong 1998 ng lumabas ang kauna-unahang desisyong ng Supreme Court kaugnay sa pagbabayad ng back COLA, ngayon pa kayang hanggang panggugulo na lamang sa mga isyu ang kaya nilang gawin?

Palagi po tayong sumangguni sa bukod tanging unyon na nagdadala ng tunay na unyunismo sa UP (kasama ang PGH), ang All UP Workers Union. At inasahan sana namin na sumama ang mas malawak na bilang ng mga kawani sa ating panibagong kampanya para sa back pay ng COLA upang tuluyan nating makamit ang tagumpay

Mabuhay ang mga kawani ng UP at PGH!

Rule of Law and 'The Godfather'

First posted 02:05am (Mla time) Sept 09, 2005
By Raul Pangalangan
Inquirer News Service

WHEN legal technicalities were employed to suppress critical evidence during the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada, people mocked it as "legal gobbledygook." When legal technicalities were employed to block the impeachment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, full-page ads called it a victory for the rule of law. What's the difference?

When pro-impeachment lawyers walked out of the Estrada trial, they were hailed as heroes acting out their moral indignation. When pro-impeachment congressmen walked out of the Arroyo hearing to protest the railroading of the proceedings, they were branded as unparliamentary and uncouth. What gives?

Abroad, the newspapers report sightings of Elvis, the King from Graceland and beyond. Hereabouts, the papers report sightings of Garci, the conspiring Election Commissioner fleeing disgrace in the homeland. How low can we go?

The congressional choking of the Arroyo impeachment is not the triumph of the rule of law, but of Mafia-style politics. Erstwhile anti-Arroyo congressmen mysteriously did not vote to uphold the impeachment charges? Look no farther than "The Godfather" movie, in which a witness at a Senate hearing suddenly clammed up. Confused by the Catholic Church hierarchy's waffling on Ms Arroyo? The bishops were so big on the question of morality when it was Estrada's neck on the dock, but now they are suddenly reduced to quibbling that Ms Arroyo's culpability was just moral but not legal. Again recall how Don Michael Corleone so piously, so solemnly, received a papal citation.

The Inquirer's editorial last Wednesday noted the recent appointments by President Arroyo that rewarded her loyal congressmen and some offers dangled to entice anti-Arroyo legislators to switch sides. On the floor of the House of Representatives, some congressmen were candid enough to say that they blocked the Arroyo impeachment because the President had been so "generous" to their district, referring I suppose to their overflowing gratitude for the flow of pork-barrel money.

The biggest irony is that those full-page, paid ads supporting President Arroyo may be motivated less by love for the law and more by a loathing for Arroyo's legal successor, Vice President Noli de Castro. It bespeaks a class bias by the affluent, educated Filipino, looking down on a duly elected Vice President because he is not one of their own, and who consider it unthinkable to have him as their leader.

The pro-Arroyo middle forces go to great lengths, worthy of intellectual contortionists, to explain why President Arroyo must not go. Estrada was ousted on the issue of his moral fitness but Ms Arroyo must stay despite the moral cloud, they say, because we need to be united. They claim to venerate the Constitution but will do everything to thwart Ms Arroyo's constitutional successor.

Well, guys, if national unity is valued in itself, and the rule of law says that the Vice President is next in line, why couldn't you do all that "uniting" behind Noli? Why embrace the Constitution only when it can be twisted to support Arroyo, but not when it categorically benefits her duly-elected Vice President?

Today the rule of law is nothing but mere rhetorical cover for what are essentially Machiavellian aims. I wonder if even those who now speak of it so loftily hold it "truly, madly, deeply" in their hearts.

The ideal of "a government of laws and not of men" is supposed to be the antidote to feudal governance. It is the modern response to backward notions of power. It is institutional, rather than personal; rule-based, rather than discretionary; and it aims to be just rather than merely convenient. The rule of law is not an ideal that can be switched on and off, depending on what is politically expedient.

That precisely is the danger with deploying the rule of law as a rhetorical weapon. It is a weapon that is programmed to respect certain principles. Unlike guns that can be made to shoot any target chosen by the gun-wielder, the rule of law can command the wielder to shoot some but not others and only under certain conditions. That is why our Supreme Court had to provide juridically acceptable accounts of Cory Aquino's extra-constitutional People Power and Ms Arroyo's shortcut to Malacañang. Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, said that the trials aimed "to establish incredible events with credible evidence" and exalted the tribunal as "the highest tribute that force ever paid to reason."

Those who exalt the crushing of the impeachment as the triumph of the rule of law may have missed the Constitution's Preamble. It states that "We, the sovereign Filipino people" seek the "blessings of … democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth…." Instead they find the rule of law in the deliberate misreading of the Constitution. But that has been the hallmark of this crisis over the Garci tapes, when being legalistic was mistaken for being just.

When President Arroyo gave her "I am sorry" speech for her repeated improper phone calls to an election official, she no sooner finessed it a week after with a "But I never admitted anything" speech. When her spokesmen said that the truth must be ascertained in the courts and not in the streets, we naively believed that she would allow the people and their elected deputies to hear the evidence against her. But President Arroyo's minions in Congress killed the impeachment charges and never gave the Senate a chance to examine the evidence. Gloria got her day in court. The Filipino people did not.

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