Extra-judicial killings, other HR violations persist under 'tuwid na daan' - groups

President Aquino signs the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act at EDSA in this Feb. 25, 2013 file photo. On the eve of the 2014 International Human Rights Day, various groups assailed his administration's record in human rights.

MANILA - On the eve of International Human Rights Day, a coalition of major trade unions and labor organizations assailed the "culture of impunity translated into extra-judicial killings (EJK) and other forms of human rights violations" that it said prevailed in a country once hailed as the beacon of democracy in the region.

The alleged rights violations target, among others, leaders and labor organizers under the Aquino administration's ‘tuwid na daan [straight path]’, the Nagkaisa! coalition said in a statement Tuesday.

Since 2011, Nagkaisa! said it had engaged the Aquino administration in dialogues on several labor issues, including 62 unsolved cases of EJKs involving labor.

The most recent involved the murder of a labor organizer in Negros Occidental. Rolando Pango, a full time organizer of Partido Manggagawa (PM) was gunned down in Binalbagan town in Negros Occidental on November 29, 2014, according to a Nagkaisa! statement.

“Prior to his death, Pango was deeply involved in both the agrarian and labor disputes in Hacienda Salud, a 135-hectare sugar plantation in Barangay Rumirang, Isabela leased and managed by Manuel Lamata,” said PM Chair Renato Magtubo.

Pango had helped organize the plantation workers in Hacienda Salud who in June applied to have the land under CARPER coverage. Salud workers had also filed a case of illegal dismissal before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) against Lamata for unlawful termination of 41 workers.

PM and Nagkaisa urged both the national and local governments to render immediate justice in Pango's case.

Josua Mata, Secretary General of Alliance of Progressive Labor–Sentro, said Nagkaisa will raise this issue before the Tripartite Industrial Council (TIPC) and the DOJ panel investigating the EJKs.

Before Pango, another PM organizer, Victoriano Embang, leader of the Maria Cecilia Farm Workers Association (MACFAWA) in Moises Padilla town in Negros Occidental, was also killed on December 29, 2012. A failed assassination attempt against his brother, Anterio Embang, followed a few months later, February 28, 2013.

Magtubo, a Negrense himself, said Negros remains a labor hotspot because of strong resistance by landlords to agrarian reform and their outmoded serf-type treatment of their laborers.

“Perhaps this regional feudal context has escaped the eyes of the labor department and the national government. Or they simply don’t care,” added Magtubo.

March to Mendiola

Meanwhile, human rights organizations are mobilizing a big march to Mendiola on Wednesday morning to mark the International Human Rights Day.

Groups will start to assemble at the UST Espana footbridge in Manila starting at 8 a.m. to be at Mendiola by 9:30.

Protesters will deliver a GUILTY or “BAGSAK” verdict on human rights records of the Aquino administration, including impunity on climate justice as one major human rights issue facing our country, according to an advisory from the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA).

Aside from EJKs, Nagkaisa! said the "resurgence of other forms of human rights violations" is also alarming.

Last October, Antonio Cuizon, president of the Panaghiusa sa Mamumuo sa Carmen Copper, was arrested on trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives. The union and the management were then in the thick of labor dispute when the case was filed against Quizon.

But the most widespread of human rights violations, Nagkaisa! said, is the violation of labor’s right to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Anakpawis: implement agreements with NDFP

In observance of International Human Rights Day, Anakpawis Partylist representative Fernando “Ka Pando” Hicap urged the Aquino administration to honor and implement the agreements between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Hicap is particularly referring to the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (Carhrihl) signed on March 16, 1998 and Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) agreed earlier on February 24, 1995.

“Kung kinilala lamang ni Aquino ang mga resulta ng peace talks, sa isang antas ang paggalang sa human rights ay mapo-promote at maiiwasan ang mga paglabag,” (If Aquino had only recognized the results of the peace talks, respect on human rights would somehow be promoted and further violations could be avoided)," Hicap said at a protest led by Karapatan human rights group in Mendiola.

Hicap invoked article 12 of the Cahrihl, “The GRP shall respect the rights of peasants to land tenure and to own through land reform the land that they till, the ancestral rights of the indigenous peoples in the areas classified as public domain and their rights against racial and ethnic discrimination, the right of the poor homesteaders or settlers and the indigenous people to the areas of public domain on which they live and work and the right of poor fisherfolk to fish in the waters of the Philippines.”

"If Aquino had only respected this provision, Lumad and Mindanao farmers need not to protest against massive militarization here in Manila, farmers rights in Hacienda Luisita, Looc, Yulo and other haciendas across the country could have been protected," Hicap said.

Anakpawis is also demanding the immediate release of NDFP consultants Benito and Wilma Tiamson; and political prisoners whose immunity, it said, are provisioned by the Jasig: Alan Jazmines, Leopoldo Caloza, Emeterio Antalan, Eduardo Serrano, Tirso Alcantara, Ma. Loida Tuzo Magpatoc, Ramon Patriarca, Edgardo Friginal, Jaime Soledad, Eduardo Sarmiento, Alfredo Mapano, Pedro Codaste, Renante Gamara and Roy Erecre.

Anakpawis said Aquino’s implementation of Oplan Bayanihan only resulted in more human rights abuses and demanded justice for the victims.

Anakpawis urged Aquino to resume formal peace talks with the NDFP and start discussing the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (Caser). - InterAksyon.com

Extra-judicial killings, other human rights violations persist under ‘tuwid na daan’ – Nagkaisa!

A culture of impunity translated into extra-judicial killings (EJK) and other forms of human rights violations against leaders and labor organizers continue under the ‘tuwid na daan’, a coalition of major trade unions and labor organizations in the country, Nagkaisa!, said in a statement on the eve of the celebration of International Human Rights Day.

 

Since 2011, Nagkaisa! is engaged in dialogues with the Aquino administration on several labor issues, including some 62 unsolved cases of EJKs involving labor.

 

Nagkaisa! said the most recent in the cases of unsolved EJKs was the  murder of a labor organizer in Negros Occidental.  Rolando Pango, a full time organizer of Partido Manggagawa (PM) was gunned down in Binalbagan town in Negros Occidental on Novermber 29, 2014.

 

“Prior to his death, Pango was deeply involved in both the agrarian and labor disputes in Hacienda Salud, a 135-hectare sugar plantation in Barangay Rumirang, Isabela leased and managed by Manuel Lamata,” said PM Chair Renato Magtubo.

 

Pango was instrumental in organizing the plantation workers in Hacienda Salud who in June applied the land under CARPER coverage.  Salud workers has also filed of a case of illegal dismissal before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) against Lamata for unlawful termination 41 workers. 

 

PM and Nagkaisa is calling on both the national and local governments to render immediate justice to this case.  

 

Josua Mata, Secretary General of Alliance of Progressive Labor–Sentro, said Nagkaisa will be raising this issue before the Tripartite Industrial Council (TIPC) and the DOJ panel investigating the EJKs.

 

“Like Ruby, solving cases of EJKs in the country is a slow-grind,” said Mata.

 

Before Pango, another PM organizer, Victoriano Embang, leader of Maria Cecilia Farm Workers Association (MACFAWA) in Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental was also killed on December 29, 2012.  A failed assassination attempt against his brother, Anterio Embang, followed  few months later, February 28, 2013.

A Negrense himself, Magtubo said Negros remains a ‘labor hotspot’ because of strong resistance by landlords to agrarian reform and their outmoded serf-type treatment of their laborers.  

 

“Perhaps this regional feudal context has escaped the eyes of the labor department and the national government.  Or they simply don’t care,” added Magtubo.

 

Aside from EJKs, Nagkaisa! is also alarmed at the resurgence of other forms of human rights violations.  

Last October,  Antonio Cuizon, president of the Panaghiusa sa Mamumuo sa Carmen Copper, was arrested on trumped up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.  The union and the management were then in the thick of labor dispute when the case was file against Quizon.

 

But the most widespread of human rights violations, Nagkaisa! said, is the violation of labor’s right to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

 

“The onslaught of state-sanctioned contractualization schemes have effectively disarmed workers of their ability to defend themselves, through their unions, against many forms of abuse and exploitation,” concluded Magtubo.

Probe of contractual workers-scheme eyed

A party-list lawmaker has sought a congressional probe into the massive contractual scheme of workers in Mindanao which deprived them of their right to security of tenure and other privileges provided under the labor laws.

TUCP party-list Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza, in filing House Resolution 1573, lamented that labor-only contracting has circumvented the labor code denying the workers right to security of tenure, right to self-organization, right to collectively bargain, right to decent wages and right to occupational safety and health.

Mendoza, vice chair of the House committee on labor and employment, cited the case of the workers of the Sumifru Corporation, a firm dealing in production and exportation of “Cavendish bananas”, pineapple and papayas in the Southern and Central Mindanao. The company exports its products to China, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, New Zealand and Russia.

Mendoza said from June 2013 to June 2014, the Sumifru Corp. has terminated the services of its workers in Antipas, North Cotabato. Of the original 2,743 workers, only 529 were left.

Mendoza said the terminated workers were replaced by workers from Antipas Banana Workers Cooperative and Magsige MPC Agency who were asked to assume the job of the former regular workers of the Sumifru Corp.

“The use of tax-exempt cooperatives which supplied workers to the company is clearly exploitative of the rights of the agricultural workers and exposing them to substandard wages, no overtime pay and without 13th month pay,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said through contractualization schemes and the use of “fake cooperatives”, no employer-employee relationship will arise between the workers and the agricultural plantation.

“If there is no legal employer-employee relationship, the workers will be unable to enjoy the right to organize, bargain collectively and the right to collective action through strike, all of which are fundamental rights protected by the labor code,” Mendoza said. - By Maricel Cruz

Lawmaker supports firms going bananas over VAT claims

DAVAO CITY -- A party-list representative vowed support for banana growers that have cried foul over new rules that supposedly make it difficult for companies to claim value-added tax (VAT) refunds.

Trade Union Congress Party (TUCP) Rep. Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza said his office will also discuss the matter with the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) as delay in tax refunds may prompt banana growers to lay off workers.

Speaking before members and newly inducted officers of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, Inc. (PBGEA) and the Banana Export Industry Foundation (BEIF), Mr. Mendoza said that Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 54-2014 is not just a “private industry issue alone.”

Unremitted VAT refunds “create momentum to retrench banana workers” and the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) unfair confiscatory treatment dissuades banana growers from making additional investments, he said.

“Indeed it is a matter of perspective and just as in our campaign to counter the scaremongering against aerial spraying, what is necessary is for the industry and labor to come together to tell our story well,” the party-list representative said.

Earlier, it was reported that the new VAT refund regulations give the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to grant or deny a refund claim 120 days from the date of submission. If the tax chief fails to act within the given period, the claim is “deemed denied” and the taxpayer has 30 days to elevate its refund request before the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA). The circular likewise applies retroactively.

Failure to comply with the 120+30 day rule, the BIR said, means the denial has become “final and unappealable.”

As a general rule, the Supreme Court ruled Section 112 (C) of the tax code gives 120 days to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to act on a refund request. If the tax chief fails to act within the given time period, a taxpayer is given 30 days to raise its tax claim before the CTA.

In September, business groups wrote a letter to BIR Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares and Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima that said RMC 54-2014 “effectively created new rules and interpretation” which gave taxpayers a hard time to recover VAT refunds owed by the government.

Similarly, banana growers have cried foul over the new VAT refund rules, saying that they have yet to recover from the impact of typhoon Pablo that devastated 25% of the country’s banana plantations in December 2012.

PBGEA President Alexander Valoria earlier said that a total of 14,000 hectares of banana plantations in Mindanao were devastated by typhoon Pablo, mostly in Compostela Valley, with an estimated damage cost of P7 billion.

About 10,000 hectares has already recovered, he added.

Mr. Valoria reiterated the call of stakeholders in the banana industry that there should be more support from government, especially to small banana growers.

Banana is the second biggest agricultural export product of the Philippines, next to coconut, and the country ranked second only to Ecuador as the world’s biggest exporter of bananas, based on data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. -- Maya M. Padillo and Mikhail Franz E. Flores, BusinessWorld