Filipino workers protested and mobilized outside Metro Manila under the leadership of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) chapters to militantly mark International Workers’ Day on May 1. This coincided with the mobilization and march of thousands of workers and Filipinos in Manila led by the National Wage Coalition.
Workers and the Filipino masses from Luzon to Mindanao resounded their demands for wage increases, lower oil and commodity prices, and an end to the US-Israel war of aggression against Iran. Youth students, professionals, and church people strongly supported and joined the actions of the labor sector.
The Baguio City protest was launched at Igorot Garden. In Central Luzon, actions were held in Subic in Zambales, in Angeles City in Pampanga, and in Meycauayan in Bulacan. Hundreds of workers from Southern Tagalog launched a centralized march in Calamba City in Laguna. An action was also held in Legazpi City in Albay.
Hundreds of workers in Cebu City held a march in Colon and Fuente Osmeña Rotunda. Actions were also held in Tacloban City, Roxas City in Capiz, Iloilo City, and Bacolod City. More than 500 workers and activists protested in Davao city.
Unions and regional labor centers carried out pickets and local actions across different areas before the Labor Day actions. These included the submission of petitions for wage increases to the offices of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and the National Capital Region. They demanded that workers’ wages be raised to a living wage level.
The workers’ actions faced various types and forms of repression from state forces. This is an attempt by the Marcos regime to force workers to submit and suppress their militant spirit on International Workers’ Day.
In other news…
Marking International Workers’ Day on May 1, the Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU) issued a statement calling on the Filipino working class to seize its historic task of leading the National Democratic Revolution. The National Democratic Revolution aims to achieve national and social transformation and liberation from the oppression and exploitation of US imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism.
According to the RCTU, the deepening crisis further exposes the backward condition of the country’s economy. Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s puppetry is also becoming clearer as he chooses to collude with US imperialism, bureaucrat capitalists, and oil cartels instead of addressing the people’s grievances. “We expect nothing from the puppet, oppressive, corrupt, and fascist US-Marcos regime,” it said.
In this context, the RCTU declared the necessity to organize the broadest number of workers, especially contractual workers, to build, strengthen, and expand genuine, militant, and anti-imperialist unions on a wide scale. “We must defy the labor code’s legalist restrictions on who can be union members,” the group emphasized.
It also mentioned the great need to mobilize union members in organizing fellow workers in their home communities. It urged members to organize urban poor residents, youth, and women in communities. “We can fulfill through this the important task of uniting and organizing not only workers but other oppressed sectors to build the backbone of the urban mass movement,” it stated.
The RCTU also called for advancing union and economic struggles such as wage increases, the scrapping of contractualization and flexible labor, and others. “Increase the number of unions that launch protests and strikes as weapons of struggle,” it said.
Workers must also lead and firmly unite with national struggles. “Through this, we can overcome the entrenched economism, reformism, NGOism, and sectoralism in our ranks,” the council added.
The RCTU emphasized carrying out all forms of propaganda and study to advance campaigns and mass struggles. It called on members to propagate analyses of the issues being faced and present the alternative program of the National Democratic Revolution. “It is also necessary to broadly teach and propagate Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the ideological weapon of workers and the people in struggle,” it said.
Steps In Organization
In organizing, the RCTU asserted the formation of Communist Party of the Philippines branches in enterprises to increase and strengthen revolutionary unions that will lead in raising the consciousness of workers and the people. Advanced workers should concurrently be gathered into units of the Pulang Brigada ng mga Manggagawa (PBM, or Red Workers’ Brigade).
In this spirit, the Party branch together with PBM units will form the Revolutionary Council within the workplace that will advance revolutionary propaganda and education and support for the armed struggle. “The growing number of Revolutionary Councils composes the national formation of the Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions,” it said.
Strengthening the underground revolutionary movement among workers in urban areas will increase the RCTU’s support for the armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army (NPA) in the countryside. The RCTU called on all workers, especially young workers, to go in thousands upon thousands to the countryside and join the people’s army to advance the people’s war.
The RCTU believes that advancing the people’s war the countryside will gradually shatter the reactionary Marcos regime from the countryside toward the cities, and gradually build the democratic people’s government. “The victory of the People’s Democratic Revolution in the Philippines will be the Filipino proletariat’s greatest contribution to the global struggle to end imperialism and pave the way toward a socialist society free from exploitation and oppression,” it said.
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/angbayan/filipino-workers-protest-in-various-provinces-on-may-1/
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/angbayan/rctu-urges-the-filipino-working-class-to-lead-the-national-democratic-revolution/