A privilege speech

delivered by

Rep. Renato B. Magtubo

April 10, 2000

Mr. Speaker, as I speak today, workers are demonstrating at the gates of Congress with red banners screaming in bold letters: PROTECTION OR REVOLUTION!

This will be the workers’ battlecry on Labor Day. The workers are demanding protection against the scourge of globalization. Or they will be forced to revolt, to wage revolution against capitalism as a social system.

In three days, Mr. Speaker, Congress will adjourn and reconvene after May 1. Who among us gave, even a passing thought, of giving a gift to labor on its internationally recognized "birthday"?

Let me digress and go back to the origins of May 1 for I accuse this institution of take a "who cares" attitude to this date.

Since ancient times, the first of May has been celebrated as a people’s festival to welcome the advent of spring. The modern May 1 though was born in the United States in the midst of the struggle for an 8-hour working day.

After peaceful petitions for the 8-hour working day went unheeded, the American labor movement decided to press for their demand through a universal strike on May 1, 1886. Half a million workers participated. Yet what went down in history was the killing by the police forces of strikers at a big factory in Chicago and the death of more protesters at an indignation rally in the Haymarket Square. Several labor leaders were made scapegoats and were hanged. Years later they were found innocent by the same bourgeois system that put them to death.

Mr. Speaker, these martyrs of the Haymarket Square massacre will forever be remembered as symbols of May 1 the world over. By 1890, May 1 was celebrated by workers internationally through gigantic marchers and widespread strikes to fight for the 8-hour working day.

More than a century hence, history has come full circle. The fundamental rights and basic protection the workers movement has won through struggles paid for in blood are being taken away. The present generation of workers now find themselves at conjuncture similar to that of their forefathers.

Then, Mr. Speaker, labor standards were non-existent; unions and strikes were outlawed. Now, unionism is being annihilated and labor standards are being demolished as capital accelerates its global offensive against labor.

Mr. Speaker, what is the special impact of the social justice provisions in Philippine jurisprudence? Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., one of the framers of our Constitution and a recognized expert on constitutional law, explains that "the provision has been chiefly instrumental in the socialization of the state’s attitude to property rights thus gradually eradicating the vestiges of laissez faire in Philippine society."

If the intention of the Constitution is to eradicate the vestiges of laissez faire in Philippine society, globalization as a doctrine and policy vulgarizes this intention for its cardinal principle is neo-liberalism or market economics, the modern but cruder version of laissez faire.

Mr. Speaker, his is the reason why the President wants the Constitution amended for its declaration of principles and state policies run counter to the doctrine of globalization. But it need not be said that until the Constitution is amended, the state is duty-bound to abide by its letter and spirit. The question is: Alin ba sinusunod ng gobyerno, ang Konstitusyon o ang Globalisasyon?

Globalization runs against the grain of the fundamental law of the land because its basic doctrine is that government should intervene as little as possible in the direction of economic affairs. The Constitution, on the other hand, upholds the duty of the state to intervene in the economic affairs in the interest of social justice, a protectionist principle anathema to the market economics of globalization.

Another question of the state policy enshrined in the Constitution is the provision in declaring that "the state affirms labor as a primary economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare," (Section 18, Article II).

What is meant when labor is called "a primary economic force"? It means, according to Fr. Bernas, "that the human factor has primacy over the non-human factors in production."

This again runs counter to globalization as a doctrine and policy. Under globalization, labor is simply a factor in production, and in fact, the cheapest factor. How can the primacy of the human factor in production be upheld by an economic doctrine that seeks the constant cheapening of labor, treats ethics as beyond the realm of economics, and wants the worker to become a plain commodity whose value is determined exclusively by the market forces?

Today, Mr. Speaker, I ask all my colleagues is this august chamber: Honestly, are we really treating labor as "a primary economic force"? In our economic policies, is the primacy of the human factor upheld over the non-human factors? This is the essential message of May 1. The plea of our workers is to be treated as human beings and not merely as factors of production or plain commodities in the labor market.

If we want to globalize, so be it. But let us protect labor from this globalization. Workers want their rights and welfare fully protected as mandated by the Constitution as a precondition for globalization.

Contractualization and casualization of labor spread like epidemic demolishing security of tenure and security of livelihood. Real wages stagnate or decline as the competition for cheaper and cheaper labor drives a beggar-thy-neighbor race to the bottom. Downsizing and retrenchment eliminate jobs faster that create new ones as companies are reengineered, modernized, merged and combined. Whole industries collapse under the weight of intense global competition and hundreds of thousands are thrown out of work. In an era of unparalleled progress in the mode of production, unemployment and underemployment are at their worse level in history, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). In the Philippines, 9.3 percent of the labor force are unemployed and 21.2 percent are underemployed.

Trade union movements, especially in their bastions in the advanced countries, have been pushed back in a two-decade long and running anti-worker and anti-union demolition jobs. Unionism, in fact, has been declared obsolete in the globalized world. Thus, this resulted to larger percentage of workers without a voice in their place of work and in their societies as a whole. In the Philippines only 7.06% are unionized with certified collective bargaining agreements or CBAs. The annihilation of unions, which are the basic defensive organizations of the workers, is so necessary to effect the cheapening of labor so sought for in the globalized world.

Mr. Speaker, after a hundred years of unparalleled progress, it is very ironic that the ordinary worker is still fighting for something as mundane as a wage sufficient to feed his family. This, in the era of late capitalism, when every decade that passes since the 1950’s reproduces wealth of the past 10,000 years since the dawn of civilization.

By now, many of you, my colleagues in Congress, are aware that I am totally against globalization, and in fact, I am against capitalism as a social system. But there is no way I can dissuade you from pursuing the policies of globalization and capitalism. So I speak before you today only to plead for the protection of the worker from these policies. I believe that this is not only a fair and just demand to ask from this capitalist institution that professes to represent the interest if the majority of our people. This is a duty of Congress as mandated by the Constitution.

We often ask our people to be law-abiding. But do we practice what we preach? It is my position that globalization as an economic doctrine violates the principles and policies of the Constitution.

Our Constitution, Mr. Speaker, mandates that "that the state promote social justice in all phases of national development" (Section 10, Article II). What is social justice? According to Fr. Bernas, "social justice, in the sense used in the Constitution, simply means the equalization of economic, political, and social opportunities with special emphasis on the duty of the state to tilt the balance of social forces by favoring the disadvantaged in life."

Mr. Speaker, the workers are asking Congress: Give substance and reality to the "full protection to labor" provision of the Constitution. In accordance with it "full employment" and "living wage" provisions, the demand is for enabling laws that guarantee their right to work, their right to earn a living, and their right to a just share in the fruits of production in the context of globalized economy.

Labor as a primary economic force and primacy of the right to work not only as a property right but a human right must be upheld by Congress in relation to globalization. Congress must strengthen laws protecting and promoting trade unionism in response to the anti-union and anti-labor character of globalization. Last but not least, the Constitutional right of labor to participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits must be realized.

Mr. Speaker, my dear colleagues, it is too late to legislate any of these demands before Labor Day unless we extend our session especially for this purpose. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I propose that we extend our session to act on the proposed labor bills. If this cannot be done, however, at the very least, before we adjourn, I propose that we pass a resolution that will embody these just demands as a token of our commitment to the Filipino workers as they celebrate Labor Day on May 1.

Government and its institutions never tire of preaching to the workers that labor and capital are "partners" in capitalist society. If labor is a "partner", how come business decisions and economic policies are made without soliciting views of the working class? Not even for show were workers consulted on something so wrenching a change as globalization.

Mr. Speaker, the workers are thus asking if they are merely second class citizens in their own country. Or worse, if they are considered by society as no more than a commodity. It is adding insult to injury that the state, like capital, views labor as a mere factor in production whose actual worth in society is much more than the meager value of their wages.

Globalization especially is insistent on reducing labor to ordinary merchandise whose price is determined by the market through the mechanism of supply and demand. Why then should workers’ opinions be vital when their value as commodities is as significant as the minimum wage?

If the workers’ voice does not even get a hearing and their only role is to be sacrificed at the altar of globalization, then they have no reason whatsoever to remain with the present social order and they have all reasons to cause its overthrow.

But if the existing system has any pretense to being civilized and democratic, then it must provide the core workers rights enshrined in the Constitution. If the state will not protect the economy against globalization, then at the very least it should protect the workers from its havoc.

Mr. Speaker, the workers are beating at the gates of Congress. Do we not hear their pleas getting more desperate? Do we not see that their protests getting more militant? Will we provide protection to labor? Or will we drive the workers towards revolution?