On the US-Macapagal-Arroyo regime's "reforms": The people's urgent demands
Militant and progressive mass organizations launched a People's Summit to assess the country's situation and identify and unite on the suffering masses' demands. The gathering was held on July 19 at the Film Center, UP Diliman, Quezon City. The declaration ratified by the summit was presented at the opening of the 12th Congress and was meant to counter Macapagal-Arroyo's state of the nation address.
The general declaration drafted by the People's Summit is a fine thing. The declaration clearly defines the urgent issues that the people must fight for to obtain immediate benefits and initial solutions in the face of the blows inflicted by the existing social system and its attendant crises. These shall be the content of the people's day to day struggles. It is important to link day to day struggles to strategic issues that form the content of the people's long-term struggle.
In the past six months, the economy continuously plummeted. Prices of goods and services rose while real wages fell. Like previous governments, the Macapagal-Arroyo government advances the policies of imperialist "globalization" that wreak immense havoc on our country. Instead of repudiating them, the regime persists with the failed and antipeople policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. It places the interests of foreign monopoly capital, local big business and big landlords before that of the workers, peasants and other oppressed and exploited classes.
The new government has no relevant economic reforms. It could not offer even urgent or temporary solutions to the people's poverty. Instead, it occupies itself with pretentious measures that aim to attract the support of the pro-Erap masses.
The people's abject poverty is exacerbated by injustice and continued violations of human rights. Strikes and the setting up of unions in factories are practically banned. The Estrada regime's "total war" policy has supposedly been done away with, but militarization and military offensives that have wrought havoc on the masses, especially in the countryside, persist. There is virtual martial law in Southern Mindanao in the name of eradicating the Abu Sayyaf Group.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether justice could be attained in the criminal cases filed against Estrada and his cohorts. There are disturbing signs of maneuvering and compromise in the conduct of these cases. It is likewise necessary to prosecute even more relentlessly the ill-gotten wealth case against the Marcoses and their cronies and cases of violations of human rights during the dictatorship.
Indeed, the thoroughgoing justice and the changes aspired for in People Power 2 have not been achieved. We must be relentless in our militancy and collective action for the sake of the people's urgent and long-term interests. We must remind the Macapagal-Arroyo government of its immense responsibility to the people.
Thus, by virtue of the People's Summit, the following people's demands shall hereby be advanced:
1. Urgent measures for the relief of the suffering masses:
- P125 across-the-board wage increase for private sector workers
- P3,000 across-the-board salary increase for government employees
- Price control on basic goods and services
- Moratorium on all demolitions, launching of on-site relocation and livelihood programs for the urban poor
- Halting all conversion of agricultural land and stopping the evacuation of peasants
- Recognition of the rights of national minorities to their ancestral lands
- Putting a stop to the liberalization of agricultural imports
- Ceasing the collection of unjust fees from migrant Filipinos
- Putting an end to servicing unjust foreign debts and terminating the automatic allocation of funds for debt service
- Increase in funds for basic social services like education, housing and health
2. Stopping the privatization of NAPOCOR, NFA, SSS and other public agencies and services, especially public hospitals
3. Speedy trial of former president Estrada and his co-conspirators in the plunder case, with "Full Media Coverage"
4. Advancement and defense of human rights
- Putting a stop to militarization in the countryside
- Release of all political prisoners
- Indemnification of all victims of human rights violations under martial law
- Repeal of all suppressive laws
- Implementation of the CARHRIHL, especially the establishment and operationalization of the Joint Monitoring Committee
- Stopping military offensives against the Moro people and widespread violations of human rights and International Humanitarian Law
- Meting out of justice on and providing legal services to migrant prisoners
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