The CPP is in solidarity with workers’ demand for wage increases during Bonifacio Day

The entire Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) extends its solidarity to all workers and their unions and various forms of association, as well as with the rank-and-file public and private employees and small professionals, and supports their mounting clamor for wage increases, as the Filipino people mark tomorrow the 159th birth anniversary of Andres Bonifacio.

Filipino workers today are mired in poverty and hardship. They suffer from the policy of cheap and docile labor imposed by foreign big capitalists and implemented through its economic, political and armed agents in the Philippine government.

Filipino workers receive wages that are far below the cost of living to maintain their labor. Their right to form unions are suppressed by the police and military to take away their capacity to defend themselves and fight for their interests and welfare. Without unions, they are made to work under grossly oppressive conditions.

The workers’ demand for wage increases is 100% just. The need to get organized and struggle through strikes and other forms of protest is urgent. The US-Marcos regime represents foreign monopoly interests and its local big capitalist partners and will not address the workers’ plight unless workers can compel it through a massive display of unity and resistance.

The toiling masses look up to Bonifacio as one of their heroes. Like them, he suffered from poverty and oppression and aspired for national and social freedom. They are inspired by Bonifacio’s selfless dedication to the downtrodden masses and his courage to fight for freedom from foreign colonial masters.

Like Bonifacio and the Katipunan, Filipino workers must fight militantly and with steel determination in their life and death struggle to advance their interests. The imperialists and the local ruling classes will employ all means to suppress and stop workers from rising up.

Amid worsening forms of exploitation and intensifying suppression, we call on all workers to join the Communist Party of the Philippines and dedicate their lives to the cause of the Filipino workers and people. The liberation of workers and the Filipino people from chronic poverty and hardship can only be achieved through revolution.

The CPP is in solidarity with workers' demand for wage increases during Bonifacio Day