MAY DAY GREETINGS
On the occasion of the International Worker's Day, celebrated around the world, I simply covey this message to the people.
At first, we all recognize that the working class, both worker and peasant are experiencing a plight, having lost much of its rights and in a critical situation that makes them difficult to defend against the right-wing neoliberal and fascist onslaught fostered by the comprador bourgeoisie and of course by the imperialists, being promoters of rotten systems like Capitalism.
As expected, workers and peasants are experiencing inferior conditions of work, all in a massive competitive market, of having contractualization introdiced and reduction in working conditions, of having low wages and less securities whilst profits are gaining high by the compradore profiteers dominating. Workers are even nearly denied the right to collective bargain and even the right to associate in a progressive trade union that often be subjected to firing or death.
So are the farmers, that figthing for land reform continues all despite the repression laid upon by the landlords and of the state itself. That, like in Hacienda Yulo wherein they are violently dispersed by the military for the sake of using their cherished land into a residential and commercial area, these actions laid upon by the system, catering to moribound capitalists and landlords hastens the lessening of food supply and food reserves in a land that is agricultural, and being agricultural meant self sufficient in foodstuffs and other needs of the society.
And as for the students, self employed and the urban poor, their struggle for good education, decent and dignified living and adequate employment continues especially as the urban poor, usually called as "squatters" remained defiant against those who oppose their right to live through demolishing their houses without any replacement or be given a land "inefficient" and "unsupported." Being forced to mendicancy by the rotten social order due to massive unemployment, the urban poor are still fighting, alongside the workers and the peasants for decent living, employment and land willing to return to the soil with mind and heart; so are the students who faced the increase in tuition fees and rampant "scholastic fascism" and the self employed with intense competition laid by the giants supported by the system.
Lately, we've recieved a news that there are no wage hikes for this year, using an alibi of regional wage boards that in fact, like the Labour Department are coddlers of employers and of course Capitalism. Isn't it obvious that their statement is a slap on the faces of the workers, that despite working overnight for a low wage, of saving it for long days just to face increasing prices of commodities and oil? Of fares for transport and Tuition fees for their children? Is the Philippines really experiencing a crisis or inventing a crisis rather to create discontent?
This coming May Day, the laboring people must continue united, to become a genuine militant force facing against the class enemy. We may face repression again and again, but it doesn't mean that the battle will be over. Again, May Day is approaching, and may the laboring people, both in the Philippines and around the world, face the common enemy and avenge after centuries of disenfranchisement and oppression!
