"People are going hungry"
distribution of farm lots to help feed under-employed sugar workers?
A. There has been so much infusion of economic help — foreign and local - for Negros in particular that the tendency of the government has been to cooperate with the NFSW on this project. Even one of the ministers of the Canadian government came to see us.
However, the acquisition of land for the cooperative farm lots of the sugar workers is still meeting difficulties. While we are recommending giving the workers sequestered and
THE MAY 1 Movement (Kilusang Mayo Uno, KMU) is the principal
"class struggle" trade-union confederation of the Philippines. (1) At the time of its inception in 1980 it counted 50,000 supporters. In
1985, it was claiming 500,000 and in 1986 the number is estimated at more than 600,000 (this later figure is cited by Far Eastern
Economic Review, August 28, 1986). The National Federation of
Sugar Workers - Food and General Trades (NFSW-FGT), of which the island of Negros is one of the bastions, is affiliated to the KMU.
Below, we are publishing substantial extracts from an interview given to Russell Johnson by Bob Ortaliz, who is both president of the NFSW-FGT and general secretary of the KMU. The interview first appeared in the weekly paper Militant, published in New York by the Socialist Workers Party, an organization in solidarity with the
Fourth International.
Question.
How is the labor movement to responding the opening provided by the ousting of Marcos?
As a result of the new
Answer.
situation the progressive bloc of the labor movement is now uniting into one big center called the
Labor
Advisory and Consultative Council
(LACC). As agreed upon between this group and the minister of labor, the group will be the consultative body for major labor issues. So we now establishing the basis for are unity of the participants of LACC.
Q. What unions does that incorporate?
In the LACC are the KMU, the
A.
Federation of Free Workers, World
Federation of Trade Unions affiliates, and independent unions.
Q.
Except for the Trade Union
Congress of the Philippines?
A.
At the first meeting the TUCP was there, but eventually it distanced itself from the LACC because its secretary-general, Herrera, said that the TUCP and the KMU could never unite for ideological reasons. (2) So as of now it is outside the LACC, but still we are trying to draw it into some sort of unity, even if it is just establishing the basis for cooperation
We have had several meetings with government already, during the first tripartite meeting
10 called by the government between labor, employers and government, it was LACC that participated.
We are envisaging eventually making the LACC a trade union center because we think that the trends going on now - the Manila Hotel fiasco and the ongoing destabilization done bye! the [Marcos] loyalists and the militarists - have made the political situation so • volatile that a coup d'etat is possible. (3)
Because of this we want unity in the labor movement, so that it, as a sector, will help to protect democratic gains we have won since the so-called people's uprising.
Q. To turn to the situation of the sugar workers in Negros. The press has been reporting renewed military operations on Negros island What is the situation there?
Actually the militarization is not only in the south as reported by the press. Recently, in central Negros very near the city of Bacolod, sugar planters had asked for military
In response to this military campaign, peasants went to Bacolod and had a campaign in the provincial capital. They requested the governor to take the military out of the area. This camp-in is still going on.
What progress has been made in the NFW's campaign for the even foreclosed lands free, this seems to be disputed by the planters' groups and even the government.
of the sugar milling season, if there will be one this year, is still November.
So while there is this debate on how these cooperative farm lots will undertaken, people are going hungry.
Q. Have there been any recent attacks on NFSW organizers?
A. Yes. In fact the recent repression was in response to the NFSW filing cases about the salvaging in Kabankalan last January. (4) The witnesses of the salvaging, torture, and killing of the three organizers are now hiding in fear because they have been harassed. In fact, the major witness was shot down next to the NFSW office in Bacolod by the police involved in the salvaging. Fortunately he was not killed.
See interview with Rolando Olalia, Viewpoint' No. 68, January 28, 1985. the Marcos regime in 1975, under martial law. In 1985 it claimed 1,200,000 members. A member of the International ConfederaAFL-CIO in the United States been compromised by its collaboration with the regime over a decade.
1986, in the course of vice-presidential candidate in the 1986 elections, proclaimed himself "interim" president while awaiting Marcos and Tolentino still claim.
Backed by a certain number of officers Tolentino began to announce the names of d'etat only lasted 40 hours. provinces, Juan Ponce Enrile - minister of rebels without bloodshed. But what was remarked above all by the Philippine left the indulgence accorded to Tolentino and his supporters and the complicity which disappear refers to the dis marae is used to mean are kidnapped by the forces of order and carrying marks of torture. International Viewpoint 13 October 1986
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