MANILA (UCAN): The Church People-Workers Solidarity group said that Catholic voters must ask themselves whether politicians protect the labour sector.
“Voters must consider candidates that prioritise and advance the labour agenda … We must look at the track record of each candidate and ask ourselves who among them has shown compassion to labourers,” the group’s chairperson, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos in Negros Occidental in the Visayas region, told Radyo Veritas.
Bishop Alminaza said politicians should be held accountable for their promises, especially if they had not fulfilled them.
“It is not enough that they claim that they are pro-labour only during an election period. They must have shown actual, real support to workers in order to get their vote,” the bishop stressed.
He praised Filipino workers for keeping the Philippine economy going amid the Covid-19 pandemic saying, “Because of your hard work, our national economy develops.”
However, he criticised companies who still practice contractualisation—in which employment is renewed every six months to avoid paying or granting benefits to people in regular employment. Philippine law defines regular employment as work that exceeds six months.
“Contractualisation undermines job security, which results in massive unemployment. It also does not honour the dignity of human work because workers do not get the regular benefits they deserve,” Bishop Alminaza said.
“Pro-labour politicians must immediately scrap anti-labour laws that perpetuate oppression and exploitation and craft others that promote and protect the rights and dignity of workers,” the bishop said.
The labour coalition, Nagkaisa [united], praised the bishop’s statement.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
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“Bishop Alminaza is a fighter for social justice. We hope our next set of leaders will be the same. Social justice is the humanisation of laws and the equalisation of social and economic forces by the state so that justice in the rational and objectively secular conception may at least be appropriated,” the coalition said in a Facebook post.
