Editorial

Strong signal 

If the Arroyo administration thought the recent rash of political killings is a purely internal matter that would hardly merit concern by the international community and have no impact at all on the economy, it should be clear by now that this is not so.
           
The first indication that other countries looked at the political killings with deep concern was when the European Union and the international human-rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Mrs. Arroyo during her recent visit to Europe to investigate the murders and arrest the perpetrators. To her credit, as she herself recently pointed out, the President is “perhaps the only head of state to meet with Amnesty International” in London, proof positive, she added, that she was sincere in her concern and was ready to respond to the issue. Unfortunately, the killings did not stop.
           
Now, it is the foreign chambers of commerce and multinational companies operating in the Philippines urging Mrs. Arroyo to stop the killings or risk losing aid and investments.
           
The statement issued by the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce (JFC) in the Philippines, comprising business groups from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, Japan and Korea, and the Philippine Association of Multinational Companies Regional Headquarters, said: “Such violence has no place in a modern democratic state… For the sake of justice and to deter continued killings, these murders should be investigated thoroughly and those found responsible punished under the law.”

While welcoming the government move to establish the Melo Commission to investigate the killings, they also urged the probe body “to hasten the investigation and…to bring an end to a serious blemish on the country’s national image, which could impact negatively on future foreign investment and foreign economic assistance.”

This is a strong indictment of the government’s handling of the political killings, which it can ignore only at its own peril. And the question is: Will the killings stop?  

The killings should stop, for the sake of the economy. The JFC estimates that $8.5 billion in foreign direct investment could flow into the Philippine economy over the next four years, providing  employment for as many as 2.9 million Filipinos. But this is contingent on marked improvements on the country’s investment climate, labor quality and infrastructure. And, if foreign businessmen are to be believed, also on the capability of the Philippine government to uphold the rule of law. 

The government insists it is doing everything to stop the killings. The excruciatingly slow pace of the probe being conducted by the Melo Commission, however, seems to validate the claim of militant groups—who have suffered the brunt of the killings—that it is a “whitewashing machine” that will eventually exculpate state security forces of any liability and instead pin the blame on communist hitmen, a line consistently taken by the police and the armed forces since the very beginning.  

We fully support the call of foreign businessmen for an end to the continuing political killings, and urge the Arroyo administration to exercise firm political will and bring the perpetrators to justice.  

Toward industrial peace

It must be a sign of the changing times that today, there are far fewer strikes and other protest actions by workers than in the past three decades.

But rather than mount work slowdowns or pickets to protest low wages and bad working conditions, Filipino workers are voting with their feet and leaving for abroad at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a day. 

That Filipino workers are abandoning class struggle in large numbers and embracing capitalism with a passion must certainly be giving leaders of the local Communist Party sleepless nights. If the prevailing sentiment among workers is, “It is better to be exploited and oppressed than to have no work at all,” then we may be seeing a seismic shift away from the previously hardline stance taken by the militant labor federations toward “class conciliation” preached by their counterparts in conservative labor circles.  

Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent move by various labor and industry groups to come to an agreement to forge better employee-employer relations and to address the country’s labor-cost competitiveness.

A team composed of representatives from the Federation of Philippine Industries, Fair Trade Alliance, the Federation of Free Workers and the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-Solair), among others, are now drafting the contents of the Joint Communiqué on Decent Work, Productivity and Competitiveness that is expected to be signed by the heads of industry groups and labor organization on November 28.

According to UP-Solair, the advent of globalization now demands that domestic labor and capital harness their complementary traits and work together in resolving their inherent differences to meet the stiff competition from the outside.

The communiqué is merely the first step, according to organizers, in creating a big movement that will collectively tackle issues both at the macro side, which are government policies, and at the micro level, or the ways to promote industrial peace in the workplace.
If this united front comes to pass, will this drive the last nail on the coffin of militant trade unionism in this country?