The Philippine Peasant Support Network(Pesante)-USA reprinted the statement of the Philippine revolutionary forces for May 1, 2007 that appeared at the internet web site.

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THE US ARROYO REGIME HAS NO CONCERN HAS NO CONCERN AT ALL FOR THE FILIPINO WORKERS

May 01, 2007



Manila-- Today, the working class in the Philippines and the whole world commemorate International Workers' Day. This is in recollection and reaffirmation of the long history so far of the heroic struggle of the working class to claim their interests, rights at power against the rule, exploitation and oppression of the big capitalist class and their henchmen and instruments that are characterized by greed, rottenness, deceit and cruelty at their very core.

In the Philippines, the Arroyo regime presently represents and serves as the principal instrument of the hardships, cruelty, repression and violence that bear upon the workers and toiling masses. The Arroyo regime is concerned only with its own interests and that of its masters among the big foreign and local capitalist and landlords. It has no concern at all for the workers and toiling masses.

From the start, it has been doing all it can to prevent the raising of the wokers' real wages despite the fact that the purchasing power of the peso has sunk to P0.72 compared to the onset of Arroyo's assumption of power.

Notwithstanding the continual rise in the prices of basic commodities and charges for utilities and basic services, it has obstinately denied the long-standing demand of the workers for a P125 across-the-board increase in their minimum daily wage.

Even if both the lower and upper houses of Congress have passed the bill without a single objection, the regime has shown its hard-heartedness by objecting to it and using its lackeys in Congress to withdraw the bill. The present worker's minimum daily wage, pegged at P350 (including the "cost of living expenses"), is already much too low compared to the P800 that a family of six needs today for a decent living.

The allocation of the national budget for public services, such as health and education, become more and more reduced, while the bulk of the budget has been prioritized for the payment to no end of foreign debts and an ever bigger share is devoured by militarization and especially by thievery by Malacañang and its minions in the government and the military.

Unemployment continues to worsen. The government has been concealing the real number of jobless people through a number of devious means such as categorizing them as "underemployed."

Several millions more had earlier been excluded from the ranks of the unemployed because they had failed to find any meaningful work for six months or are considered as "unpaid family workers," "fulltime housewives," and other similar categorizations. Even among the "employed," the vast majority are casuals or non-regular workers, while the number of regular workers continues to dwindle. The most numerous additions to the ranks of the "employed" are domestic helpers.

Another way by which the real extent of unemployment in the Philippines is being disguised is the huge number of workers who toil overseas after failing to find meaningful work in this country. There are currently up to 10 million or 25% of the labor force abroad-the biggest proportion worldwide. More than 70% of them are domestic helpers who suffer intense oppression.

The situation is worsened by the US-Arroyo regime's implementation of imperialist "globalization" and its attendant policies of neoliberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization, that destroy productive forces in the Philippines, dump imported products in the country and obstruct industrialization, land reform, the development of agriculture and the economy in general. Their main victims are the country's workers, semi-proletariat and peasantry.

Aside from the violence dealt on a daily basis by the US-Arroyo regime and the entire semicolonial and semifeudal system on the workers and toiling masses in the form of intense suffering and economic bondage, the regime has likewise been perpetrating killings, abductions, detention and other forms of physical violence against workers, the toiling masses and their leaders to suppress their struggles and organizations and thwart their efforts and desire for more rights, economic relief and development.

It has tried to bust several workers' unions and organizations of the toiling masses. It has violently dispersed so many strikes, marches, rallies and other protest actions. It has victimized scores of leaders and activists from the ranks of workers and the toiling masses through killings, abductions, detention, torture, harasment and other fascist and terrorist acts. Its most prominent victim is Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran, working class leader, president and Congressional representative of Partido Anakpawis who has been illegally detained on trumped-up charges for more than a year.

The entire revolutionary movement, and the entire movement of the working class and toiling masses in the Philippines view the US-Arroyo regime as their rabidly antiworker, anti-toiling masses, antipeople and antinational enemy. In commemorating International Workers' Day, the revolutionary forces among the working class, the toiling masses and the entire Filipino people call for solidarity and the further advance of their class and patriotic struggle and the effort to overthrow and replace the brutal and rapacious US-Arroyo regime.

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