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[av_heading heading=’ EDITORIAL’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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(We yield this space to the concluding portion of President Manuel L. Quezon’s speech delivered during the inauguration of Iloilo City as a chartered city on Aug. 25, 1937 due to its significance. – Ed.)
“THE country needs our common purpose and our combined efforts, and we must give both with enthusiasm and determination. Thus only can we ensure the future happiness, well-being, and liberty of our people.
“To conclude, I wish to say one word on behalf of the working class:
“We must all cooperate to find the means and to use these to improve the lot of the working classes in the Philippines. Particularly should the provinces enjoying the benefits of the sugar industry immediately and substantially raise the wages of labor.
“No industry in the Philippines is being benefited by our trade relations with America nearly so much as the sugar industry. There have sprung in Negros, Iloilo and Pampanga, in the last few years, millionaires as we have never had before. They have palaces, automobiles, and live a life in comfort and luxury here and abroad. I am not criticizing them; it is their privilege to spend their money as they please.
“I am merely stating a fact, for I want to point out that we are doing everything we can, not only to prevent the collapse, but to maintain in full blast, the prosperity of the sugar industry. But the government demands that this prosperity be shared with the workingmen in the sugar fields and in the sugar centrals. Very little, if any, of the immense profits of the sugar industry, has gone to the pockets of the labor.
“I say in all earnestness, to the owners of the sugar centrals and to the proprietors of sugar land, that unless they raise the wages of their laborers and treat them better, the Government and the country may lose interest in the defense of the sugar industry.
“We cannot be the servants of a privileged class. We are the servants of the whole people and we shall not permit an injustice to be done, much less perpetuated, against any constituent part of our community. Unless the sugar industry, of its own accord, increases immediately the wages of its workingmen, I shall ask the National Assembly to enact legislation that will compel that industry to do so.
“We are living in an age in which civilized society can only endure if justice is accorded equally to the rich and to the poor. Those who can, only hope to keep their possessions indefinitely, if they share part of their profits with those who work for them. This is a question of justice, not of charity. A man is more entitled to the fruits of his labor than the proprietor to the rent of his property.”
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