NATIONAL labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) denounces President Rodrigo Duterte’s endorsement of the passage of the second package of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law and his push for Charter Change (Cha-cha) as an attack on Filipino workers and people. It would only worsen hunger and poverty in the country.
Instead of heeding the workers’ clamor to repeal the TRAIN Law, President Duterte even lauded the Congress for enacting TRAIN and urges them to immediately pass its second package.
While President Duterte boasted that TRAIN is instrumental in the delivery of basic services and construction of big-ticket infrastructure, the actual effect of TRAIN on workers is additional burden and in fact an erosion on the value of their wages. The rising TRAIN-driven inflation makes it difficult even for minimum wage earners to afford basic commodities, worsening hunger among the poor majority.
The one-peso discount for fuel the President mentioned as relief for public utility vehicle drivers is a negligible amount compared to the succeeding increases in the price of diesel. According to IBON Foundation, P2.80 in the price hike of diesel is attributed to the effects of the TRAIN Law. The effects of TRAIN on inflation is surely to worsen in the coming years as TRAIN mandates the further increase of tax on fuel in 2019 and 2020.
Duterte and his economic managers justify the need to pass the Package Two of the TRAIN to reduce corporate tax and rationalize incentives. He argued that the reduction of corporate taxes will translate to more investment and job creation. TRAIN Package Two will only bring more profit to big businesses while workers languish in wages below decent living standards.
On the other hand, President Duterte’s push for a shift to federal form of government through Cha-cha will open up the economy to full foreign ownership and control while treading on workers’ and people’s rights.
In the service of the neoliberal agenda, the draft constitution crafted by the Duterte-formed constitutional consultative committee scraps the workers’ “right to security of tenure” and replaces it with “right to security of employment.” Likewise, workers’ right to “self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike” is proposed to be revised to a more pro-business phrasing of right to “organization and redress of grievances.” Such changes in the constitution will further legitimize anti-worker policies. It will only intensify contractualization, lay-offs and union busting.
Both the Cha-cha and TRAIN law railroaded by President Duterte will serve the interests of big foreign and local corporations, and they will not benefit the country. Instead, Cha-cha and TRAIN will aggravate the already precarious and desperate living condition of workers and people.
KMU is calling on workers and the Filipino people to resist Duterte’s push for Cha-cha and the continued implementation of TRAIN Law and its expansion. – JEROME ADONIS, secretary-general, Kilusang Mayo Uno
