Ang Pakikibaka ng manggagawa ng TDI para sa Regularisasyon sa Trabaho

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 03 June, 23015

Tandual Distilleries workers on strike (downloaded photo)

I.                    Ilang Mahahalagang Impormasyong Hinggil sa Kumpanya

Ang Tanduay Distillers Incorporated (TDI) ay pagawaan ng alak na itinayo noong 1988 sa ilalim ng Lucio Tan Group Inc. Si LucioTan  ang   pangalawa sa pinakamayamang tao  sa Pilipinas.

May tatlong planta ng TDI na matatagpuan sa El Salvador,  Misamis Oriental, sa Negros Occidental at sa Cabuyao City, Laguna.  PInakamalaki ang nasa siyudad ng Cabuyao. Dito nililikha  ang mahigit sa sampung  produkto ng kumpanya, kabilang ang Tanduay Rhum  na ibinibenta  sa lokal at internasyunal na pamilihan. Bilyong pisong ang kinikita ng kumpanya bunga ng dekalidad na produktong nililikha ng mga manggagawa.

Mga Partikular na Impormasyon Hinggil sa TDI Cabuyao Plant:

                Mga Produktong Nililikha:

-          Tanduay Long Neck

-          Lapad Five Years

-          Jamaica

-          Green Tea

-          Asian Rhum

-          Companero

-          London Gin

-          Gin Capitan

-          Rhum Cocktails

-          Island Mix

Mga Incorporator ng TDI:

1.        Ramon Padilla

2.       Solomon Fontillas

3.       Ferdinand Robles

4.      Richard Pedrosa

5.       Melchor Fuentes

* Ang 2 pa ay hindi pinangalanan.

Ayon sa (cite source),  umabot sa P10 bilyon hanggang P12 bilyon ang benta ng TDI Cabuyao.

	2013	2012
NET SALES	P 10,431,383,329	P 12,879,773,465
COST OF GOODS SOLD	8,334,819,759	10,144,316,836
GROSS PROFIT	2,096,563,570	2,735,456,629
OPERATING EXPENSES
Selling Expenses	648,018,233	601,716,910
General and Administrative Expenses	649,380,794	396,094,691
OTHER INCOME (CHARGES)
Finance costs	(416,998,965)	(417,656,290)
Finance Income	313,476	6,480,934
Rental Income	173,304	747,857
Others-net	90,434,904	34,111,475
INCOME BEFORE INCOME TAX	473,087,762	1,361,329,004
PROVISION FOR INCOME TAX
Current	170,822,114	432,639,992
Deferred	(22,938,891)	(26,519,672)
	147,883,223	406,120,320
NET INCOME	P 325,204,039	P 955,208,684
Basic/Diluted Earnings Per Share	P 0.28	P 0.88

II.                  KALAGAYAN NG MANGGAGAWA NG TDI:

Nasa humigit kumulang limang daan ang kabuuang manggagawa ng TDI; ang 397 o katumbas ng 90% ng lakas tauhan  nito ay pawang mga kontraktwal. Karamihan sa  mga manggagawang ito ay mahigit na sa sampung taong naglilingkod sa TDI subalit sumasahod lamang ng pinakamataas na P315.00 kada araw, walang mga benepisyo at sapilitan ang ginagawang pa-overtime sa kanila. Ang mga Kakulangan sa (Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) na dapat sana ay libreng ibinibigay sa mga manggagawa ay binabayaran pa ng manggagawa. Maging ang mga uniporme ay kinakaltas pa sa kakarampot na sahod. Sa mga pagkakataong may mga aksidente sa loob ng pagawaan, hindi tinutugunan ng kumpanya ang pananagutan nito sa kanyang mga manggagawa.  Dagdag dito, dahil ang empleyo ay pawang kontraktwal, basta na lamang kung magtanggal ng empleyado sa trabaho kung kailan naisin ng kompanya.

Lumilitaw na ang bilyong benta ng kumpanya ay produkto ng ‘iskemang kontraktwalisasyon sa paggawa’. Habang papalaki ang taunang kita ng disteleria, pinapanatili ang Labor Only Contracting sa Cabuyao plant tulad ng pamamaraang ipinatupad sa Asia Brewery noong dekada 90’s. Kakutsaba sa iskemang ito ang mga ahensiyang— GLOBAL Pro at HD cooperative.

Hindi din naasahan  ang tulong ng nakatayong unyon ng mga regular, palibhasa ay dilawang unyunismo ito, sunod-sunuran lamang ito sa kompanya at walang pakialam sa kapakanan ng manggagawang kontraktwal. Hindi na pumayag ang mayoryang manggagawa ng TDI na manatili ang mapagsamantalang kalakaran. Noong Abril 16, 2015, matagumpay na nabuo at naparehistro ng mga manggagawang kontraktwal ang kanilang asosasyon na Tanggulan, Ugnayan at Daluyang lakas Anakpawis ng Tanduay Distillers Incorporated o TUDLA upang sama-samang itaguyod at ipagtanggol ang kanilang mga batayang karapatan kagaya ng regularisasyon sa trabaho.

Naghain agad sila ng Petition for Inspection sa Department of Labor and Employment(DOLE) subalit iniligaw ng bayarang Labor Inspector na sina Jennifer Taip at Daisy Ramos ang usapin, sa halip na ang pagtuunan ay ang Labor Only Contracting na sumasagka sa regularisasyon ng mga kontraktwal,  pinihit ito sa usapin ng Labor Standard upang ilusot ang paglabag ng kompanya.

Tinangkang suhulan at ginigipit ang manggagawa upang iatras ang reklamo sa DOLE. Sapilitan din silang pinapipirma ng bagong kontrata gayong dapat ito ay sa Disyembre 2015 pa at kung hindi ka pipirma ay mawawalan ka nang iskedyul ng trabaho.

Lantaran ang sabwatan ng DOLE at ng Kapitalista, walang aasahan ang manggagawa kundi ang kanyang sariling lakas, MAYO 18 - ipinutok ng Manggagawang Kontraktwal ng Tanduay ang makasaysayang Welga.

Makatao, makatwiran at Makatarungan ang kahilingan ng manggagawa na gawing regular sa trabaho. Malinaw ang isinasaad ng Batas Paggawa mula sa Art.280 na “kapag ang trabahong ginagampanan ng isang manggagawa sa loob ng pagawaan ay tuwirang may kaugnayan sa paglikha ng produkto at mahalaga at mainam sa negosyo ng principal na employer, ito ay regular na manggagawa”. Ang 397 na manggagawang kontraktwal ay pawang mga operator ng makina, sila ang nasa istratehikong posisyon sa loob ng pagawaan ng Tanduay na nag-ooperate ng makina, sila ay dapat mga regular na manggagawa at hindi kontraktwal.

Sadyang ganid at hindi makatao si Lucio Tan. Sinalubong ng karahasan ang makatarungang welga ng manggagawa. Ginamit ang mga gwardiya at bayarang goons sa ilalim ng Sigasig Security Services sa walang habas na  pagbobomba ng maruming tubig, pambabato ng bato, bubog at ihi, at tangkang pagbomba sa poste ng kuryente at pagpigil sa pagpasok ng pagkain para sa mga welgistang nasa loob ng ABI Complex.

Nanatiling matibay, matatag ang  paninindigan ng mga manggagawa kahit pa nga marami ang nasaktan at nasugatan  sa hanay ng mga manggagawa, sa kabila nito nanatiling nagkikibit-balikat lamang ang lokal na gobyerno sa syudad ng Cabuyao.

Ang mga manggagawang kontraktwal ng Tanduay ay bahagi lamang sa mga biktima ng  malaganap na kontraktwalisasyon sa ating bansa na ipinatutupad ng Rehimeng BS Aquino.. Ilan lamang sila sa  hinahagupit ng malupit at marahas na estado at kapitalista. Ilan lamang sila sa buong tapang na naglantad ng kriminalidad sa loob ng pagawaan. Ilan lamang sila sa kapit-bisig na sama-samang nagtatanggol at nagtataguyod ng kanilang mga lehitimong karapatan

Ang malawakang kontraktwalisasyon ay isa sa mga delubyong nananalasa sa uring manggagawa, nagreresulta ito na pagpako sa mababang pasahod,  sa kawalan ng benepisyo at sa hindi pagkilala sa karapatan ng mga  manggagawa para sa regular na trabaho at karapatan sa pag-uunyon. Ang kontrakwalisayon ay kasingkahulugan ng malawakang masaker sa regular na hanapbuhay.

Samahan niyo kami sa aming Makatao, makatwiran at Makatarungan pakikibaka. Nananawagan po kami ng inyong suporta. Sama-sama nating itulak ang gobyernong Aquino lalo na ang DOLE na gawing regular ang mga manggagawang kontraktwal. Ipadala ang inyong sulat pagkundena sa;

Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III, Republic of the Philippines
PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS OPERATIONS OFFICE
3/F New Executive Building (NEB), Malacañang Compound
Email: op@president.gov.ph

Labor Sec. Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Building,
Muralla Wing cor. General Luna St., Intramuros, Manila, 1002, Philippines

http://www.dole.gov.ph/queries/submit

Mr. Alex V. Avila
OIC Director Dole Region IV-a (Calabarzon)
3rd and 4th Floors Andenson Building II, Parian, Calamba City, Laguna 4027, Philippines
Tel: (049) 545-7360; Fax: (049) 545-7357
E-mail: ro4a@dole.gov.ph / dole4a_observe@yahoo.com

Tanduay Distillers, Inc. International Office
7/F Allied Bank Center, Ayala Ave., Makati City, Philippines
Tel. No. (63)2-7339301
Fax No. (63)2-7339090
E-mail: tanduay@tanduay.com

At ang sulat  pakikiisa sa :

Pang. Anse

pangulo ng Tudla

Phone number:

Violent dispersal of an orderly and peaceful workers' union manifestation (downloaded photo)

On Spirituality and religion

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 05 May 2015

Downloaded image

It’s true that there are valid distinctions between the two, but there are also a number of problematic distinctions which often and unnecessarily divide the two fields of thought. 

One principal problem with attempts to separate religion from spirituality is that the former is saddled with everything negative while the latter is exalted with everything positive.

Let us take into consideration these arguments 

  Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons. Exert control, instill morality, stroke egos, or whatever it does. Organized, structured religions all but remove god from the equation. You confess your sins to a clergy member, go to elaborate churches to worship, told what to pray and when to pray it. All those factors remove you from god.

·      Spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick started by a religion, or it may be kick started by a revelation. Spirituality extends to all facets of a person’s life. Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced. Being spiritual to me is more important and better than being religious.
 

·      True spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is your way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around you. It cannot be found in a church or by believing in a certain way.

Consider the following in favor of the spiritual path:

·      There is not one religion, but hundreds

·      There is only one type of spirituality

·      Religion is for those who want to continue rituals and the formality

·      Spirituality is for those who want to reach the Spiritual Ascent without dogmas
 

·      Religion is for those who are asleep

·      Spirituality is for those who are awake

·      Religion is for those that require guidance from others

·      Spirituality is for those that lend ears to their inner voice

·      Religion has a dogmatic and unquestionable assembly of rules that need to be followed without question

·      Spirituality invites you to reason it all, to question it all and to decide your actions and assume the consequences

·      Religion threatens and terrifies

·      Spirituality gives you inner peace

·      Religion speaks of sin and of fault

·      Spirituality encourages "living in the present" and not to feel remorse for which has already passed - Lift your spirit and learn from errors

·      Religion represses humanity, and returns us to a false paradigm

·      Spirituality transcends it all and makes you true to yourself

·      Religion is instilled from childhood, like the soup you do not you want to take

·      Spirituality is the food that you you seek, that satisfies you and is pleasant to the senses

·      Religion is not God

·      Spirituality is infinite consciousness and all that is - It is God
 

·      Religion invents

·      Spirituality discovers

·      Religion does not investigate and does not question

·      Spirituality questions everything
 

·      Religion is based on humanity, an organization with rules

·      Spirituality is DIVINE, WITHOUT rules
 

·      Religion is cause for division

·      Spirituality is cause for union
 

·      Religion seeks you so that you create

·      Spirituality causes you to seek
 

·      Religion continues the teachings of a sacred book

·      Spirituality seeks the sacredness in all the books
 

·      Religion is fed fear

·      Spirituality is fed confidence
 

·      Religion lives you in your thoughts

·      Spirituality lives in your conscience
 

·      Religion is in charge of the "to do"

·      Spirituality is in charge of the "to BE"

·      Religion is a dialectic

·      Spirituality is logic
 

·      Religion feeds the ego

·      Spirituality makes you transcend
 

·      Religion makes you renounce yourself to the world

·      Spirituality makes you live with God, not to renounce him
 

·      Religion is adoration

·      Spirituality is meditation
 

·      Religion is to continue adapting to the psychology of a template

·      Spirituality is individuality. 
 

·      Religion dreams of glory and paradise

·      Spirituality makes you live it here and now

·      Religion lives in the past and in the future

·      Spirituality lives in the present, in the here and now

·      Religion lives in the confinement of your memory

·      Spirituality is LIBERTY in AWARENESS. 
 

·      Religion believes in the eternal life

·      Spirituality makes you conscious of all that is
 

·      Religion gives you promises for the after-life

·      Spirituality gives you the light to find God in your inner self, in this life, in the present, in the here and the now…

May peace, happiness and universal love continue growing in your heart.

Source: Wikipedia

THE QUESTION OF MIGRATION: DEATHS OF MIGRANTS IN THE SICILIAN CHANNEL

Posteed by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 20 April 2015

This past week, an iestimated 800 migrants died in an incident when a ship carrying around 900 migrants and refugees sunk with only 28 survivors were rescued, and at the moment of writing, only 40 dead bodies were recovered,.

And at once, debates around Europe erupted where everyone point finger to everyone.The arguments are; Mare Nostrum must be carried out to blockade Europe from illegal immigration and possibly terrorists, or to patrol the sea more to soccour the would be immigrnts who fell victims to shipwrecks that inevitably happen.

But all this only serve to throw sands into the eyes of the truth. The real solution lies not in European  seas. It lies in the countries of origin of the unfortunte migrants who are only scaping the miseries in their own countries. Although there are remote possibility that terrorist may have mingled with the refugees, (Libyan IS in this case), not one Libyan has been found with the refugees, in the past, and even with this epecific instance. There in fact exists a very lucrative human trafficking as a result of this approach of total closure of Europe to migration.

One survivor from Banladesh in press interview, declared that the passengers are from Bangladesh (obviously) Somalia, Eritria, Syria, Iraq and Emen all refugees from those war-torned countries.

According to the Italian Parliament President Mrs Boldrini in a TV talk show this morning, let us not lie to our people. Instead of squandering million and billions of Euros in a naval blockage, let us spend it solving the roots of this unprecendented exodus of people by helping in a peaceful solution of wars in Middle East and of hunger and poverty in other countries.

Migration could only be stopped by creation of decent jobs in countries of origins and of helping to find a solution to the wars. Naval blockade of our seas will never solve the problem.

At the moment, Italy is alone in the frontline of this massive invasion of migrants, while governments of other European countries are closing their eyes and frontiers continue to commit the error of closed borders for migrants. It  will only worsen the situation.

Filipinos, though not involved in the  Sicilian Channel tragedies, are very much involved in forced migration of workers. There is also the question of life and death in Philippine migration. It is pure ignorance to say otherwise. The diaspora of Filipino workers cannot be stopped by foolish announcements of economic growth gained by the Filipino State. It never reched the people because it is based in the principles of gaining profits for the weathy and foreign multinational corporations and cartels. The rich only get richier and the poors crushed deeper in poverty. Philippines needs radical upheaval to change this situation. It cannot be ended with the so-called social aids to the poor. Philippine needs jobs with decent salaries that can support a family. And it could be achieved by creation of jobs through industrialization and livelihood by a just  agrarian reforms. Something that the Philippine institution has neglected since the outset of our independence which never was an independence since the country remained in the hands of a foreign power.

The question was thrown onto tha lap of European Union by the Pope. Where is the Christian foundation of Charity, Love for humanity… They men and women like anyone of us ignoring religion and politics. They are human beings created by God.

Broken hearts and broken homes -Stop forced migration of Filipino labor!

By Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 15 April 2015

The majority of people thaught that the Filipino migration exists because our nation is a nation of adventurers. This is reflected by a comment by an Embassy official in Rome a few years back: “Talagang mga adbenturero lang ang mga Pinoy kaya nagkalat na sila sa lahat ng sulok ng mundo”. This is a lie. He must be grossly mis-informed or just a plain ignorant of the facts.

Filipino migrant workers exists because they are refugees. They leave the country in search for an alternative means to make their family survive, something the Philippines, under the contemporary condition, is not in condition to offer to a big slice of its population. There is unemployment or underemployment, poverty, and as a result, hunger. So, they, having no better alternative left in the country, has to grit their teeth. The luckier ones who could afford or able to raise the required money leave for abroad. Their number, has reached almost 12 million or around 10 percent of the county’s total population representing more or less 20 percent of the total labor force of the country. They have sent a conservative estimate of remittances amounting around $ 22 billion last year, and, despite the global financial crisis, this remittances are expected to increase this year.

Good for the nation? Perhaps to the State, yes. The BSP has remarked that these remittances sent by the migrant workers is a big factor that saved the Philippines from the total financial collapse suffered by some countries and helped in the development of the country. In fact, our government is one of the biggest proponent of using migration as a tool for development.

But not to the migrant workers’ families. The Filipino migrant workers and their family was not touched by the ‘progress in the development of the country’. They are instead became the sacrificial lamb with their broken hearts and broken homes which is the negative effect of forced separation. The so called economic salvation was paid for by enslavement, rapes and maltreatment of many Ofws in the Middle East and elsewhere, and many broken homes in the country. They have literally paid for it with their blood, sweat and tears, while unscrupulous people covet their funds, turned them into commodities for sale while the government just consider them as ‘tools for development’ and closed their eyes to the sufferings of the Ofws abroad and their family at home.

But what really is needed to stop this bleeding out of our labor force?

It is not simple because the root lies in the negligence of the powers be. Their love for easy profit. the ruling class love of money and power. Instead of the creation of basic industries to give the workers jobs that would give salaries to make them live decently, the powers be considered importation because it creates easier profits for the compradors. Instead of just agrarian reforms, they created sham reforms that favour the big landlords who dominates the politics of the country.

***

What the System of Justice should be

By Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome Italy 15 April 2015

The functioning of the country’s institutions, by virtue

of reason, is an agreement by the people who have come together to protect their shared interest: humanity. A system of justice was built and in the local context of the Philippines it is called the “Five pillars of the Criminal Justice System”(composed of the police, prosecution, judiciary, prisons and the community). The reason for its existence is not solely to protect and maintain the institutions; but for individuals who are part of this group of people--by birth, nationality or habitation--that is called the Philippines. 

All the Filipinos who compose this nation are subject to its rules. It is the protection and preservation of the rights of this individual and the group he is part of that is the reason for the existence of the system.

But when the system of justice no longer functions for the protection of each individual, but rather an exclusive small group of people who are part of these institutions; and to protect the institution that they work for, the purpose of its existence has lost its meaning. The institutions may still survive but not for the reason for which they were originally built, but only to protect the interests of the people who are part of the system. Those who protect these systems are the very people who themselves do not feel protected and secured; thus, being part of it gives them protection so they protect its status quo.

Therefore, the neglect and abandonment of the country’s system is felt hard by people who are not within the system, but who were part of the original reason for its creation. But in reality, the system which they once had can no longer protect them unless they are within it. The system thrives not because it satisfies the individual or the group but rather because their physical existence justifies its need. An individual cannot create and subject himself to his own system and be a nation unto himself. ---

The people has the right to change the set up of the system in the situation when it no longer function for the majority of the people. More than just a right, it is even a duty for all Filipinos to rise up and remedy the situation  Justice must never be exclusively for a few. It must be rule fof the majority that must prevail.

.

Good paying jobs at home is another unreachable dream

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing 

Rome, Italy 13 April 2015

a repost of note by Bill Saguing on 27 Dec. 2011

THE Department of Labor and Employment on Tuesday urged Filipinos working in Syria to come home, saying that there are high-paying jobs awaiting them. She added that the government will assist overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) repatriated from Syria.

“If they remained in the country, we could better protect them. It will also minimize the social cost of being away from their homeland which could be higher in vulnerable occupations like domestic work,” she added.

DOLE Secretary Baldoz enumerated the government programes that could be availed by the returning OFWs.

Under the Balik-Pinay, Balik-Hanap-buhay Program, the National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, an attached agency of the DOLE, a P10,000 livelihood/business development assistance is given to returning women workers.

The experience of OFWs who returned from Libia gives a discouraging note: the jobs referred to by the DOLE is hard to have if there is one available or not available at all. Dole explained that they are not placement bureau and the worker has to avail what is there, otherwise one has to wait (or to look somewhere else) . the P10,000 assistance is not even enough to get the preliminary necessities to start a small sarisari store and won't last a few weeks.

It seems that DOLE is doing a leg pull or has gone nuts. Protect the workers when they cannot even guarantee the protection of the rights of the workers in the Philippines who has to vie with each other for a job. Where locallly employed workers is losing whatever right left for them which they are losing one by one due to corruption and contractualization of employers in the Philippines

No!. It appears that Sec. Baldoz is talking out of realities. Promising something that recent history has proven to be unreachavle under the present conditions. The only alternative for returning OFWs is to look for another job abroad.

Good paying jobs in the Philippines is as an unreachable dream. So the diaspora continue.

Open Letter To Pope Francis: Message of the US-based National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns

Reposted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 17Jan2015

 Forwarded Message  

Media Release

Contact Person:

Nerissa N. Allegretti

Mobile No. (1) 773.931.0891

Email: allegrettineris@yahoo.com

 

National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns logo

14th January 2015

Open Letter To Pope Francis:

Message of the US-based National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns

Your Holiness,

Greetings of Peace!

We, friends and members of the National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns-NEFFC (Midwest Organizing Committee), wholeheartedly welcome you in the Philippines even as we ourselves are far away from home.

It is our great joy to see you visit the Philippines and blessed the Filipino people with your presence and positive intervention at a time when our people are facing innumerable challenges.

Indeed, as you wrote in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), you have proven once again that the Church ought to be Church for the poor. And as you said, "Christians, with the help of their pastors, are called to hear the cry of the poor... The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed... Welfare projects, which meet certain urgent needs, should be considered merely as temporary responses. As long as problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's needy... Inequality is the root of social ills."

In the Philippines, this inequality and concentration of the vast wealth of the nation in the hands of the few forced more than 10 million of the more than 101 million Filipinos to migrate. More than 5,000 Filipinos leave the country everyday seeking jobs and greener pastures in almost all corners of the world.

We urge you to help us pressure the Government of the Philippines (GPH) to heed the cry of the Filipino people: the unconditional release of more than 490 political prisoners who were imprisoned for their political beliefs; and the immediate resumption of the formal peace negotiations with the revolutionary National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in order to resolve the decades-old armed conflict and achieve a just and lasting peace.

We also urge you to support the indigenous people of the Philippines in their struggle to defend their ancestral land and assert their rights to self determination. Corporate greed, especially in mining and energy, threatens the survival of indigenous people all over the Philippines. They are the sacrificial lambs to the altar of false development and the super profit of a few. Under the mining liberalization programs of the present Aquino administration, an estimated 100,000 indigenous peoples from 39 tribal groups all over the country will be dislocated. Counter-insurgency program of the Aquino administration have already victimized tens of thousands of indigenous peoples in a nationwide scale. Forced evacuations, bombings, hamletings, and food blockades of indigenous communities have been going on and have worsened through the years.

We appeal to you to call on the US Government to stop intervening in the internal affairs of the Philippines through unequal treaties like the "Visiting Forces Agreement" and the "Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement" and thereby convert hundreds of millions of US dollars of military aid to the Philippines into basic social services for the welfare of the American people.

It saddens us that our hard earned tax dollars are being used as military aid in the Philippines and witness at the same time the poverty and suffering of the American working class as they struggle to live decently day by day.

We are one with you in working for a just and better world where the poor will hunger no more; where they become free from all tyrants and from all forms of oppression as they organize, mobilize and empower themselves; and where the poor in their long and arduous journey can finally arrive at and rejoice in the promise land, the Kingdom of God on earth in a land filled with milk and honey.

Your Holiness, we are in solidarity with you!

Thank You! 

   

In Christ We Remain,

Sincerely Yours,

Signed By:

1.

Bishop Robert Ilay

Diocesan Bishop

Diocese of Tampa-Eastern USA and Eastern Canada

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

2.

Bishop Valentin Lorejo

Coadjutor Bishop

Diocese of Tampa-Eastern USA and Eastern Canada

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

and

Pastor, Good Shepherd Congregation

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Lincolnwood, Illinois, USA

3.

Bishop Joshua Cuarteros

Bishop of Isabela

Diocese of Isabela

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Isabela, Philippines

and

Visiting Bishop, Diocese of Tampa

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

4.

Bishop Eliezer Pascua

Former General Secretary, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP)

and

Administrative Pastor

Philippine American Ecumenical Church-United Church of Christ (PAEC-UCC)

Chicago, Illinois, USA

5.

Rev. Fr. Primitivo Racimo

Priest-in-Charge

St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church

Episcopalian Diocese of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois, USA

6.

Rev. Fr. Lito Capeding

Member, North American Maritime Ministry Association

Pastor, Shrine of the Holy cross Parish, Daphne, Alabama

Pastor, St. John's Catholic Church, Bromley, Alabama

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile

Mobile, Alabama, USA

7.

Rev. Fr. Julian Jagudilla, OFM

Director, Migrant Center

St. Francis of Assisi Church

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

New York City, New York, USA

8.

Rev. Fr. Rex Familar

Ministry to the Filipinos

Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando

Orlando, Florida, USA

and

Pastor, Holy Family Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando

Orlando, Florida, USA

9.

Rev. Fr. Florentino Santiago

St. Eloi Catholic Church, Theriot, Louisiana

Roman Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux

Houma, Louisiana, USA

10.

Sr. Rodita Rogador, mscs

Secretary, Our Lady of Fatima Province

Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo-Scalabrini

Melrose Park, Illinois, USA

11.

Nerissa Nabua- Allegretti

Midwest Regional Coordinator 

National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON)

and

General Councilor for Missionary Expansion in the East

Lay Scalabrinian Missionary Movement

Melrose Park, Illinois, USA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines <icchrp@gmail.com>
To: "philconcerns@humanrightsphilippines.net" <philconcerns@humanrightsphilippines.net>
Cc: 
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 13:19:37 +0100
Subject: [PhilConcerns] News clips : Rights lawyers to sue BJMP for barring visits of political prisoners on hunger strike

Apologies for any cross-posting. Thank you for understanding.

Free all political prisoners