Gov’t OK with ILO mission’s scrutiny of labor cases

Malacañang yesterday welcomed the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) move to determine if the Philippine government is abiding by international labor laws by sending a mission to the country to investigate reports of abuse and state-sponsored killings of local labor leaders and members.

In a regular press briefing in the Palace, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the government has always been open to challenges especially when it comes from tripartite organizations like the ILO.

“The Philippines is an active member of the ILO. In fact, many Filipinos have become presidents of the ILO so we are really committed to the tenets of ILO. Whatever findings they may have, we are open to accept that and are willing to provide corresponding attention to it,” Remonde said.

He also reiterated previous Palace statements denying that the government is involved in human rights violations, particularly in extra-judicial killings of leaders and members of labor unions.

A high-level ILO team was in town last month to conduct a one-week fact-finding mission to look into cases of labor rights violations and to investigate the unexplained killings of labor union leaders.

The team, composed of representatives from Geneva, Switzerland and ILO Asia-Pacific, conducted consultations with government officials and workers’ groups and inspected two major manufacturing plants in central and southern Luzon during their visit last Sept. 22 to 29.

Members of the ILO mission included Tim de Meyer, a standards specialist of ILO’s subregional office in Bangkok; Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, director of International Labor Standards Department of ILO Geneva; and Karen Curtis, deputy director of the International Labor Standards Department of ILO Geneva.

The team had met with families of victims of extra-judicial killings, forced disappearances and labor-related harassments.

The mandate of the team was to make an objective assessment of the practical implementation and actual impact of various legislative, executive and administrative measures announced by the government in response to previous ILO actions, with a view to determining whether these measures have been effective in eliminating the practice of forced labor.

In making its assessment, the team will take into account in particular the views of victims and families of some 98 labor union leaders who were killed. The team is expected to submit a report to the ILO governing body within the year.

Although the number of killings dropped in 2007 and 2008 after much condemnation by human rights groups and international pressure, extra-judicial killings have persisted in the Philippines.

In 2007, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston visited the Philippines to probe human rights conditions in the country. After the mission, Alston issued a report that blamed members of the military for many killings and disappearances of left-wing activists.

Apart from trade unionists, hundreds of political activists, journalists, and religious leaders in the Philippines have been killed or abducted since 2001.

The Arroyo government, however, continues to deny any involvement of the country’s military in the killings, despite evidence presented by the UN and other international human rights watchdogs.

Under her administration, the State has slapped multiple murder, multiple frustrated murder, arson and other grave criminal charges on more than a hundred workers even without the conduct of preliminary investigation. –Aytch S. Dela Cruz, Daily Tribune