Cebu archbishop pushes labor body

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu Archbishop and incoming president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Jose Palma will push for the creation of a labor commission in a meeting with bishops on Tuesday.

Palma, who officiated yesterday’s ecumenical mass at the Cebu Cathedral to conclude the four-day National Conference on Church People and Workers, assured the workers that the Church take concrete action on their plight.

“We’re hoping to create a body that would certainly try to reach out to workers and assist them in place and hopefully would try to answer their main concerns,” Palma said.

He will push for a commission on labor both in the national and archdiocesan levels.

Palma and former CBCP president and Iloilo Archbishop Angel Lagdameo along with several bishops, were in Cebu yesterday as convenors of the Church People and Workers Solidarity.

Members of urban poor groups like the Panaghugpong-Kadamay Cebu, Center for Trade Union and Human, and Visayas Electric Company Employees Union, among others joined the event, which started last Monday.

About a thousand delegates joined the solidarity walk before the mass.

Palma said he hopes and prays that the bishops would support the plan which he will introduce as one of the priority items of their agenda.

“The final say would be the body of the bishops in the plenary. I really pray that our brother bishops would support it,” the Cebu Archbishop said.

Palma, who will succeed Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar on December 1 this year as CBCP president, said the next scheduled meeting would be on November 30 and the decisive date is usually in the last week of January.

“We will try to encourage the bishops to have this commission,” he said.

Palma said he would also soon coordinate with the business sector on labor matters.

The urban poor groups earlier hoped that the Church can help them address social injustice against workers.

The church leaders and workers gathered in a national conference to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the dignity of human labor.

The conference, the first that has been done, was held in Cebu City for the reason that it is the cradle of Christianity in the Philippines.

The CWS, in their covenant letter which was read after the mass, said they felt the need to address four priority concerns of Filipino workers – contractualization, unjust wages, and the violation of the workers’ rights to organize, and the forced migration of workers.

“The Spirit of the Lord who brings good news to the poor and the consequential social teachings of our Churches impel us, workers and Church people gathered in solidarity, to address and attend to the cries of our brothers and sisters in the work force,” the covenant letter read.

The CWS believes that making them a permanent organization will serve as instrument to assist the workers in their struggle for dignity and rightful recognition as partners in the pursuit of peace and progress in the country.” —/NLQ (FREEMAN)