“A CRISIS of unprecedented proportion has befallen our nation.”
This was the statement of Negros Occidental-based labor group General Alliance of Workers Associations (Gawa), in commemoration of the 34th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution Tuesday, February 25.
Its secretary general Wennie Sancho said “this is in the spirit of Edsa and in memory of freedom-loving people and workers who join the struggle to preserve democracy.”
Sancho said such crisis involves the issue of press freedom and the workers’ security of tenure under attack in an attempt to allegedly shut down television network ABS-CBN by some government officials that are primarily ordained to protect, promote and advance the welfare of the people.
The continued employment of about 11,000 workers of ABS-CBN is in grave peril due to an alleged misuse of economic and political power, the labor leader said.
“It had not only destroyed our common conception of right and wrong but has put the ABS-CBN workers and their families at the mercy of those who have the power to dictate the course and conduct of our governance, for their own selfish ends,” he added.
In solidarity with the workers of ABS-CBN, Sancho said they join the labor sector- workers yearning for justice, demanding their rights to be heard.
“Are we to condone the suppression of our right to oppose and question the attempt to shut down ABS-CBN?” Gawa asked, stressing that “we have the inherent right to dissent, to protest and resist any measure that will destroy labor.”
For Sancho, who is also the labor representative of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity (RTWPB) in Western Visayas, the true test of press freedom is the right to test it, the right to question it, and the right to speak about it in public without being censured.
He said the tragedy of the nation is compounded by the apathy of most people, not making any stand on the great moral issues of the day affecting press freedom and our lives as a people and as a nation.
“In times of moral crisis when advocates are laying their lives on line to defend press freedom and labor rights, it is immoral to be neutral,” Sancho said, adding that “neutrality is a tragic position to assume for issues as momentous as the welfare of labor or the destiny of our nation in times of great moral decay.”
When there is repression dissenters should speak out, the labor leader added.