(We yield this space to the statement of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
LET US be clear about this: ABS-CBN has long been violating labor rights. Nor is it the only one. Other broadcast outfits, including the government’s own, are guilty as well. As are other news organizations in other platforms. In fact, the persistent violation of labor rights has long been the elephant in the room for the community of journalists and media workers. Only the blind will fail to see the many and continuing struggles of media workers, individually and collectively, for labor justice and a fair deal.
To name just a few: the 2010 protest by workers of ABS-CBN’s own Internal Job Market who were laid off en masse after organizing themselves into the IJM Workers’ Union and calling for a certification election; the 2011 strike by workers of the Radio Mindanao Network in Davao City; and the fight of the Talents Association of GMA in 2015 for regularization and an end to contractualization.
Yes, to this day thousands of media workers continue to toil under the unjust conditions forced on them under the “talent” system, now renamed “independent contractors,” deprived of security of tenure and the benefits that come with it: social security, medical benefits, hazard pay, PAG-IBIG Fund contributions, 13th-month pay, bonuses, etc. Not to mention that most basic of workers’ rights, the right to organize and form a union. This, in fact, is a right even regular employees have been deprived of when they accept promotions to “technical specialists” or “confidential employees,” ranks that effectively place them between supervisors and managers, and implicitly carry the prohibition against joining or forming unions.
Yes, there is so much about the labor situation in media that needs fixing.
But it is utterly hypocritical and shameless for the likes of Mike Defensor, Boying Remilla and Rodante Marcoleta to posture as if they were champions of the oppressed and use the workers as pawns for their real agenda, which is to make sure ABS-CBN is denied a franchise and silenced, in compliance with their master’s wishes. It is also an absolutely stupid charade since shutting down an enterprise will never solve labor issues but merely add to the ranks of the unemployed.
The same goes for the Department of Labor and Employment which, while taking ABS-CBN to task over labor issues, has all too often closed its eyes or even abetted abuses of workers’ rights, not just in media but other industries as well.
And lest we forget, was it not President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to “end endo,” vetoed the security of tenure bill in July last year because, in his own words, “businesses should be allowed to determine whether they should outsource certain activities or not”?
So yes, let us talk about the rights of ALL workers in ALL news organizations but do NOT use our violated rights to justify the silencing of media and to stifle freedom of the press and of expression.
