Labor group seeks aid for Cebu workers displaced by ‘Odette’

(FILE) Two ships remain side by side on Saturday, more than a week after they ran aground due to powerful winds from Typhoon “Odette” (international name: Rai) on marshland in Consolacion town, Cebu province. —Connie Fernandez-Brojan

MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of workers in Cebu were left jobless after Typhoon Odette damaged factories in Metro Cebu, the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City, and in the southern part of the province, according to a labor group, who appealed for aid for those affected.

“We are appealing for aid for the affected workers from the government as well as the companies too,” Dennis Derige, spokesperson of the Cebu chapter of the Partido Manggagawa (PM), said in a statement Monday.

While the labor group welcomed the announcement from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that it is extending assistance for some 25,000 informal workers worth P100 million through the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (Tupad), Derige said affected workers in the formal sector are also in need of support.

Citing informants from the Mactan Export Processing Zone Workers Association (MEPZWA), Derige reported that the factory of the biggest employer in the Mactan Ecozone was damaged, resulting to over 14,000 workers having temporarily lost their jobs until Jan. 17 next year.

Just before the typhoon hit the Philippines, the affected workers were supposed to work through the Christmas holidays due to a large shipment of apparel, according to Derige.

Another garment factory in the Mactan Ecozone employing more than 3,000 workers was also severely damaged and their workers are also on forced leave, he added.

These two companies, Derige noted, already comprise almost a fifth of the total 100,000 workers in the Mactan Ecozone.

“Even outside of the Mactan Ecozone, other manufacturing and service establishments are not operating either due to actual damage from the typhoon or the lack of electricity. For example, one food processing company is closed in the meantime for lack of electricity and so its 130 employees are temporarily jobless without an assurance when they will be back at work,” he said.

“It is the government that is in the position to provide immediate relief both to workers in the formal and informal sector. Everybody has suffered and no one must be left behind in the relief and rehabilitation effort. We hope that the DOLE hears the plea of MEPZWA and other Cebu workers,” he added.

Derige likewise called on companies to “provide support to their own employees as they are more than capable.”

“Just before Odette, Mactan Ecozone locators were already operating normally. And for a decade and a half before the blip of the pandemic, business was booming for firms inside and outside the Mactan Ecozone,” he said.

“But while productivity rose by 50% and revenues doubled in 15 years, real wages have stagnated. At this dark hour of disaster, we call on employers to share the fruits of labor with their workers,” he added.

Derige cited that a unionized mining company in Cebu, which he said has already given a cash aid of P5,000 to all of its employees and extended a P20,000 calamity loan payable in one year without interest.

This should be a model for others, he added.

From last Dec. 16 to 18, Typhoon Odette ravaged through the northern parts of Mindanao, southern portions of Visayas, and then over to Palawan — leaving a trail of destruction which is being compared to Super Typhoon Yolanda’s effects in 2013.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has so far reported 389 deaths due to Typhoon Odette.

The NDRRMC also said 64 individuals remain missing while 1,146 were injured.

The latest report also showed that over 1.07 million families or more than 4.2 million individuals in 429 cities or municipalities were affected by the typhoon.

/MUF