Kadamay to Duterte: Where is change?

Over a month after its members forcibly occupied more than 5,000 houses in government housing projects in Bulacan province, the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) has other demands: decent jobs and better wages.

Hundreds of members of the urban poor group marched on Labor Day to Welcome Rotunda in Quezon City to demand that President Duterte make good on his campaign promise. The police placed the crowd estimate at 2,300 while Kadamay said some 8,000 members participated.

Carlito Badion, Kadamay secretary general, pointed out that 10 months into the Duterte presidency, his promise of change and progress has yet to be felt by the public. He said that poverty remained a key problem in the country based on the latest Social Weather Stations survey which showed that 50 percent of Filipinos considered themselves poor.

“It’s because he continues to follow neoliberal policies. What he needs to do is to create an environment where the public could have decent jobs and better wages,” Badion added.

For Gloria Arellano, Kadamay president, the presence of thousands of their members at the protest was a testament to the government’s “failure to provide decent jobs and better wages” throughout the country.

Kadamay’s march on Monday morning coincided with the labor department’s job fairs in nine areas in Metro Manila. Arellano, however, called the initiative a mere “decoration” and “distraction” even if she said the government “must give the urban poor jobs so that they would not be called lazy.”

According to her, only a few were hired in job fairs, adding that what would truly solve the unemployment problem was the passage of a comprehensive agreement on socioeconomic reforms, one of the components in the government’s peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Arellano said that the agreement would pave the way not only for genuine agrarian reforms but also for national industrialization.

Among Kadamay’s Labor Day demands was for the government to set the minimum daily wage at P750 for private workers and the monthly wage at P16,000 for government workers.

The group noted that while Metro Manila’s minimum daily wage of P454 was the highest in the country, it was still “not enough” to ensure a good life for average Filipino families.

Badion said that Mr. Duterte should also do away with the Department of Labor and Employment’s Department Order No. 174, as it did not abate the longstanding problem of contractualization.