THREE days before the country marks International Labor Day, members of Akbayan Partylist held a protest action at the Manila Film Center Building in Pasay City to commemorate the workers who were killed during its construction under the reign of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
Akbayan First Nominee Perci Cendaña said that the Marcoses are deadly to Filipino workers.
“Nakamamatay ang mga Marcoses. Ito ang mapait na paalala ng Manila Film Center. Noong panahon ng diktaturya, ang daming manggagawa ang namatay dahil sa karahasan, kapritso at maling polisiya ng mga Marcos. Hindi na dapat ito maulit,” he said. “Like all the other atrocities of the Marcoses, the victims of the Manila Film Center tragedy must not be forgotten. Justice must be served. Scores of workers were pushed beyond the point of exhaustion without regard for their health or well-being. Ordinary workers paid for the Marcoses’ vanity with their lives,” Cendaña remarked.
Cendaña feared that Filipino workers will endure great suffering once more if Bongbong Marcos Jr. captures the presidency this May election. He said that a second Marcos presidency could kill the country’s remaining jobs and drive the final nail in the coffin for workers’ right to job security.
“Marcos Jr., who never held a job all his life, cannot be expected to create jobs. Living a life of the ultra-privileged funded by ill-gotten wealth stolen from every Filipino worker, he has no appreciation for the value of work and the workers’ right to job security. He will surely enact anti-worker policies and kill whatever regular jobs that remain in the country. If the father was a certified worker killer, the son will most likely be a job killer. Nanakawin nilang muli ang kinabukasan ng mga manggagawa,” Cendaña said.
Akbayan also reiterated its call for the government to collect the P203 billion worth of estate tax liabilities from the Marcoses. The partylist group said that the amount can be allocated to the government’s job generation programs and create close to 2 million jobs for Filipinos.
“We stand here today to seek justice for the victims of the Manila Film Center tragedy, and remind every voter that the strength we need to create the future we want rests in our hands, and not in the lies of a corrupt family whose only real legacies are murder, plunder, and the suffering of the nation’s workers,” Cendana said.
The Manila Film Center is a $21 million infrastructure project of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, in her bid to make Manila the “Cannes of the East.”
According to reports, the construction of the building was rushed. Eight thousand workers labored 24 hours a day, for six months. On November 17, 1981, the scaffolding of the building collapsed, killing more than a hundred workers who were trapped under quick-drying wet cement. Fearing the accident would cause a scandal, the Marcos regime imposed a media blackout.
