Philippines

On November 29, a number of soldiers led by Captain Antonio Trillanes, who were on trial for their role in a 2003 popular uprising against Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, walked out of court accompanied by the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding them.

Over 50 military and civilian dissidents remain in custody following the storming of the Manila Peninsular luxury hotel on November 29 by troops loyal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to dislodge a group of soldiers who had seized the hotel and used it to hold a press conference calling for a “people’s power” uprising against the unpopular president. Civil society and religious leaders joined the rebels at the press conference.

Organisers from the Philippines’ biggest left trade union centre, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP — Solidarity of Filipino Workers) spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton about the repression that they encounter from the state and their efforts to unify left-wing trade unions.

Many workers and unions in Australia and other imperialist countries have been involved in campaigns to stop jobs from being sent offshore to Third World countries. Unions in the rich countries usually think that this is an issue that only affects them, but the off-shoring of jobs to other countries, or to “free trade zones”, heavily impacts on workers in Third World countries, as capitalists try to drive workers’ wages and conditions ever lower.

On March 16 police arrested Satur Ocampo, a member of Congress from the left-wing Bayan Muna party list. Ocampo, who had been in hiding for eight days, was taken into custody shortly after he filed a court petition to quash the arrest warrant. He faces charges of killing military spies in the ’80s, according to a March 17 Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

The revolutionary left in the Philippines has deep roots in the mass movement but its influence has been weakened by disunity. The left began overcoming these divisions through a May 2005 Democratic Left Conference.

Many Australians would assume that death squads, disappearances, harassment by the military, violent dispersal of demonstrations and political prisoners were features of the Philippines that vanished when Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship was overthrown in 1986.

Militant labour groups in the Philippines united to condemn the assassination on November 21 of Andrew “Bok” Inoza, the union president at the Alaska Milk factory in San Pedro, 30 kilometres south of Metro Manila, in the province of Laguna. Inoza was also the chairperson of the Laguna branch of the leftist Partido Manggagawa (PM, Workers Party).

On November 14, Philippines special state prosecutor Deana Perez denied the motion of the lawyers of 49 individuals charged with rebellion to dismiss the preliminary investigation on the grounds that there was no valid complaint-affidavits. The 49 were alleged to have taken part in the coup attempt last February 24.

For two months, the banana groves in four of Dole Corporation's principal Philippine plantations have been uncharacteristically silent.