Europe can make a real difference in the fight for democracy and trade union rights in the Philippines

Europe can make a real difference in the fight for democracy and trade union rights in the Philippines

On International Workers’ Day on 1 May 2023, more than 10,000 workers from various Philippine trade union centres, labour federations, and workers’ organisations marched from Espaa to Mendiola, terminating in front of the US Embassy in Manila, to call for pay increases, and end to sub-contracting and complete respect for labour rights.

(Jose Santos/NurPhoto via AFP)

During the last weekend of April, Filipino labour leader Alex Dolorosa, 38, was found dead. He had been stabbed 23 times. It was yet another extra-judicial murder of a trade union leader in the Philippines.

Dolorosa was working in a call centre where he became an active member of his union, the BPO Industry Employees Network Philippines (BIEN), an affiliate of UNI Global Union. He left the call centre to serve as the BIEN paralegal officer in Bacolod City. Dolorosa was also an activist in the LGBTQI+ community.

As is too common in the Philippines, Dolorosa and other BIEN leaders and activists had, for several years, received threats. They had been victims of ‘red-tagging’, the malicious blacklisting of those who oppose the government – a system which sends a signal to government and security officials, but also to employers and private citizens, that red tags are targets.

This latest murder is part of a pattern. As Luc Triangle, acting general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said in a statement: “The death of Alex Dolorosa adds to the 68 extra-judicial killings of trade unionists, of which only one case has been successfully filed with the court.”

As with so many other killings, the government of the Philippines condemned the attack and pledged to conduct a thorough investigation and hold the perpetrators accountable. It said that impunity was unacceptable.

That has not changed either. For decades, international organisations, national governments, trade unions and others have received similar pledges, promises, and assurances. However, little or nothing seems to happen.

In fact, when President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016, the situation seriously deteriorated. Non-judicial killings became almost routine. Tens of thousands of people were killed for alleged drug offenses. Trade unionists, human rights activists, and journalists were labelled terrorists and subjected to arbitrary arrest.

Fear and intimidation were generated based on false charges. We have become familiar, in Europe as well as elsewhere, to the damage that disinformation and misinformation can do to individuals, but also how it can manipulate public opinion and impact policy and elections. In the Philippines, most people depend on social media, especially Facebook, for their information. Under Duterte, the Philippines pioneered organised deception that was spread fast and furiously on social media.

EU-Philippines Free Trade Agreement: time for action

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) joins the rest of the trade union movement in solidarity with embattled trade unionists in the Philippines. However, there is another important reason why action on human and trade union rights in the Philippines has become a priority for the ETUC and its member organisations.

Europe has an opportunity to make a real difference for democracy and for the workers and citizens of the Philippines. There are several reasons why the time to act is now.

Since December of 2014, the Philippines has been able to export products to the EU with zero tariffs under the Generalised System of Preferences plus (GSP+). Twenty-six percent of exports of the Philippines depend on GSP+ (6,274 products). However, GSP+ for the Philippines expires at the end of 2023. If it is renewed, it will be linked to an expanded list of international human rights instruments – 27 instead of 10.

International human rights instruments are conditions for GSP+, but to qualify, a country also needs to be a lower-middle income country. The Philippines expects to become an upper-middle income country in the near future, perhaps as soon as 2025. If it succeeds, it will no longer be eligible for GSP+ even if it improves protection of human rights and governance.

That means that the negotiation of an EU-Philippines Free Trade Agreement might also become a short-term priority. In such negotiations, the European Commission should demonstrate its attachment to its new ‘assertive’ trade policy. They should ensure that there is no backsliding on conditionalities that are part of GSP+ requirements. Any FTA should reflect the best recent experiences, like the New Zealand agreement and not slip back into past habits. Unlike President Rodrigo Duterte, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his government have met with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the EU on human and trade union rights issues.

A long-planned High-Level Tripartite Mission of the ILO held meetings in the Philippines in January of this year. It prepared a report with a set of conclusions and recommendations. It calls on the government to act urgently to improve its record on ILO labour standards. It asks them to present a tangible, tripartite report on the implementation of their recommendations to the ILO Committee on Application of Standards at the June 2023 International Labour Conference, which is currently taking place in Geneva.

The mission included a local trade union proposal for a Presidential Commission that would ensure a coherent and unified reform strategy throughout government. Violations of trade union and other human rights have involved several ministries as well as security forces and employers.

President Marcos has a super-majority in Congress and can, if he so wishes, take serious action to end human rights abuses.

For these and many other reasons, the EU is in a strong position to insist on real action and not just words with the Philippines. They have had serious bi-lateral discussions in Brussels and in the Philippines. The European Parliament has adopted resolutions and has also sent a delegation to the Philippines which, among other things, discussed renewal of GSP+ and an EU-Philippines FTA.

The ETUC Congress has recently adopted a position that calls on the Commission, as a pre-condition of trade negotiations, to include the ILO fundamental rights at work conventions, ratification, and implementation and, if conventions are missing, a binding roadmap for both.

Trade union concerns in Europe, given the blatant and serious violations of workers’ rights and other human rights in the Philippines, should be shared by employers and governments. That is the case after many years of experience in the ILO.

There is no better or more concrete way to communicate a clear and unified European message than through the positions taken by the Commission in trade negotiations with the Philippines.

Times are changing. The invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions that are related to violations not only of the UN Charter, but also on human rights and democracy, are global issues. There must be coherence and credibility on the same issues elsewhere.

The ETUC is standing with our brothers and sisters in the Philippines. We urge the EU institutions to do everything in their power to ensure that there are sufficient guarantees from the government of the Philippines to ensure that there is real, concrete, and measurable progress on human rights, social justice, and democracy.