There are many parts of the world where labour organising, fighting for decent working conditions, increased pay or land reform, can cost people their lives. Tragically, that seems to have been the case recently in the Philippines.
Comrade Rolando Pango, a farm worker leader on the island of Negros, was murdered in late November by unidentified assailants. Pango was a member of Partido Manggagawa (PM, the Labour Party – Philippines), which also plays a central role organising workers in PALEA, the Philippine Airlines employees union.
Socialist Alternative offers condolences to the Labour Party and to Pango’s family and comrades. The following is a press release issued by PM. More can be found at the party’s blog.
Press Release, 3 December, 2014
A week before the observance of international Human Rights Day, the Partido Manggagawa (PM) condemned the assassination of a labour leader and organiser in Negros Occidental on 29 November.
“The culture of impunity that thrives in our country and the extra-judicial killings of labour activists continue unabated. We ask the state – the provincial government of Negros Occidental and the national agencies Department of Justice and the Commission on Human Rights – to act on the case and make a thorough investigation,” said Wilson Fortaleza, PM spokesperson.
Rolando Pango, a farm worker leader in his hometown of Binalbagan and an organiser in the neighbouring town of Isabela, was shot dead in the head by two men late in the evening of 29 November. Pango was on his way home after meeting farm workers who were to attend the Bonifacio Day rally when the motorcycle he was riding was blocked by a black sedan and another motorcycle in the crossing of Hacienda Garrason in Binalbagan.
“For the commemoration of Human Rights Day, we want action not words, reform not speeches from the Aquino administration. The mastermind and perpetrators of the murder of Pango and other labour activists must be brought to justice,” insisted Renato Magtubo, PM chair and a Negrense from Bacolod. A 300-strong workers’ assembly in Bacolod resolved a day after Pango’s death to seek justice and campaign for a resolution to the killing.
PM believes that Pango’s killing arose from a labour and agrarian dispute that he was engaged in. Pango had received a death threat from an ex-NPA [New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines] rebel with the alias “Mike”, who now serves as armed bodyguard of Manuel “Manolet” Lamata, a landlord who had leased and manages Hacienda Salud, a 135-hectare sugar plantation in Barangay Rumirang, Isabela.
Magtubo called on the Department of Labor and Employment and the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council to table the case of Pango.
Pango was assisting farm workers in seeking coverage of Hacienda Salud under land reform and also in illegal dismissal cases against Lamata. Since last year, the farm workers had endured repeated violent harassment and bribery attempts at the hands of Lamata, who heads the powerful Negros sugar planters group, as the agrarian and labour disputes festered.
Pango’s murder follows the assassination of another farm worker leader in Isabela in December 2012. Victoriano Embang, head of the sugar workers’ association of Hacienda Maria Cecilia, was ambushed by two men riding tandem on a motorcycle. Embang’s workers’ association was also embroiled in agrarian and labour disputes with their capitalist landlord, the Montillanos.
