PRESS RELEASE
29 May 2014
The list of government officials implicated in the Napolist and a club of multi-millionaires occupying the highest positions of power in government are signs of a serious systemic disorder afflicting Philippine society, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said in a statement.
“Kleptocracy and the rule of the elite minority in a democracy are systemic wrongs. This form of rule will never bring this country to prosperity and inclusiveness,” said PM Chair Renato Magtubo.
The group was referring to the list of 120 legislators and several cabinet officials implicated by Janet Lim Napoles in her expanded affidavit and the published list of multi-millionaires both in the legislative and executive branches of government based on the 2013 submission of their Statement of Assets Liabilities and Networth (SALN).
The 2013 SALN again showed that the entire government is absolutely under the exclusive rule of multi-millionaires who represent a tiny minority in the country.
Magtubo, a former partylist representative, explained that this systemic disorder implies not a vague but a definite form of rule that marginalizes the majority of people, “since policy making cannot be separated from the class position of those who make the rules.”
This, he said, is the reason why strategic measures to curb the plague of contractualization and implementing the constitutional provision on living wage were never made an agenda of the past and present Congresses, while laws giving incentives to private corporations and foreign capital pass like bullet trains.
“PNoy can always mouth his vision of inclusive growth in every occasion until the end of his term in June 30, 2016. But under this kind of rule, the road leading to that remain impassable,” said Magtubo.
PM said further that this problem is made worse by the reigning culture of kleptocracy when those in power exploit the national resources for their narrow interests.
The labor party stressed that the country needs radical political and economic reforms to save itself from total failure.
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