28 March 2003

On the occasion of the 8^th National Congress of Kilusang Mayo Uno, I wish to convey warmest greetings of solidarity to the national leadership, national trade union federations, regional and provincial chapters and alliances of urban poor associations and jeepney drivers form different parts of the country.

The theme of the congress is urgent and appropriate: "Onwards to a broader and more vigorous struggle of the Filipino workers and people". This is the struggle for national independence and democracy against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords.

The US-dominated world capitalist system is in unprecedented crisis. "Free market" globalization has accelerated the concentration and centralization of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie and has cut down the employment and incomes of the working people. The crisis of overproduction has arisen with extreme virulence as a consequence of the contraction of demand.

Economic and financial collapses are pushing the imperialists, chiefly the United States, towards stepped up war production, jingoism, racism, fascism and bellicose expansionism. The new world disorder is most conspicuous currently in the US acts of warmongering, carrying out wars of aggression and spreading repression on a global scale in the name of antiterrorism.

The Arroyo regime is a marionette of US imperialism. It has subserviently followed the treasonous line of "free market" globalization and has intensified the exploitation of the toiling masses of the workers and peasant and the middle social strata. It has given the multinational firms and banks and the big compradors and landlords all the leeway to exploit the people and inflict on them unprecedented suffering.

It offers no way out of the current conditions of economic depression, high rate of mass unemployment, mounting foreign and local debt and budgetary deficits due to debt service, military spending and other nonproductive purposes. It refuses to adjust the minimum wage from its current brutal level to a sufficient one against the repeated rounds of inflation and devaluation over the years. It has connived with the big bourgeoisie in overcharging the workers and the rest of the people for water, electricity, gas, transport and other basic social services.

The regime reacts to the demands of the Filipino workers for improvement in their work and living conditions by imposing on them ever more exploitative and oppressive laws and measures. It uses brute force to suppress the workers’ legitimate exercise of trade union rights and the entire people’s mass protest actions.

It abhors the people’s demands for national and social liberation. It has made an evil pact with US imperialism to misrepresent the revolutionary movement as terrorism and use this malicious charge as the pretext for scuttling the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. It agrees with the US that the solution to problems in the Philippines and elsewhere is US military intervention or aggression and the use of military high technology.

It allows the US to trample on the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and Philippine territorial integrity. It allows US combat commanders and units to direct Filipino puppet troops in waging armed counterrevolution against the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people and the Bangsamoro. It shamelessly cheers the US for carrying out a war of aggression against the Iraqi people in order to colonize them and grab their oil resources.

Amidst the current economic, social and political turbulence in the world and in the country, you must seriously study and take up the challenges, opportunities and tasks that confront you. I am confident that you will be able to evaluate your work in the past four years, analyze the current crisis situation and draw up your three-year program for 2003 to 2005.

I agree with and support your calls (1) to resist the intense attacks on the livelihood, wages, jobs and rights of the workers and other impoverished people and to struggle against the intense plunder and repression of the people by the foreign monopoly capitalists and their reactionary puppets; (2) to campaign and act for the ouster of the puppet, corrupt and fascistic Arroyo regime; (3) to fight the increasing military intervention of the US; and (4) to broaden and strengthen the progressive workers’ movement and advance to a new and higher level of the people’s struggle for national independence and democracy.

I am confident that you will elect a new set of officers who are resolutely committed to the cause of a patriotic, progressive and militant trade unionism, who enjoy the respect of the various components of the KMU and who are competent in organizational work among the workers and in alliance work with other forces.

May I congratulate in advance those who will be elected. I extend best wishes to them and to all the components of the KMU for winning greater victories in the struggle to uphold, defend and promote the rights and interests of the working class and the entire Filipino people.

Mabuhay ang KMU!

Thank you.