The year 2011, labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said, is best remembered as a turbulent year for the labor movement. Around the world, strikes and “Occupy” movements in crisis-striken countries in Europe as well as in the United States gained monentum in what could be a preview to future wave of revolutions similar to what have have taken place in the Arab world.

The year 2011 is indeed a year of contradictions, with the ‘Occupy’ movement able to paint the picture of gaping social inequality into real numbers – the contradiction between the 1% and the 99%.

In the Philippines, the Philippine Airline Employees Association’s (PALEA) protest camp located at PAL’s In-Flight Center and Catering Services Building along MIA Road, was Filipino labor’s first contribution to the global occupy movement, according to PM Chair Renato Magtubo.

The protest camp has served as PALEA and the Philippine labor movement’s point of convergence for their continuing protest and defiance against contractualization policy. A streamer which reads: “Kami ang 99% pero bakit si P-Noy kay Lucio Tan panig?” hangs prominently at the camp’s main entrance, suggesting the workers’ very deep disappointment over the President.

Magtubo said it was indeed the biggest labor question of the year that remains unanswered by P-Noy. It was the Office of the President that gave the approval to PAL’s outsourcing and contractualization plan that resulted to the mass termination and lock-out of some 2,600 employees. But when asked by reporters on what would be his stand on the issues raised by PALEA during a press briefing with FOCAP, P-Noy gave a very pale and totally irrelevant explanation that the interest of the 10 million OFWs is more important to protect.

“P-Noy is a contradiction in itself. He is but he is not,” argued Magtubo.

The labor leader said P-Noy has a 22-Point Labor and Employment Agenda with a declared goal of “investing in our country’s top resource, our human resource and promoting industrial peace based on social justice.” Item No. 3 of the said Agenda aims “to promote not only the constitutionally protected rights of workers but also their right to participate in the policymaking processes.” Also part of his Agenda (Item No. 7) is “to align our country’s labor policies with international treaties and ILO conventions in a sound and realistic manner.”

Magtubo said P-Noy’s decision in the PALEA case was all in contradiction of his declared labor policy, and it was the main reason why all the local and international trade union, the Church, the academe and civil society groups have all come in support of PALEA.

But the biggest question that really baffled the groups is why did P-Noy, who hates Marcos and Gloria that much, sided with the country’s second richest man Lucio Tan who is a known Marcos crony, big time tax evader, and supporter of the Arroyo administration? ###