The Global Rights Index 2025 of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) highlights the hypocrisy of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr government on workers’ rights. It affirms the continuing dire situation of workers’ rights in the country, contrary to the government’s promises and claims.

For the ninth year in a row, the global labor federation’s workers’ rights report includes the Philippines in the Top 10 worst countries for workers, saying “no guarantee of rights” exist in the country. The ITUC cited the government’s continued practice of “red-tagging” that endangers workers’ lives and liberties and of arresting labor organizers using trumped-up charges and planted evidence.

Marcos Jr’s promise of ensuring workers’ rights and welfare, made before a June 3 meeting with a labor group, is a cheap PR stunt aimed at feigning concern over the ITUC report. In his three years in office, he has shown no resolve in protecting workers’ rights, has not taken major steps to protect workers’ rights, and has even ignored labor groups’ concrete demands on the issue.

If Marcos Jr thinks that the single act of allowing Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest by the Interpol in behalf of the International Criminal Court will instantly make him a champion of workers’ rights, then he is sorely mistaken. In fact, his failure to truly uphold workers’ rights further exposes his selfish political interest in acquiescing to the arrest and trial of his predecessor for crimes against humanity.

We condemn the Marcos Jr government for refusing to take the following concrete steps to uphold workers’ rights:

(1) Immediately release the 23 political prisoners from the labor movement. Most of these labor activists are victims of trumped-up charges that were filed by the Duterte administration and of evidence planted by state agents.

(2) Surface the two labor organizers who were abducted and disappeared during the Marcos Jr administration – Loi Magbanua (abducted May 2022, Metro Manila) and William Lariosa (April 2024, Bukidnon).

(3) Investigate the extra-judicial killing of 72 labor activists under the Duterte and Marcos Jr administrations, and hold the perpetrators accountable.

(4) Abolish the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) that was responsible for red-tagging labor activists, calling for their repression, and justifying such repression. Hold the agency’s top officials accountable for their crimes.

(5) Speed up the handling of cases of illegal termination filed by workers who were retrenched because of union activities. Employers have often retrenched workers for exercising their freedom of association and have availed of the slow processing of illegal termination cases.

(6) Immediately legislate a significant wage hike and the abolition of contractualization.