Today, we mark the seventh anniversary of labor activist and political detainee Maoj Maga’s imprisonment with a protest in front of the Justice Department calling for immediate freedom for him, for all the 25 political prisoners from the labor movement, and all political prisoners in the country.

Among the political prisoners from the labor movement, Maoj is the first to be arrested under the reign of darkness that was the Rodrigo Duterte regime. What was done to him is a template of what was done to all the 25 political prisoners from the labor movement: arrested using trumped-up charges and planted evidence.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has sought to distance himself from his predecessor but has refused to correct the injustice committed by Duterte against labor activists who are now languishing in jail. Every minute that Maoj and all the 25 political prisoners from the labor movement stay in jail is an injustice. Marcos Jr should act now to restore the freedom that was stolen from them.

Today, we are also relaunching the Free Our Unionists campaign. We seek to create the broadest unity for the freedom of the political prisoners from the labor movement and all political prisoners. We want Marcos Jr and the government to act to put an end to the injustice that political prisoners are experiencing.

The International Labour Organisation’s Tripartite High-level Mission to the Philippines in 2023 observed that the Philippine government has conflated labor activism and participation in armed insurgency. The imprisonment of Maoj and others is one of the clearest proofs of this mix-up. The government should treat labor activism as separate from armed insurgency.

We know Maoj. He has been a social activist and a member of the League of Filipino Students or LFS and Anakbayan since his college days in the 1990s. When he was arrested, he was an organizer of transport group Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide or PISTON, which is affiliated with national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno or KMU.

Maoj has been engaged in labor and social activism in Metro Manila, yet is the victim of trumped-up charges related to attacks carried out by rebel group New People’s Army or NPA in far-flung provinces in Mindanao. He never carried a firearm, yet the police who arrested him claimed to find a gun in his possession while he was playing basketball with neighbors after bringing his son to school.

Anybody who knows Maoj will find the charges filed against him and the police’s claims about the circumstances of his arrest very, very hard to believe – yet he remains in prison to this day.

Maoj bore the brunt of Duterte’s anger at PISTON and KMU. He helped organize the two-day transport strike in October 2017 against the government’s jeepney phaseout scheme. After that transport strike, Duterte accused PISTON and KMU of engaging in a conspiracy and rebellion and warned them of arrests. “You are giving me reason to arrest you. I will implement the law,” said Duterte.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/10/17/1749969/duterte-warns-communist-front-piston-arrest

Needless to say, the imprisonment of Maoj and all 25 political prisoners from the labor movement violates not only their rights, but the rights of transport workers and all workers whom they serve – the right to the freedom of association and expression which are crucial in fighting for the right to an adequate standard of living.