The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) is calling on voters to reject candidates for the Senate and other elected positions who have a track record of supporting administrations that are notorious for violations of workers’ labor and human rights.

On Monday, May 12, the Filipino workers and people have an opportunity to stand up for workers’ rights. One way of doing this is rejecting senatorial candidates who have prominently sided with the Ferdinand Marcos Sr dictatorship and the Rodrigo Duterte administration, which are well-known rights violators.

Sadly, many frontrunners in the Senate race are well-known backers of labor and human rights violations and presidents that implemented these. Bong Go, Bato dela Rosa, Camille Villar, Pia Cayetano, Bong Revilla, Imee Marcos, Rodante Marcoleta, Philip Salvador, Francis Tolentino, Gringo Honasan, and Apollo Quiboloy are all well-known allies and supporters of former President Duterte. They supported Duterte’s murderous war on drugs, other labor and human rights violations, and other schemes.

Imee Marcos is a scion of the former dictator and a defender of the Marcos dictatorship and its legacy. Gringo Honasan, despite his important role in the Edsa “People Power” Uprising of 1986, was for a long time a henchman of the Marcos dictatorship and led a handful of coups against the Cory Aquino administration.

Two processes are currently ongoing for holding the Dutertes accountable for their crimes against the Filipino workers and people and human rights violations: the elder Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court or ICC and Vice-president Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. In the name of workers’ rights, we should reject the candidates named above, who will surely impede these accountability processes.

Given these candidates’ track records, they will surely create laws and support policies that will be detrimental to workers’ rights. They will surely lend their support to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s all-out efforts to uphold employers’ interests to the detriment of workers’ rights.

The truth is that the 2025 senatorial elections is unique in the country’s history as having the greatest number of candidates who come from grassroots organizations and who champion labor and human rights. We hope that the Filipino workers and people will reject the politics of patalastas, padulas and padrino (ads, bribes, and patronage) and vote for the politics of change.

We are also calling on voters to vote for partylist groups that genuinely represent marginalized sectors in society, not fake partylists that were created by traditional politicians. Voters should also reject candidates for congressmen and local government units that have supported government measures that violate workers’ rights such as the shutdown of television giant ABS-CBN in 2020.