Striking NutriAsia workers, supporters face complaint

MANILA, Philippines — Bulacan cops and security guards of NutriAsia filed a criminal complaint against the condiments company’s workers and their supporters who were arrested in a violent dispersal yesterday.

The complaint filed before Meycauyan City Prosecutor Tuesday indicated offenses including Republic Act 9165 (dangerous drugs), RA 10591 (firearms and ammunition), illegal assembly, physical injuries, and alarm and scandal, a document obtained by Altermidya showed.

Twenty were listed as respondents. Among those were NutriAsia workers, journalists and members of organizations supporting the striking workers.

Of these individuals, a certain Edwin Barana was the only one presented as possessing four sachets of suspected shabu and one cal .22 revolver.

Reports from the ground said that Barana was neither a NutriAsia worker nor a supporter.

Nagkakaisang Manggagawa ng NutriAsia on a Facebook post said that Barana has been imprisoned since 2016. He was allegedly beaten up by cops to force him to pretend that he was joining the strike.

Hours before the filing of the complaint, rights group Karapatan said that “fabricated charges and [planting] of firearms and drug paraphernalia” were a possibility.

“This is the trademark of top police officers who have handled the murder of thousands of poor Filipinos in line with the war on drugs, combined with other underhanded, cheap tricks from this regime’s counterinsurgency program,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said.

READ: Violent dispersal of NutriAsia workers draws wide condemnation

Around 300 NutriAsia workers and their supporters, who went on strike due to the condiments distributor’s refusal to regularize workers, were violently dispersed Monday by the company’s security personnel and cops.

The violence against NutriAsia workers and their supporters—particularly an elderly woman seriously injured during the dispersal—enraged individuals and groups and prompted them to boycott the company that manufactures popular condiments.

But NutriAsia blamed the protesting workers for initiating violence at the company’s factory in Marilao, Bulacan.

The company said that around 200 employees of B-Mirk, NutriAsia's toll packer, allegedly “fired a shot in the air and started to hurl rocks at police and guards tasked to maintain peace and order in the area.”

Early in July, the Department of Labor and Employment ordered the company to regularize 80 workers. 

In a compliance order issued by DOLE Calabarzon chief Zenaida Angara-Campita in February, NutriAsia and its three contractors—Alternative Network Resources Unlimited Multipurpose Cooperative, Serbiz Multi-Purpose Cooperative, and B-Mirk Enterprises Corporation—were directed to regularize 914 of their workers.

The order came after DOLE found that NutriAsia and its contractors were violating labor laws and general labor standards, and engaging in labor-only contracting activities. 

Bulacan chief

Palabay also stressed that Bulacan Provincial Police chief Chito Bersaluna, head of the main unit responsible for the dispersal of striking workers, was the Caloocan police chief sacked by President Rodrigo Duterte after cops under him killed 17-year-old Kian Delos Santos last year.

Bersaluna was promoted as Bulacan’s top cop last June.

“Here is Bersaluna after he is sacked—still satisfying his bloodlust albeit in a different place,” Palabay said.

His promotion also received criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said his promotion is an “insult to drug war victims.”

READ: HRW: Promotion of police officers sacked after Kian slay insult drug war victims