Pro-Duterte labor groups back Isko Moreno

MANILA, Philippines — Labor groups supportive of President Duterte yesterday announced their endorsement of Manila Mayor Isko Moreno.

At a press briefing at Moreno’s campaign headquarters, representatives of the Alliance of Genuine Labor Organization (AGLO), Bus Transport Workers Alliance (BTWA) and National Confederation of Labor said they are counting on the mayor to put an end to labor contractualization, a campaign promise that Duterte failed to fulfill.

AGLO secretary general Eduardo Laurencio said the labor groups banded together for Moreno due to the failure of the outgoing administration to end labor-only contracting.

BTWA chairman Jessie Olivar said they are supporting the mayor to protect workers’ interests.

The two groups are members of the network organization Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte National Executive Coordinating Committee, which endorsed Moreno’s presidential bid.

For his part, Moreno promised to bring both employer and employee to the negotiating table, adding that his plans to cut fuel tax and electricity prices would also benefit laborers in the long term.

He said his parents were also laborers when he was growing up in Tondo, where he made ends meet by scavenging for trash before his showbiz break.

“Until now, it baffles me that a laborer like you – a basurero – can someday become president of the country,” Moreno said.

Meanwhile, Moreno presented himself as a “compromising” candidate trying to “please everyone” in CNN Philippines’ 2022 Presidential Debate, but he struggled in talking about international relations and geopolitics when asked about the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, two political scientists told ANC yesterday.

Former UP National College of Public Administration and Governance dean Edna Co said Moreno scored “in the middle” of the performance scale.

The mayor presented himself as a “compromising” candidate with unclear positions on issues, Co said.

“He would tend to please everyone as much as he can. And by doing that, he loses the big flavor that can be identified with him. Who is really Isko Moreno?” she said.

Asked if Moreno was a “unifying” candidate or a “compromising” one, Co said the mayor took the “compromising position, nothing foul” but it exposed that his stance on issues is “neither here nor there.”

De La Salle University political science professor Julio Teehankee, on the other hand, said the mayor was “comfortable” talking about his pandemic response in Manila, but “grappled” with international issues like the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

When candidates were asked if the Philippines should stay neutral about the ongoing conflict, Moreno said the country should stay neutral “for now” but he would rather focus on the repatriation of Filipinos from the conflict.

“Some of them have grappled with issues that are quite beyond their comfort zone. For Mayor Isko, he did well with his action man proof of concept in Manila, but he grappled with international relations and geopolitics, particularly on the issue of Ukraine and Russia,” Teehankee said.