NR0810:US labor union demands GMA step down

Mula sa Tanggapan ni Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran
News Release August 10, 2005
House of Representatives, South Wing Rm 602
931-6615 Ina Alleco R. Silverio, Chief of Staff
rep_crispin_beltran@yahoo.com.ph
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Beltran says Justice Committee should allow all Impeachment endorsers, complainants to attend deliberations

6th Biggest Workers Union in US demand resignation of PGMA

Anakpawis Representative Crispin Beltran today appealed to the House Committee on Justice not to close the impeachment complaint hearings to non-committee members, saying that that it would be more logical and just to allow all solons who are endorsers of the complaint to the said deliberations. “We signed the complaint, and we very much want to keep abreast of the developments. We want to monitor the deliberations and see and hear for ourselves how the Committee in handling the complaint,” he said, speaking for other non-member solons.

Beltran said that the impeachment complain hearings were even more important than the hearings on the ‘Hello, Garci’ wire-tapped conversations. “I attended every single hearing on that issue, and I was not a member of any of the committees that were in charge of it. It’s every lawmakers’ responsibility to attend deliberations on such crucial political issues, and I appeal to the leadership of the Justice Committee not to deny me or other legislators who signed the complaint but are not committee members to attend the hearings,” he said.

He also said that all members of the minority should be allowed to attend the hearings.

In the meantime, the veteran labor leader turned lawmaker shared what he said was a ‘giant moral booster’ and proof of ‘international solidarity between workers and the support of politically aware Americans for the struggles of the Filipino peoples.’

Beltran said that he has received reports that the fifth largest State Labor Council of the US, the Washington State Labor Council of the American Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial Unions (AFL-CIO) recently approved Resolution No. 1 calling on the current Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign immediately.

“The biggest American union said that the president is impeachable for cheating in the last elections and failing to denounce massive human rights violations specifically the massacre of Hacienda Luisita striking farm workers, among other things. The 450 delegates representing 450,000 members voted on the said resolution last Saturday August 6 during the convention in Spokane, Washington. The resolution further specified that the Council will encourage the National AFL-CIO to forward said resolution to all Washington State Congressional Delegates to the United Nations and the US Human Rights Commission, as well as to both the President of the United States George W. Bush and the President of the Republic of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,’ he said.

“We expect the international community specifically progressive political parties and people’s organizations in other countries to issue similar statements and resolutions condemning the corrupt and illegitimate Macapagal-Arroyo presidency,” he said. #