Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Conclusion: It is time to abolish the NLRC.

This will conclude the series on the NLRC, but it doesn't mean I will stop talking about that agency here or elsewhere.

The NLRC has been a theoretical mistake and a practical disappointment. While founded on an ideology that romanticized the worker, the agency bred monsters that ultimately defeated the workers interests. How many industries has it destroyed in the guise of protecting worker's rights? Needless to say, if there are no industries, there are no workers. How many workers have been sold by their unions to their employers? These anomalies have been so common that they are now regarded as the norm, instead of the exception. Indeed, there is no end to these problems unless the NLRC is abolished.

After the abolition of the NLRC is effected, my proposal is the transfer of its judicial functions to the Regional Trial Court. These courts should then adopt rules that will remove all unfair presumptions in favor of labor, and maintain the usual presumptions in a civil dispute. In this manner, the fairness of the rules of procedure will not be questioned and no class or specific interest group will have undue advantage over others.

Further, the transfer of the NLRC functions to the regular courts will effectively break the hold of syndicates and power brokers in labor disputes. Of course, this is not to say that the regular courts are free from the hold of other syndicates and power brokers. Yet, the Supreme Court is conducting its own efforts against graft and corruption in the judiciary, and so this matter of integrity of the court system is already being addressed.

Another matter which I propose is the creation of the office of labor advocates. I imagine it as an institution which will advocate labor's cause pro bono before the courts in the same manner as the the Public Attorney's Office represent the cause of the poor before the courts. But the system should be that the labor advocates should be initially convinced that the laborer has a prima facie case against management in order to ensure that the office will not abused. Of course, the laborers can hire their own paid counsels; the labor advocates office will handle the cases of those who cannot afford to pay for their own lawyers.

This is a blog. Although I have thought hard about this series for weeks, I know there are matters which I missed. But I've posted this proposal here, so that researchers of people who are in a position to change things in this country will have something with which to start. The NLRC is and has always been a bad idea. Its immediate abolition is imperative.

1 comment:

RUMMEL PINERA said...

ABOUT THE SONA AND ISRAEL’ SOVEREIGNTY

Glo Arroyo’s SONA last July 24 was merely a speech of lies. The Filipino people are tired of listening to lies from a president who still is hiding from her political immunity from suits regarding the huge accusations that she cheated the year 2004 presidential election. Even if I will do it alone in the streets, I would still peacefully and legally ask Glo Arroyo to resign from the presidency. Her presidency is nothing but a manipulation of the democratic institutions in the Philippines. I would rather act in a righteous way, that is peacefully and legally asking Mrs. Arroyo to resign from her illegal presidency, than let despostism reign with ease in my country without doing something about such tyranny. I would peacefully and lawfully struggle for real and moral democracy in the Philippines, so that future generations in the Philippines would have a truly stable and working democracy.

ABOUT ISRAEL’S SOVEREIGNTY

The problem that sparks Middle East conflicts is not Zionism. The problem is the despotic social system that dominates almost all of the Muslim countries in the Middle East region. Zionism is merely an expression of the Biblical, empirical and rational truth that Israel belongs to the descendants of the ancient Hebrews. The ancient Hebrews’ homeland was Israel. The ancient Hebrews contributed to the general global civilization that modern humanity have today. The descendants of the ancient Hebrews have a legitimate and valid claim to return to their ancestral homeland. Archaelogical evidences can prove that Israel was the original homeland of the ancient Hebrews before they migrated to Egypt. Israel was the Promised Land for the ancient Hebrews and their descendants. Israel’s right to exist as a nation is a valid one. The Middle East region needs peaceful and lawful democratization process. Israel, the U.S.A. and UK must support the peaceful and lawful democratization of the Middle East region. The Israeli nation should not be threatened by any form of aggression from despotic states in the Middle East region. The terrorist groups, which are manipulated and controlled by despotic regimes in the Middle East region, that are threatening to destroy Israel’s right to exist as a nation should all be arrested and disarmed by the United Nations’ Organization. Israel has the right to exist as a nation in this world. The U.N. Organization, the U.S.A. and the UK should uphold the right of Israel to exist as a nation.

Peacefully and legally campaign for real, global and moral democracy! Support political abrogationism now!