As you approach the port's entrance, your eyes would first land on the glossy, probably recently lacquered metal nameplate of the Manila Harbour Centre (MHC). Against the blistering Manila heat, its glimmer casts a sort of spotlight on the scene to its left: hulking freighters lining up along the wharf, portside cranes hoisting container vans from ship to shore, and a brigade of semi-trucks carrying batches of steel beams safeguarded by sheets of blue drop cloth.
Further towards the left, however, you would see tatters of that familiar blue covering now tied in a slipshod manner to an erect piece of bamboo–a temporary dwelling for those whom the harbor has turned its back against. A large, orange-colored piece of hemp fabric is also fastened to a tree with rope, and on it are painted the words “Ibalik ang 370 manggagawang tinanggal!”
The company of disgruntled workers forced into substandard living conditions just beside the harbor entrance casts a striking contrast to the image of progress, innovation, and development that one might derive from the sight of MHC. Yet, this distinction epitomizes a classic story that MHC’s dockworkers have lived for more than 10 years now–some for even more than 20. It is a story of fractured limbs, illegal contracting, and chronic hunger.
Nerves of Steel
Pinned between a busy highway and the country’s premier cargo handling center, the workers’ hovel barely allows Ronaldo Acevedo Torres, a stevedore of the MHC for more than four years, any reprieve from Manila’s hustle and bustle. On the monoblock table where their rations are cached, he dices a block of liver with a box cutter.
Torres points at the dried fish, bread, and other viands that concerned individuals have pitched in, following the buzz their strike had generated on social media. These are a marked departure from the instant noodles and traditional rice and salt pairings that they have grown accustomed to eating for survival.
Amid the burdens they face, they have chosen to maintain their camp to protest their day-to-day drudgery in the harbor.
Torres leaves his home, located in a small Tondo colony a bridge away from their camp, and reports to the docks ahead of the rising of the sun. The hazardous nature of his work is magnified by the absence of safety training and equipment in the harbor. Torres and his fellow stevedores lug around container vans that weigh a ton using personal protective equipment (PPE) that they bought with their own wages.
Yet, uniformed or not, the perils of the harbor spare none. As another laborer said, “Ang isang paa mo, nasa hukay na. Kapag nagkamali ka, ‘yung kalahati mo, laglag sa hukay.”
Francisco Manaog, 48, president of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Harbour Centre (UMHC), has seen more than 15 of his co-workers die from fatal injuries. “Kapag operator ka kasi, yung boom ng barko ang aakyatan mo. May mga kasamahan kaming operator na nadulas at laglag, kaya nagkadurog-durog ang katawan. May mga estibador pa kami diyan na nabali ang buto’t paa, nagulungan ng mga bakal,” said Manaog.
Yet, he has also seen the MHC management respond with measures just as pitiless as the conditions that necessitate them. “Mayroon naman silang shuttle. Ang problema, kapag inihatid ka na sa ospital, wala na silang itutulong pa. Kapag hinatid ka doon, iiwanan ka na nila kahit hindi ka pa inaasikaso ng doktor.”
When the time comes for management to shoulder medical expenses, or to proffer the deceased worker’s wages to the beneficiaries of his insurance policy, a constant back and forth ensues between the company’s recruitment agencies and MHC. “Magtuturuan silang mga agency at management. Itong si [agency] ‘pag sinagot mo, si Harbour naman. ‘Pag si Harbour naman, sasabihing sa agency kayo,” Manaog narrates. Yet the law dictates that both the agency and the principal company are liable for the payment of disability benefits.
This acute lack of accountability and transparency takes hold outside of health benefits and medical expenses. The labyrinthine bureaucracy endemic to MHC complements the greed of its superintendents, and their failure to render fair pay and security of tenure for MHC’s dockmen.
On a typical working day, Torres and his fellow longshoremen work for about 12 hours. This is four hours more than the eight-hour standard maximum per day. Because their work is on-call, Torres says that whether or not an employee gets to work for the day depends on whether or not their supervisor blurts out their number during the morning roll call. Workers are fortunate if they can work three to four times a week.
Manaog says that their daily salary barely grazes the P570 minimum wage rate in Metro Manila. Depending on the functions of their job, their wages range from P550 to P680. Even though their work demands that they risk their life, they receive a pittance in return, and at most times even get a hold of their pay late. “Ang pasahod nila ay kung kailan lang nila gusto magpasahod–yun lang ang kailangang sundin."
The UMHC president also said that their employers produce no pay slip upon transmission of their wages. Because of this, workers are in the dark about the justifications behind their pay deductions–two of which are a 10 percent interest their agencies cut upon transmission of their wages, and a reduction that supposedly serves as their regular contribution to the Social Security System (SSS), PhilHealth, and Pag-ibig.
It was found later on, however, that the workers’ contractors had not been remitting the employees’ aforementioned contributions.
Such is only a smidgeon of the illicit practices underlying the legal battle that has been raging between the workers of MHC and their employers for six years now. The three manpower agencies that supply hundreds of personnel to MHC have remained unchanged, and with each passing year, a new exposé–the gravest of which was the illegal removal of 370 MHC workers in January 2020–reinforces the workers' decision to camp out and hold their ground until their calls are heard.
A Wearisome Battle
Manaog keenly traces the hunger his family suffers every day, as well as his coworkers’ decision to pull their children out of schooling, to the mass lay-off that took place in 2020.
The history underlying the illegal dismissal extends as far back as March 2, 2017, when workers of the MHC protested the unlawful hiring practices perpetrated by manning agency Grasials Port Services, also known as Gerolyn Stevedoring, which had been found guilty of sequestering employees’ payments to the SSS since 2009. The agency was engaged in a service agreement with MHC.
Following a concerted onslaught of charges pressed by the workers against the agency and Harbour Centre Port Terminal, Inc. (HCPTI), DOLE sanctioned a cease and desist order against Grasials. The order was circulated on August 24, 2017, following findings that the agency was not registered under DOLE. On top of the order, DOLE ruled that the 378 workers of the harbor be regularized and compensated P99.89 million in money claims.
But instead of recognizing the decision, the MHC opted to appeal on September 1, 2017, which the Court of Appeals immediately shot down. Enraged at MHC’s obstinate attitude, from then until late 2019, the harbor workers launched a salvo of pickets to assert their rights as regular workers. To stop their onward march in its tracks, the HCPTI junked their service agreement with Grasials, and leveraged this to lay off a total of 370 dockworkers on January 13, 2020–the onset of the pandemic.
The Supreme Court sided with the workers on June 28, 2021, however, trashing MHC’s Motion for Reconsideration and ordering them to reinstall all 370 workers into their payroll. On September 15, 2021, the SC ruled with finality in their decision to have MHC regularize their workers.
Amid all of the victories the union bagged in the legal arena, the MHC remains unfazed. They have not issued any statements regarding the strides the union has made towards their regularization, much less granted any of the requests that they had lobbied for more than four years now.
The situation in Manila Harbour Centre mirrors that of the national labor force. There are 20 million contractual workers in the country, and in the transportation and storage industry group where the employees of MHC fall under, 35,929 out of 164,726 are non-regular.
“Wala kaming natatanggap sa kanila, kaya umaklas kami. Tinanggal pa kami nang iligal, tapos binalewala kami, kaya nagkampuhan kami,” says Torres, after serving all of his confreres the stewed liver he cooked for lunch.
Though the workers’ pleas have only grown louder over the past six years, the MHC management continues to sneer at their calls. They continue to deafen themselves with the blare of ship horns, the growl of truck engines, and the cries of bone-weary workers that all lend themselves to their harbor’s unshakable image of profit and development.
Yet, their employers’ greed only grants credibility to the workers’ calls–calls that honor the deaths of their peers and aim to extract accountability from the company behind them.
Calls Louder Than the Striking of Metal
“Ang pangunahin talaga naming kahingian ay kilalanin ang unyon namin, kasi iyon lang ang poprotekta sa mga karapatan namin,” says Manaog. The right to self-organization and collective bargaining is inherent to all workers under the law, but big-name corporate bodies such as the MHC continue to impinge on this, as is seen in the example of workers’ unions in Laguna and Mactan.
In addition, UMHC’s call to be recognized as regular workers resounds the nationwide campaign to end contractualization instead of simply regulating it, like what DOLE’s toothless Department Order No. 174 does.
As inflation reaches an all-time high since 2008, UMHC also perceives the urgency of instituting a national minimum wage. The transition to this system has been a point of contention in the legislative sphere. On September 16, 2022, the National Minimum Wage Bill was filed to abolish wage rationalization, which companies exploit to minimize salaries and enliven business process outsourcing practices.
The calls that MHC’s dockmen carry are a protest against the unforgiving reality the harbor has heaved them into. Yet, a vital component of this reality that is not as often spoken of is the generational nature of their job. “Tinuruan ako ng tiyuhin ko. Tinuruan niya akong mag-winchman,” a worker who had been in the stevedoring line states while recounting his days as an operator in his old firm.
Irrespective of whatever legal victories the past six years have bestowed on them, and whatever they will get from the many more years to come, MHC’s criminal form of governance will continue to haunt the workers of MHC even after death–once their sons find no viable recourse other than to submit themselves to a job in the harbor as well.
It is for the solemn wish that their children may never have to bet their lives on a couple of tons of imported steel that the workers of UMHC dare to put up a rudimentary hutch next to the country’s hotspot for bulk and breakbulk operations–and wage a tireless battle even with the odds weighing against them. ●
Photos by Ar Jay Revilla.
