NAFEDA Press Release June 8, 2000 DELAYED SALARIES FOR EMPLOYEES AFFECTED
BY DA REORGANIZATION FOR two months now, the employees of the National Stud Farm (NSF) has not received their salaries due to the ongoing reorganization of the Department of Agriculture (DA). The management of the DA is gearing towards the abolition of the NSF by mere non-inclusion of their budget in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for CY 2000. There are other agencies under the DA that are being lined up for abolition or scaling down of operations, based on the paper presented by DA consultants. The employees of DA, under the leadership of the National Federation of Employees in the Department of Agriculture (NAFEDA), launched a picket today to oppose the ongoing reorganization of their offices. Similar to the previous reorganization of DA, this one will only lead to mass termination of thousands of employees, adding to the burgeoning mass of unemployed Filipinos. NAFEDA believes that the present reorganization will not lead to genuine development of Philippine agriculture. The Agriculture & Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), which is the banner program of the government supposedly to uplift the deprived status of our farmers and fisherfolks, will only strengthen the hold of the Multinational companies (MNCs) and the landlords to exploit the vast land resources at the expense of poor farmers. AFMA will not solve the basic problem of genuine land reform, which is the primary requirement for genuine agricultural development. Unless the basic problem of land ownership is not solve, to transfer these land to the rightful owners, the tillers of the land, agricultural development will always be a farce. The ongoing reorganization of the DA will only cater to caprices of the MNCs and their local cohorts-- to facilitate their exports of high-yielding variety crops and at the same time to make it easy for them to dump surplus products being produced by developed countries to our domestic market to the detriment of our local producers. NAFEDA will continue to oppose the ongoing reorganization to protect the security of tenure of the rank and file DA employees and to expose and oppose the ill-effects of this reorganization to the Filipino farmers. NAFEDA demands for the immediate revocation of Executive Order (EO) # 162. # NAFEDA is a federation of 23 employees associations of the DA-Office of the Secretary (OSEC), regional offices, bureaus, and attached agencies. |
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