Labor rallies nationwide blame gov't for poverty (Philippines)

[struggle4progress]

Posted 00:32am (Mla time) May 02, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the May 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



BRAVING a blistering summer heat, thousands of workers yesterday marched through cities and towns across the country, demanding an end to state policies that, they said, only sank them deeper into poverty.

By nightfall, destabilization moves against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration, which some government officials had warned against, had failed to materialize. <snip>

In the only violence reported in a largely peaceful May Day observance, five protesters were injured when policemen clubbed them with truncheons in scuffles at the Mabuhay (formerly Welcome) Rotunda on the boundary of Manila and Quezon City.

It was at the rotunda that the day's biggest protest, involving some 10,000 militants who wanted to march to Malacañang, took place. <snip>

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