ON the standing of workers in our society, let us look at "then" and "now."

Carlos Polistico Garcia, the fourth president of the Republic, made it a point to announce some of the major programs under his "Filipino First Policy" before an assembly of trade union leaders at the National Press Club (NPC). The powerful symbolism of this gesture was obvious: the working man, represented by the trade union leaders, was recognized as the backbone of the dreams and aspirations of the young republic. And the critical national policies crafted at the very top would march in lockstep with the interests of the workers below.

The choice of the NPC (during its glory days, not before hucksters took over its leadership) was likewise rich with a deeper meaning. Within its halls then, the lives and careers of journalists and writers with roots in labor organization and political activism — Ka Amado Hernandez was a shining example — were also fondly remembered.

The acts and gestures of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — and the powerful symbolism they telegraphed — are the diametric opposite of those done by the presidents of yore.

In his many foreign trips, Marcos preferred the company of the country's billionaires because the dreams and aspirations of his Bagong Pilipinas were aligned with these tycoons' economic interests. The working man is not even a footnote in the substantive negotiations and discussions during those trips. The theme — the overriding and overarching theme — is "investment generation." Whatever it takes to generate foreign investments, whatever it takes to transform Bagong Pilipinas into Asia's "fastest-growing economy," the new investment darling of the region or Asia's "economic tiger."

The value of these trips has been based on one metric: the sum of the investment pledges made after each one.

Coordinating the economic plans at the Palace is led by a billionaire. The agency that is supposed to improve agriculture and the workers' cousins — the small farmers — is another billionaire. The comfort zone of Mr. Marcos is obviously a room full of billionaires. The major initiatives of his administration are in total sync with the economic interests of the Top 1 percent.

In a government where the dominant topic is "investment generation" and where critical decisions are influenced, to a great extent, by the billionaire class, the working man is predictably invisible, vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by powerful economic interests that favor lower taxes, loose environmental regulations and starvation-level wages for workers. And the lack of access to the rights vested in workers by the Constitution and the laws to institutionalize their exploitation and abuse.

That Filipino workers have no access to the rights provided in the Constitution and in our body of laws has been documented by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in its 2024 Global Rights Index report. On the status of workers' rights in the Philippines, the ITUC says the country is one of the Top 10 "worst countries" for workers — with the government failing to do its elementary duty of guaranteeing the rights of workers — along with those identified with repression and autocracy (e.g., Myanmar and Belarus) and the usual dead-enders.

But that is not the full story. Filipino workers have been on that globally embarrassing list for eight consecutive years, an unbroken streak of bludgeoning workers' rights abetted by the government.

The 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index said that without the guarantee of rights, Filipino workers have suffered from red-tagging, abductions, arbitrary arrests and acts of violence. The killing of two union leaders was specifically cited in the report.

The documented abuse and exploitation of workers prompted the International Labor Organization's Committee on Application of Standards to call the attention of the Philippine government to the "ongoing serious and systematic violation of the right to freedom of association of the workers in the country." That was not a routine statement from a body that counts the Philippines as a member of long standing. That was a direct indictment of the state's deliberate neglect of a basic mandate.

When the protection of workers' rights to freely organize — the "freedom of association" enshrined in all labor codes in all democratic countries — is missing, the brutal wages are what we see in the Philippine labor ecosystem.

Organized labor was at least 12 percent of the total non-agricultural workforce. It is now down to 6 percent but with a caveat. Some of the organized workers registered with the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) are company unions, unions organized by the employers themselves that then sign so-called sweetheart collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the management.

The current overall atmosphere has been totally hostile to labor organizing, which the ITUC duly noted in its report.

In functioning democracies, the head of government, like what United States President Joe Biden did recently, even goes to a picket line to declare his unequivocal support for workers' rights, the right to form a union, the right to strike over violations of economic, and other rights and many other rights.

Here, in a nation afflicted with the bigotry of low expectations, the head of government cannot even nudge one branch of Congress — the House of Representatives — to pass a law on a decent minimum wage increase, which was already passed by the Senate. The result: the tripartite body on wage-setting decided on a P35 daily wage increase, which was not even enough for a kilo of imported rice. Pathetic.