PGMA is more than just an ardent saleswoman, she's a certified pimp advocating cheap and docile labor policies

Labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not just an ardent and proud saleswoman but a certified pimp. In street parlance, pimp means 'bugaw' or a person who peddles prostituted women to paying customers.

"Arroyo is a pimp advocating cheap and docile labor policies. Her government sells Filipino workers like prostitutes to local and foreign investors. To further promote the economic interests of big businesses, Malacanang has severely undignified and oppressed Filipino workers and constantly neglected our just claims for higher wages, secured employment and humane working conditions," said KMU Chairperson Elmer Labog.

Labog said that the Arroyo government's worst act of pimping is still labor exportation. "More and more professionals, including soldiers, are scurrying abroad to work as nurses, caregivers, domestic helpers, seafarers and factory workers. To support their families, skilled Filipinos take on various blue-collar jobs abroad. This working condition exposes them to exploitation, discrimination and various forms of abuses."

According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), an annual average of 270,000 Filipinos leave the country to work abroad. "DoLE is actually proud that the demand for skilled overseas Filipino workers in the global economy continues to surge. Only Arroyo is proud of the Philippines ' listing among the top exporters of human resources."

"The continued mass departure of Filipino workers is not 'a testimony to the competitiveness of the Filipino workers' like DoLE persistently claims. It is a statement of the government's inability to provide decent and secured jobs for Filipinos," Labog said.

The labor leader said workers despise the way Arroyo affirms her loyalty to big businesses. "She will do anything to get the trust and confidence of foreign investors and business owners. She acts like she's selling her soul to the devil," Labog asserted.

Furthermore, the labor group said that the government's effort to push for Charter Change is also a a complete sell-out. "ChaCha is a sell-out our national patrimony will even more open up our natural resources to foreign control and abuse."

"Arroyo's goal to turn the Philippines into a first world country in the next 20 years will remain an impossible dream. Foreign investors are actually capitalizing on the Philippines ' backward and agricultural-based economy to further extract profit by squandering our natural and human resources. These investors are bent on making our domestic economy more tied to foreign currency and portfolio investments," Labog said.

"Arroyo's path to industrialization is actually heading towards a sheer drop. Likewise, her ambition of taking the country to Enchanted Kingdom will become a nightmare-like experience. We'll leave her alone in her trip," Labog ended.