The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) welcomes and commends President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. for ordering the postponement of the EDSA rehabilitation project, originally scheduled to begin on 13 June 2025.
“We appreciate the President’s timely decision to postpone ‘EDSA Rebuild’ not only as a pause but a golden opportunity for deeper and more inclusive rethinking on innovations and alternatives and for wider stakeholder consultations, especially with labor, since EDSA is not just any highway—it is our nation’s economic artery where both workers and employers travel every single day to earn a living. This is indeed another bold reset and wake-up call for all Government agencies to step out of business-as-usual top-down silo thinking and start embracing multi-sectoral people-first approach because public infrastructure must serve, not inconvenience, the people,” stated TUCP Party-list Representative and House Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza.
TUCP Vice President Luis Corral lamented that “it seems Government agencies concerned are perennially ‘natutulog sa pansitan’ as they did not even seek to convene a consultation with workers and businesses whose lives and survival would be bulldozed and steam-rollered. With the President’s revamp, heads should roll when these agency heads are just sound asleep.”
The country’s largest labor center TUCP now calls for a tripartite inter-agency EDSA taskforce, composed of genuine representatives of workers and employers alongside key government agencies, to design a realistic commuter-sensitive rehabilitation plan which reduces to the barest minimum the rehabilitation period and its consequent disruption.
“Genuine representatives of workers together with employers should be included in every discussion of the relevant authorities of Government led by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) because public infrastructure not only has ripple effects but will actually shape labor productivity, economic growth, household income, and will either ease or worsen the already-challenging cost of living crisis that tens of millions of Filipino working family currently confront and endure,” underscored Mendoza.
“Only through sincere and genuine worker representation and meaningful participation can we prevent a potential construction catastrophe—a ‘carmageddon’ of our own making—and build better and more people-centered public infrastructure and transportation starting with a modern EDSA,” emphasized Mendoza.
