Manila Strike Shuts 100 Plants; Most Shops, Offices Stay Open

Tens of thousands of striking workers shut down more than 100 factories and crippled Manila’s public transportation Monday, but the citywide general strike called by a radical labor union to protest the brutal killing of their leader last week largely failed to materialize.

Most shops and offices remained open, as did all government offices. President Corazon Aquino earlier had ordered government schools closed Monday in anticipation of the strike by the radical May First Movement, which controls most public transit.

Police reported only half a dozen arrests, and there were no attempts by the militant union to force participation in the strike. No barricades appeared in the city. The leftist union merely staged rallies throughout the region demanding justice for the killing and calling for the resignation of Aquino’s tough defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile.

The union’s leaders have blamed the Nov. 13 gangland-style murder of Rolando Olalia on Enrile, a vocal, anti-Communist hard-liner who, for months before the killing, had charged publicly that Olalia’s union was a front group for the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed insurgency.

‘Good Start’ Seen

Despite the small participation in Monday’s strike, the union called the labor action “a good start” to its four-day demonstration, and it predicted an enormous showing by organized labor Thursday--the day Olalia’s body will be paraded through Manila’s streets en route to the cemetery.

Several top leftist leaders said the low turnout illustrated that the militant labor movement is still not ready for such a mass action and will not be until at least 1988.

“We did not expect the killing of Lando Olalia, but we had to show our outrage somehow,” said Leandro Alejandro, leader of the leftist alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. “It’s a very short period of time to organize.”

Crispin Beltran, who succeeded Olalia last week as the union’s chairman, said the strike did succeed in impressing Aquino with the union’s demands--Enrile’s resignation, a thorough investigation of Olalia’s execution and the resumption of government cease-fire talks with the Communist rebels.

Aquino has said she will not fire Enrile, who reportedly has been ill with influenza and has not been seen in public since last week. She has, however, launched an unprecedented investigation into the murder by a multi-agency task force headed by her justice minister, Neptali Gonzales.

Inquiry Finds Leads

In a briefing after the task force met with Aquino on Monday morning, Gonzales said investigators have developed “substantial leads” that will help solve the five-day-old murder. He refused to disclose the leads, though, and added that no suspects have been arrested.