Employees of the accounting department of Victorias Milling Company Inc. staged a protest yesterday noon to call for the resignation of VMC comptroller Teresita Ilagan.

The protest came after the employees, who are members of the Vicmico Supervisors' Union and Vicmico Industrial Workers Association, sent a letter dated March 17 to VMC president Abelardo Bugay demanding for Ilagan's immediate relief, claiming that she "mangled fair labor practices and disregarded social responsibility."

Accounting department employees cried foul over their impending retrenchment with the company deciding to outsource accounting services by March 2006.

Those interviewed over TV Patrol Bacolod said they don't deserve to lose their jobs after working hard for VMC for a long time.

But before they were ordered retrenched, they preempted the move by seeking mass retrenchment effective March 15. The company has yet to act on their request.

Ilagan was not available for interview yesterday but she issued a short press statement confirming that the accounting employees have applied for retrenchment with immediate effect.

"The effectivity is now being assessed with an end in view of not jeopardizing company operations," she added.

She did not comment on the call for her ouster at the protest action held by the employees of her department yesterday.

Among the grounds they cited in their letter to Bugay for calling for Ilagan's ouster, aside from outsourcing of accounting department, are outsourcing of audit department in 2004, non-implementation of health insurance, failure to decide whether funds had been available for Gas Scrubber Project worth P42.6 million, which could have solved or minimized air pollution at Canetown subdivision and nearby areas;

Delayed releases of monthly pension benefits to retirees and corporate deception by showing VMC's financial condition as a distressed establishment to evade mandated wage increase under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The protesting employees, headed by VSU president Johnson Gancita and VIWA president Jonathan Dequiña, had also written to Victorias City Mayor Severo Palanca asking him to take up the major concerns raised by VMC employees, retirees, labor and the community against sugar mill management.

The series of retrenchments in the country's largest sugar refinery is part of its targets under its Approved Rehabilitation Plan that includes the reduction of manpower by 53 percent, after VMC suffered a near-collapse in 1996.*NLG

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