ORGANIZED labor during the Marcos regime was structured along the three major ideologies: right, center and left. On the right of the ideological spectrum, and the first labor center to be formed in the country, was the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines or TUCP. A towering figure in the labor front, the late Roberto Oca organized the TUCP as a labor center with pro-government leanings. The core membership of the center was drawn from the Oca-controlled labor federation based at the Manila ports and other federations with pro-government sympathies.

The center was represented by the Federation of  Free Workers (FFW), which was organized by the Jesuits and Jesuit-trained intellectuals, to counter the dominant grip of the left on the trade union movement in the 1950s and the 1960s. The counterpart of the FFW in the organized peasantry was the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF). Juan Tan, known in the movement as Johnny Tan, was the public face of  the FFW. The likes of Arturo “Bong” Tanco, the longtime  Agriculture secretary of former president Ferdinand Marcos, worked as a FFW organizer in his youth.