I entered one of the internet cafes in the City, and the only vacant seat was that beside a mother and with her is her daughter, which I guess is about 7 or 8 years old. The poor child has to give way of course for me. Anyway, I became curious what the mother and her daughter were up to. I saw the mother setting up the webcam and the headphone. They are going to chat with her husband. The husband, I learned through eavesdropping (sorry!) is an Overseas Filipino Worker or OFW as known to all.
While I was so busy checking my farm in Country Story*, I can see the child so busy typing what she wanted to tell her father, while the mother is busy talking with her husband over the headphone. Fine, I cleaned my tanks and sold the adult fishes in Fish World*. Then, the mother started scolding the daughter slightly. The daughter was crying silently. Poor little girl, and one can see the missing, the sadness, the loss she’s feeling in between those silent sobs.
That was the time that I started to come back to my senses. That has caused my week-old writer’s block to dissolve in thin air. So here I am, writing, while listening to David Archuleta’s songs. Running is currently playing.
OK, I am done with cleaning my restaurant and successfully leveled up to Level 8, hired my fifth worker, and had my helpers rest in Restaurant City*, the little girl is still so busy typing on the chat window the words she wanted to tell her father, though I cannot read them. There was this still constant tear that I can see forming on the side of her eyes. (Though the lady on my left is pissing me off as she was singing Jai Ho while watching a video over You Tube, where there are lyrics as well. Imagine her singing with that not so good voice, with the headset on her ears! I am so bad really :-)...)
Anyway, going back. They are the perfect picture and the epitome of the real economic situation of the country. Parents forced to leave their children and their families to work abroad, for some even in very destitute situations, with hopes that that ultimate sacrifice will eventually hurl their loved ones from the slowly killing poverty.
We cannot do anything for them at times but to feel sorry for them. Helpless overseas workers, facing death penalties on foreign soils, mothers and female workers raped, abused, treated like dogs, experiencing all kinds of abuses, are some of the situations all aspiring to work abroad are dreadful of and praying to be not their fate.
But again, these are the sad realities that await some of our not so fortunate Kababayans. If we will look on the bigger picture, we can attest the situation to the very poor situation in the country. This is the very reason why we question the government’s claims of creating millions of jobs every year. Again, to hell with their words, especially the Malacañang executives headed by the foreign-serving President herself, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Philippine unemployment rate in April 2008 rose to 8.0 percent according to a report published by AFP in March of the same year.
To quote,
"Unemployment in the Philippines rose to 8.0 percent in April as economic growth began to ease amid soaring food and energy prices, the government said Tuesday.
This was up from 7.4 percent in January, the National Statistics Office said in its quarterly employment report.
Manila and the surrounding provinces, which together account for more than half the country’s economic output, had double-digit jobless rates topped by Manila’s 13.8 percent.
Of those who were employed, 35.7 percent only had part-time work of less than 40 hours a week, the office said. Economic growth eased to 5.2 percent in the three months to March amid rising oil prices, the slowing US economy and the strong peso, which impacted on exports and pushed up inflation.
The economy grew 7.2 percent for the whole of 2007. Some 49.6 percent of those employed worked in the services sector, 35.5 percent in the agriculture sector and 14.9 percent in industry.
Unskilled workers made up 32.6 percent of those employed, while farmers, forestry workers and fishermen accounted for 17.3 percent.”
Now, these I believe has neither changed nor improved as you all will agree, won’t you? On her recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President, again, boasted of the jobs she has created. What jobs, those street sweepers and cleaners contracted only for some months? And afterwards, what will happen? Of course, back to unemployment.
This is due to the programs of the government which are not meant to really help and give jobs, real and stable jobs, for the Filipino people. If the government is really sincere in her intentions, there will be no jobless Filipinos in the long run. The problem again is that this government is always after the thumbs up of foreign investors. These present government has been in the office for almost 9 years, but things has been worse than before.
To site as an example, she [the government] could have opposed the law that allows companies to hire workers as contractual workers only. That has alleviated big companies the pain-in-the-ass process of regularizing their employees, and of course relieved of the duties they have for regular employees. Due to that, the employees’ rights are continually and openly violated many times. I have experienced such oppressing scheme in a former job I have. For a good employee to stay in the company when her contract ends, re-application is a must, UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME, under a different identity, again to be a contractual worker.
Secondly, until now, the HB 1722: Legislating the P125 Across the Board Wage Hike is still sitting in Congress, being fought for by our Representatives, Representatives of the real pro-masses progressive Party-lists (Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, and Gabriela, being supported by Kabataan Party-list, the only legitimate youth party-list in Congress).
The said bill is impractical according to DOLE. That would hurt more the workers in the long run according to Esther Guirao, officer-in-charge of National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) (back in 2001 when this statement was released). Many establishments that would be unable to grant P125 across-the-board increase in December, she said, might just opt to close their businesses, leading to massive unemployment.
It would adversely hit many of the people and cause more suffering because the affected manufacturers and producers would raise the prices of their commodities rather than absorb the added weight of increased wages by themselves.
Clarifying reports that the NWPC was blocking a P125 daily wage hike, Guirao said the wage boards, while deliberating on the amount of increment to be given to workers, are opposed only to an across-the-board mode of increase.
That was in 2001. It is 2009 already and nothing has come out of “consultations conducted in at least five other regions”. Again, that was back in 2001.
But, is that really the reason behind DOLE and the government’s turtle-like speed in addressing this issue? Or is it due to the pressures of the crocodiles living in the waters around Malacañang palace? If this bill will be passed in Congress, in the Senate and eventually by the President, then I don’t think I will be seeing another mother and daughter with the same heart-breaking situation in the near future. These companies have already enjoyed all these years the benefits of underpaying and under compensating their employees. So I don’t think it would be very hard for them to adjust. And besides, if the government will support such move, I don’t think there would be much problem, wouldn’t it? If that HB will be passed into a law, I don’t think the brain drain that is happening in the country will continue.
When will the government start to be for her people and not for anybody else?
P125 Across the Board Wage Hike Now!!!
Real jobs for the Filipino people!!!
Protect the democratic rights of workers!!!
*These are games in Facebook, a Networking site.
