kalalakihan – Page 15 – Katrina Stuart Santiago

or why that San Mig Light will taste infinitely better now

because in whose mind would it be normal and rational, just and fair, to lay off 2,600 employees favouring one of the richest Filipinos of 2009. really, now. Lucio Tan’s net worth then was at $1.7 billion dollars. that’s P78 BILLION PESOS. This year, he’s second richest in the land, with a net worth of $2.1 billion dollars, that’s close to P90 BILLION PESOS (89.67 to be exact).

at ayon sa DOLE, kawawa naman ang mayaman ano, kase babagsak na ang business niya, kaya ayan, tanggalin na lang natin ang mga manggagawa niya!

This is also a man whose tax evasion cases were dismissed on a technicality during Erap’s time – Tan was a crony of Erap’s and earlier of Marcos. It explains, doesn’t it, how he got away with evading taxes that amounted to P25 billion pesos in 2005, which in 2000 was estimated to be at P25.27 billion (yes, I refuse to let go of that .27 billion).

i know i digress, here, but i think this digression points to the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) inability to see Tan as bigger than his current oppression of workers in Philippine Airlines. it points to how DOLE in fact seems to be treating Tan as its very own crony, siding from the beginning with PAL, even having meetings with its officials, as if it is PAL that is aggrieved in this situation.

let’s be clear here: we should feel no pity – at all – for Tan and his PAL management. they are not the oppressed here. and if you think otherwise, you should read up. or maybe try being an employee for once, and then talk to me about oppression.

because oppression is when you’re issued a gag order that disallows you to talk about your salary – not because it’s big mind you, but because it’s lower than most other pilots. in August, 27 pilots resigned because wanted better wages. but this resignation was also about taking a stand against the way they were being treated by Tan and PAL management.

before this, 11 co-pilots had been forced to resign by PAL management because they wanted these pilots to fly planes under Air Philippines and Aero Filipinas – both owned by Tan. the point? these pilots would be hired as contractual employees, which means their wages would be cut in half, low as it already is in PAL.

as bad as this kind of treatment? some pilots aren’t forced to resign, but they are forced to take on flights for Air Philippines on top of the flights they do for PAL. that’s being employee in two companies! correction, that’s forced employment in two companies both owned by he who is called the “most notorious crony capitalist” Tan.

and no, this isn’t just about the pilots. flights have been undermanned, which can only mean overworked flight attendants with the same pay. female flight attendants are also being force to retire at 40, versus 60 for male employees; a maternity leave also means no pay and no benefits. ground crew also hear of their impending forced resignations in order to be re-hired on a contractual basis in Tan’s various spin-off companies.

but it can only get worse. Tan and PAL management did want to work on these spin-off companies so they might gain more profit, but this wasn’t in the form of hiring old workers on a contractual basis; it was to outsource employment which makes imperative the termination of 2,600 workers.

this is what’s in the news at this point, the DOLE decision being released as it was on November 1. the irony would be nice were it not tragic, too. and just reason for anger.

you ask why didn’t PAL employees hold a strike earlier? why did they wait for things to be so bad, to come to a head, to pile up like this? a history lesson might be in order: 12 years ago in retaliation against striking workers, the PAL management terminated 600 pilots and almost 2,000 members of the cabin crew. and yes, that case of wrongful termination is still in our courts.

so you see, Lucio Tan has gotten away with murder in this country, in so many ways, and too many times. governments have let him kill, time and again.

it might be good to remind PNoy that his mother, seeing as she is always invoked by him and his sisters, never dealt with Lucio Tan – in fact Cory was seen as hostile towards Tan, thank goodness.

and just in case this isn’t enough to convince PNoy that his delegation of this job has fallen on horrible hands. read the DOLE’s justification of its decision, it’s so naive – or maybe just blind – to the workings of a capitalist empire like the one Lucio Tan’s creating for himself. DOLE believed PAL when the latter said it has been suffering financially the past two years, though a look at PAL’s own milestones shows that it has done nothing in the past two years but to acquire and to expand. it sure doesn’t look like a business that’s suffering. Cebu Pacific might have beaten it already, but that doesn’t mean it’s in the red.

oh and just so you know, in 1998 PAL also used as excuse financial difficulties to defend its downsizing of operations and termination of employees. but too, maybe all it takes is to imagine how far Lucio Tan’s money – the one that’s declared in and everything else extraneous to those richest man in the Philippines numbers – could go into spending on PAL employees’ wages or just making lives better all around.

but too, there’s an even easier question to ask: if Lucio Tan is second richest man in this country, howthef*#@! can the same man have a business that’s going under?

ULOL.

because it was Mama and I who watched and remembered with a heavy heart the story of the Vizconde Massacre on Cheche Lazaro Presents three nights ago, with stories of its victims. and when i say victims, i don’t just mean the family of Lauro Vizconde, he who has kept the house where the murders happened, he who has kept rooms exactly the way they are, living with such violence must be a tragedy in itself, too.

but as well, and this is the truth, the victimization of the Webb family, and how CLP showed what must be true of any family that has lost a member to prison: it is broken and in pain and in constant suffering.

i empathize on this level, having a good friend C in the same prison as Webb for the past 10 years, with no freedom in sight. he who had plans with us, a pretty solid barkada from college, he who we were/are sure is innocent. and i feel that for all of us who know him, there is a broken heart always, a missing, a loss, because he can’t be in our lives anymore, hasn’t been there for 10 years. and yes, that’s even when we visit him in Muntinlupa every time our lives allow, but as our lives outside happen this does become more and more difficult.

New Bilibid Prisons, on a RockEd-volunteer-in-bilibid-wednesday

so i know what Mrs. Webb means when she talks of the humiliation of being body-searched — yes, as in kapkap nang walang pakundangan. i know how it feels when Jason speaks with an amount of anger and frustration. and i understand when Freddie Webb says that Hubert is innocent, he is positive, as Rene Saguisag is, as Winnie Monsod is.

because i am positive too, that C is innocent, but is doing time in jail, one of five fall guys for a crime that was done by a collective they had the bad luck of being part of. and Bilibid is payment enough, i think, 10 years in Bilibid is payment enough. for people who just might be innocent, for people who were judged guilty by our courts despite evidence to the contrary.

because there are many things extraneous to a criminal case in our courts, yes? there is a media circus and public outcry that any judge would be pressured by, even when they deny it. what i remember clearly about Hubert etal at the time they were being tried in court was this: we wanted them rich boys to go to jail. in our collective minds Hubert etal had proven us right about how the sons of the more powerful and rich are spoiled brats. how they always needed to get their way, how they would never take no for an answer.

we believed because we had already judged Hubert etal. just like we would believe any random set of fratmen to be guilty of a frat gantihan turned murder. just like we would already presume someone guilty, given our own issues as a society, making it impossible to prove anyone innocent really.

that is ultimately the sadness of this society, as it is the tragedy of our justice system. in the end, i think we are all victims, some more than others, some more painful and broken than others. some doing time in jail, others left with only inevitable distance.

I had high hopes for Banaag at Sikat, The Rock Opera, a promise of good music and singing, a contemporary retelling of Lope K. Santos’ original novel on the winds of change that would bring the country to revolt against the overwhelming conditions that capitalism and feudalism wrought on the nation. But as it began with fake guitar playing between friends Delfin (Al Gatmaitan) and Felipe (Roeder Camañag), attached to what then becomes a fake amplifier, and with dancing from a chorus many of whom seemed uncomfortable doing the robot and dancing hiphop, I had to wonder if this musicale meant to be funny.

Love and revolution, not necessarily together
Because it didn’t stop, not the fake guitar-playing, not the requisite head bang. The beautiful love song between Delfin and Meni (Ayen Munji-Laurel) could only lose its tenderness with Delfin fake-playing the song. In this First Act, the beginnings of love are introduced to us at the same time as the characters, all of whom are perfect stereotypes that exist in an oppressive feudal society. Cigar factory El Progreso is owned by Meni’s father Don Ramon Miranda and Don Filemon, both unforgiving and unapologetic capitalists, who refuse to raise the wages of their workers who are ready to revolt. Nyora Loleng is wife of Don Filemon but is mistress to Don Miranda, a seeming pawn to macho control more than a powerful woman.

the rest is up at gmanews.tv!

If there’s anything that Anne Curtis’ swimsuit malfunction highlights about us all, it’s that we are ill-equipped to handle the advance of technology. And I mean, all of us, those who hold cameras in our hands, and those who love being in pictures. In this sense, Anne Curtis is a victim of both the one who shoots, and she who has enjoyed being shot, and even makes a living out of it.

Because in fact, the victimization of Anne could’ve began with the fact that the show’s production allowed people to watch the show with cameras and camera-phones in hand – the more famous shot of Anne has her dancing on stage, right breast exposed, a gazillion hands with camera-phones aimed at her from the audience below. A less famous shot is one that’s taken from the other side of the stage, in a higher position, maybe a tree?, and has Anne being carried by Sam Milby, in the same dance number.

The fact is, we have allowed cameras like these in public exhibitions such as this, because it’s free pre-publicity: in the age of Twitter and Facebook, everything is a status update and photo upload away. Propriety, obviously in this case, be damned. (more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Category Archive for: kalalakihan

Lucio Tan wins again? (DOLE naman!)

or why that San Mig Light will taste infinitely better now

some heart for Hubert

the revolution cannot be staged

objectifying the male? check!

Boob slips in the age of technology, Or the victimization of Anne