Category Archive for: komentaryo

komentaryo

Lucio Tan wins again? (DOLE naman!)

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.

komentaryo

wa’ epek si juana change, or why the RH Bill doesn’t need this

But here being the most important point: the recent Juana Change video Mga Anak ng Diyos is just disappointing. For the most part, it barely gets a discussion going on the truths about the RH Bill versus the lies that are spread about it, nor does it bring the discussion to a level that’s more intelligent as it seems to just be screaming in our faces the whole time. Here, there isn’t a sense of how the RH Bill is NOT about being anti-Church or anti-God, how it isn’t at all about abortion, how it isn’t just about enjoying sex. And yet throughout the video words like cunnilingus, blow job, hand job are thrown around for no good reason and without a clear sense of what these mean vis a vis the RH Bill. This might get extra points for the daring to say these words, but it’s also ultimately dangerous to be throwing them around without a sense of what for.

There is also no good reason to include the issue of priests impregnating members of their flock in this – or any – discussion of the RH Bill. In Mga Anak ng Diyos, Juana herself plays the role of the woman whose first child is the offspring of a priest, now monsignor, the role which Lou Veloso plays, whom she faces in the present as the more critical follower who asks questions abou birth control and has had a ligation. This might be to concretize the hypocrisy of the Pinoy Church, or to point out that even Church leaders commit sins that are bigger than we can imagine, but to point it out here brings the discussion elsewhere other than the RH Bill. It also seems to be pointing a finger at the Church for being sinners too, when the discussion on RH shouldn’t to begin with be about sins, or immorality, or burning in hell.

click here for all of it!

komentaryo

some heart for Hubert

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.

komentaryo

a resigned Ressa, a resigned us

why ABS-CBN? why would any network, in fact, let Maria Ressa go? it barely makes sense, if we know of her and her news and current affairs management and the ways she’s changed the news as we see it. and no, I don’t buy that whole refusal-to-renew-the-contract story, because really you can beg/ plead/ grovel to keep someone on your side,  especially when they’ve done so well, have outdone too many, in fact.

and this Maria has done for ABSCBN, allowing for ANC on Channel 27 to be the one and only reason we are still on Lopez-owned HomeCable even when they continue to provide horrible service especially since they forced subscribers to shift to the digiboxes. her management has single-handedly raised the bar for current affairs shows allowing for something as creative as Storyline to be on air, and bringing back the talk show that ain’t showbiz. of course all these have been on ANC, a cable news channel, but  at least for those of us who can afford cable, there’s a better alternative to news that happens so late in the evening because of the stretch of soap operas (beginning at 7PM and ending at 11:30PM).

and if you don’t agree with any of these, or just don’t have ANC (good for you for refusing the cultural empire of the Lopezes), then at least under Maria’s leadership, local channels have again started to do live broadcasts of senate hearings and such, because ANC was doing it.

this is not to agree with Maria’s management decisions all the time, nor is it to absolve ABSCBN (or any other network for that matter) from responsibility in the Manila hostage tragedy. in fact, I didn’t like that her Wall Street Journal article appeared so soon after the tragedy, adding salt to the wound, if not cutting deeper into it.

BUT I appreciate Maria’s chutzpah, her daring, even when faced with the probability of a collective disgust, or just a critical reader. I remember on Twitter soon after the hostage tragedy, her timeline was riddled with angry followers asking her in so many words what was she thinking!?! I thought Maria handled it with much grace and control, responding when she needed to, when it was a new question that she had yet to answer, and ignoring the redundant and the rhetorically angry.

this also isn’t to say that this was all good, or that we agreed all the time with the way the news was delivered/chosen/spun by ABS-CBN under Maria’s watch. this is to say that in truth there were such real and palpable and concrete changes in news and current affairs, and in which case, there were also better conversations about politics, and more creative documentaries about this country.

of course there’s still i-witness on GMA 7 which is still the best local docu-show I continue to see, and there still is Cheche Lazaro Presents on ABSCBN, whose Vizconde Massacre feature last night was just wonderfully done. but really, where else would Storyline see the light of day, or Strictly Politics, or Media in Focus? this doesn’t mean that we don’t complain about these shows, or that they are always without fault, or are always intelligently done. but this is to say that these are wonderful testaments to what can still happen for local news and current affairs, that we need not be stuck on CNN and BBC for better versions of the local.

in fact, under Maria’s watch, I remembered how I grew up with Randy David and Louie Beltran having their regular political and public affairs shows. yes, this was the time of public affairs versus current affairs, the time when relevance was still most important, versus just being news worthy. but that would be stuff for another blog entry.

here and now the question remains: but why? why let Maria Ressa go, what’s the real score here? though maybe we should be happy enough with, uh, tsismis being infinitely more interesting, even when – or maybe precisely because – it’s in relation to news and current affairs.

and as far as ABSCBN’s concerned?  I don’t think they fool anyone anymore given that the network’s the flagship of a Lopez empire. If anything, it has also become obvious that while they demand that politicians and government be transparent, they can only be farthest from being so themselves. now, in light of their maltreatment of workers finally becoming newsworthy, well, it’s easy to see how Maria’s notions of fairness and justice might not have worked in her favor after all.

so maybe she didn’t resign as damage control would like to point out, but this does feel like resignation, in the i-concede-my-hands-are-up kind of way. and Maria may deny it, but the rest of us can’t: the times when someone like her decides that it’s time to let go, it’s those times that we are forced to concede to the way things are or will inevitably become.

and for some reason, i have a sinking feeling that Maria’s leaving will mean having Kris Aquino back on TV, in what i imagine will be that past-publicized current affairs show. sana ‘wag na lang.

komentaryo

dear P-Noy, on Teachers Day 2010

which has just passed, this day that should be more momentous than most because you yourself spoke of your own teachers at this speech you delivered to commemorate it two days ago. there is no person who was not affected by a teacher in a good way, and that teacher need not be in the classroom.

in the ideal world though, in a world where education is all important in a real sort of way, that teacher would be in the classroom, inspiring students to become teachers too, if not become productive/honest/compassionate citizens of nation. but that is an ideal, and this is not the most ideal of situations we’re in as you yourself say.

but maybe we must start with agreeing on this: if we value education and learning, we must first and foremost value our teachers, and yes, even more so public school teachers. no government has done so in the longest time. no government has cared truthfully and sincerely enough.

why? because it isn’t an easy task to value teachers. because this isn’t about spending on infrastructure and giving students textbooks. to value teachers is to hear them out, to hear them out is to know that their lives within the halls of the public school system are really and truly the most horrid for any teacher across the world. the answer to the question of “why?” is so simple that i will, instead, take you up on all the things you said you are doing for teachers’ benefit and welfare.

(1) you said you were going to build infrastructure where it is needed, and yes it is needed as pictures of overfilled public school classrooms must be floating in your head, as we know of how 60 students fill up classrooms across this country.

BUT. won’t dividing this 60-student classroom just mean having the same teacher running across two rooms, repeating the same lesson? and then imagine doing that in those uniforms with horrible thick and hot tela, and the required heeled shoes, and tadah! a teacher who suffers because there are now more classrooms, but still the same number of teachers.

2) in aid of de-congesting our public schools, you say that there’s now the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education or GASTPE, which is suppose to “make our private school system better so that it can be a viable alternative for parents who want to put their kids to school.”

I translated this section of your speech from Filipino with a smirk. because you don’t need to change anything in the private school system: you need to talk to them owners of private schools to bring down their tuition fees. because in fact, parents who used to be able to afford private schools have been bringing their kids to public schools. the private school tuition fees have killed the middle class families, believe you me. so to think that you can use the private school to decongest the public school? HAH!

3) you say that to help teachers “develop their skills” you are for the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards or NCBTS which will give teachers a whole new set of rules to follow, and some guidelines on which they will be tested, through which they will learn the new ways of teaching.

my question is this: have you seen the NCBTS? the only way it will be used properly and effectively is if all public school teachers are made to go on leave for a full year, un-learning what they’ve practiced all these years, and learning these new ways of teaching and learning. give them a year off with pay, where they will learn to teach again using the NCBTS, during which they can go through real seminars for their areas of specialization, and for English skills as well. have the peace corps teach our public schools for a bit, get volunteers from the private school system (where teachers are paid infinitely better). or sige, compromise tayo: give public school teachers time off with pay, even if just twice a week, thrice if you include saturdays, and have them go through seminars for all the changes you want for a full year or two. it’s only though something like this that this NCBTS plan of yours will be fruitful.

otherwise, it will just be something that will be used by the tenured/regular faculty members in public schools to threaten the job security of the younger/contractual/casual faculty members. and just so you know, as a perfect example of how the NCBTS will just be another test that will not be a measure of teachers’ competencies, check out the fantastic grammar on this site that talks precisely about NCBTS.

your government has said that the “wrong identification of the problem leads to the wrong solution.” well, this is exactly what ails your decisions with regard to education in this country, no matter the kindness of Bro. Luistro’s heart.

you think our problem is the lack of two years in our curriculum: the real problem is that the current curriculum for 10 years isn’t being taught well and doesn’t have corresponding relevant/correct/ critical textbooks for the times. you think our problem is too much homework for kids: the real problem is that this homework is nothing but a reflection of the kind of (non-)teaching that goes on in most public schools, where copying off the board and memorizing without understanding is the point. you think our problem is that our teachers are incompetent: the bigger problem is that they aren’t given enough respect and value to be wanting to teach better and learn more in the process.

the bigger problem is that competent contractual faculty members are at the mercy of the tenured regularized faculty members in the public schools. and while this is not to generalize, you need to have a sense of this struggle, and with whom the change can lie: the teachers who are still excited about teaching are DepEd’s and CHED’s allies.

but protect them. protect our teachers. allow them an amount of job security even when they’ve only been teaching in for a year. don’t treat the academe like a government office where regularization takes forever: teaching is a highly skilled job. telling teachers they need years to gain tenure is to say that they’re nothing but workers. kill off that bundy clock: it’s the worst kind of oppression for teachers who work overtime every day, planning lessons and checking papers outside the classroom, researching and studying on their own outside of school. to require teachers to stay in school beyond their class time is only fair if the schools are equipped with the things that make studying and checking and planning lessons easy: an internet connection, a good school and teachers’ library, desks and tables for studying and writing versus desks that are attached to each other, assembly line style.

protect the teachers, P-Noy, by taking steps to pay them what’s due them from the GSIS and the SSS, where teachers are treated horribly, from which I personally got my benefits a full 22 months after I needed it. protect the teachers, P-Noy by paying them better when you require them to serve during elections.

and quite simply P-Noy, protect teachers by giving them a salary increase. and just in case you think they don’t deserve it, here’s the truth.

when I taught in a public school last year (SY 2009-2010) I was forced to bundy in for six hours a day, regardless of my hours in the classroom. six hours times 10 days (which is half the month that I’m required to be in school) equals 60 hours for the 7,000 pesos or so that I would get on the 15th and 30th of every month. subtract the amounts taken by Pag-Ibig and GSIS and PhilHealth (all of which I have yet to receive IDs for), and that goes down to about P6,500. that means I would get P108 pesos per hour.

yes you read that right: that’s P108.00 pesos per hour. sakto lang sa pamasahe at pagkain. kulang pa para sa pentel pen, manila paper at white board marker na ako pa ang bumibili dahil ang haba ng pila sa paghingi sa school.

if you want to value your teachers, P-Noy, start by telling your Congress to sign House Bill 2142 or the “Public School Teachers’ Salary Upgrade Act” which only has 48 signatures out of 277 house representatives. if you want to value your teachers P-Noy, do so by treating them a little better than you would your regular employee. you are telling your teacher that the future is in their hands, that you want them to mold minds and change this country’s children’s perspectives about the world. this is an infinitely bigger responsibility than that which falls on the shoulders of too many — if not most — government officials.

the public school teacher’s life is really quite difficult enough. it would do your government well to see that everything you’ve wanted to do thus far will not mean any concrete or tangible change in the educational system, and is only going to make things worse.

and yes, P-Noy, if you’re a teacher like me, who’s taught within the tragedies and travesties of the public school’s space(s), you would know that making things worse is the easiest thing to do.