Press Statement / 1 May 2009
IBON Foundation
Tel. (632) 9277060 to 62
Fax (632) 9292496
The situation of Filipino workers is seen to be at its worst today due to
record high joblessness and widespread lay-offs amid the global crisis,
and more radical reforms are needed beyond token government measures.
The average real employment rate of over 11% from 2001 up to the first
quarter of 2009 is the worst in Philippine history and is seen to even
worsen due to the crisis. Workers in the manufacturing sector are
apparently the hardest hit, as the Philippine exports industry is more
vulnerable due to its dependence on the US markets. Job losses seem most
severe in this sector, which reduced 122,000 jobs from 2008 on top of the
137,000 manufacturing jobs already from the year before.
The severe jobs crisis in the country cannot be addressed squarely by the
so-called Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program
(CLEEP) of the Arroyo administration, which does not veer away from
government’s approach in generating jobs. Part of the emergency package is
still providing assistance of re-deployment to affected overseas Filipino
workers (OFWs) and additional trainings for skills upgrading and
retooling. Moreover, even if the program does create the projected 800,000
jobs this year, it still cannot absorb the more than 900,000 new labor
force entrants, on top of the roughly 11,600 permanently retrenched and
38,800 temporarily laid off workers plus the 12,000 displaced OFWs since
October 2008 when the global crisis imploded.
While government’s response is grossly inadequate, IBON moreover decries
the efforts of government and big businesses to pass the burden of
adjusting to the crisis on workers through wage and benefit cuts and
layoffs. Under the administration’ s Economic Resiliency Plan (ERP), the
Department of Labor is insidiously pushing for flexible work schemes like
rotated force leaves and shortened work shifts supposedly as a response to
the global crisis.
In the face of inadequate solutions to address the crisis, the labor
sector and the economy urgently need aggressive reforms and programs.
Measures that would yield immediate benefits include increasing public
spending for social services, removing the VAT on oil products, freeing
public resources by discontinuing debt payments, among others.
Government should also be in the forefront of defending Filipinos’ jobs,
which should involve implementing programs that will stop flexibility
schemes and other work measures that threaten job security. Filipino
producers should also be given a wide range of government support,
including greater and cheaper access to financing, technology, raw
materials and infrastructure. The domestic market can be oriented towards
giving greater opportunities for Filipino industries even as foreign
markets are actively sought. The government can also improve its
procedures, tax benefits and other incentives for Filipino businesses.
Government’s elite-biased and free-market oriented policies, which have
kept the Philippine economy backward, should be also be drastically
reformed. At the minimum, there should be an overhaul of reckless trade
and investment liberalization policies that have worked against local
industries and the welfare of Filipino workers. (end)
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
Lozada - More Than An Accidental Hero
Streetwise
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Engineer Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada is an accidental hero but a hero nonetheless to a people starved for real-life, modern-day heroes. As star witness in the Senate probe on the highly anomalous, $329 NBN-ZTE broadband deal, he exposed the shenanigans of then Comelec Commissioner Abalos, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, all the way up to de facto President Gloria Arroyo, in inking the contract with a Chinese government-owed corporation to the detriment of public interest. He also exposed the use of government forces to kidnap him and hold him against his will while presidential operators alternately threatened and attempted to bribe him to keep his mouth shut.
Jun Lozada is a hero for (1) deciding to tell the truth and not be a party to a massive cover-up; (2) being steadfast and not caving in to enticements and pressures for him to recant; (3) and for fighting back against political persecution, his own and indirectly, that of others targeted by the Arroyo regime.
In particular, he has taken his cause against the corrupt GMA regime one step further in this latest episode of the continuing saga - Lozada and the Filipino people vs Malacañang - by his refusal to file bail in the perjury case filed against him by Mr. Mike Defensor. Instead he has chosen to go to jail to assert legally and politically that there are absolutely no grounds for his arrest. Rather, he is a victim of Malacanang’s political vendetta and its desperate attempts to deodorize the stink of the NBN-ZTE and other corrupt deals.
Too bad for Malacanang, Mr. Lozada’s story was much more believable; his body language, more spontaneous and sincere; and the dramatic circumstances surrounding his decision to testify in the Senate and state the truth as he knew it, not only added to his credibility but was so gripping, the usually boring Senate investigations became material for prime time TV.
Overwhelming public opinion at the time was that Mr. Lozada told the truth while FG’s and Mrs. Arroyo’s cohorts like Mr. Abalos, and her lapdogs like Mr. Defensor, lied through their teeth. What with the Arroyo regime’s moves to keep then NEDA Secretary Romulo Neri from giving damaging testimony by invoking “executive privilege”, the Arroyo regime’s legal acrobatics was exposed as its way to maintain a humongous lie and get off the hook, the way it did with the “Hello Garci” election fraud scandal and later, the Jocjoc Bolante fertilizer scam.
At first blush, it would appear that Mr. Lozada is trying to be some kind of martyr, if not trying to get public sympathy as an underdog. But what he has done is embark on a determined campaign for justice: first, in the court of public opinion; and secondly, but no less importantly, in the judge’s court.
By refusing to post bail, he has squarely taken on the gross injustice of the court’s finding of probable cause (that he had lied in his sworn testimony) and its issuance of a warrant for his arrest. Had he immediately filed bail to avoid detention, it would have meant accepting the court’s findings and submitting himself to it. The news would have merited a small spot in the inside pages of the newspapers and thereafter been consigned to oblivion. Malacañang would have won Round 1 of the fight.
Mr. Defensor stated in a press conference - while Mr. Lozada was being arrested and just before he flew off on a vacation to the USA with his entire family in tow - that he had sought relief from the courts because he wanted to preserve the honor of his name. Of course, no one really believes the guy considering he has allowed himself to be used repeatedly by his Great Patroness, Mrs. Arroyo, for all sorts of missions impossible, doing political damage control. He only ended up with egg on his face and his name and reputation damaged further each time.
Mr. Lozada has repeatedly stated that this is not just about him and the seemingly peevish Mr. Defensor. He had initially thought of resuming a normal life, going back home with his family and putting up some kind of business so that he would no longer have to depend on the sanctuary program of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines. Then this reversal of the court ruling that he had not perjured himself and the order for his arrest.
He could have chosen to go down quietly, i.e. not fight this latest legal setback and just hope that his tormentors get tired of playing games with him and for things to blow over. Like other whistleblowers before him who picked up the pieces of their life after courageously testifying in the Senate or in court and then finding themselves hung out high and dry with no legal and physical protection against the powerful people they dared expose.
Instead Mr. Lozada has chosen passive resistance: to go to jail yet still do battle albeit within the confines of the judicial processes that have been shown highly stacked against him.
His move has taken Malacañang by surprise and is likely causing Mrs. Arroyo and her political advisers sleepless nights. It has landed in print and broadcast media headlines. And it has the potential to capture people’s imaginations and get them on their feet, raging against the injustice of this regime and its manipulation of the flawed judicial system.
But on the part of those who support him - the truth seekers, the social and political activists and those who are just plain fed up with the exploitative and oppressive system - resistance must be active.
Jun Lozada deserves our support. His recent actions are showing him to be an essentially upright and courageous man with an intense sense of patriotism and an unflagging confidence his fellow Filipinos will see the truth and embrace it. His fight is also our fight. And it can be the occasion to further the struggle against systemic corruption and elite politics that is almost universally abhorred except by those who gain from it and wish to maintain the status quo.
Jun Lozada is a leading member of Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change, a new movement that gathers concerned citizens desirous of a more meaningful change in our society; not just a change of leadership in government but a decisive break from the poverty-ridden, unjust and corrupt social system that grew worse even after two EDSA uprisings. His active participation in Pagbabago! shows he has gone a long, long way from being an accidental hero.
Would it not be an irony of the most triumphant kind if this latest attempt to silence Jun Lozada, to break his will and to isolate him, should in fact turn into an outpouring of support for him and a denunciation of this lying, plundering, and murderous regime?
Let it be so.#
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Engineer Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada is an accidental hero but a hero nonetheless to a people starved for real-life, modern-day heroes. As star witness in the Senate probe on the highly anomalous, $329 NBN-ZTE broadband deal, he exposed the shenanigans of then Comelec Commissioner Abalos, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, all the way up to de facto President Gloria Arroyo, in inking the contract with a Chinese government-owed corporation to the detriment of public interest. He also exposed the use of government forces to kidnap him and hold him against his will while presidential operators alternately threatened and attempted to bribe him to keep his mouth shut.
Jun Lozada is a hero for (1) deciding to tell the truth and not be a party to a massive cover-up; (2) being steadfast and not caving in to enticements and pressures for him to recant; (3) and for fighting back against political persecution, his own and indirectly, that of others targeted by the Arroyo regime.
In particular, he has taken his cause against the corrupt GMA regime one step further in this latest episode of the continuing saga - Lozada and the Filipino people vs Malacañang - by his refusal to file bail in the perjury case filed against him by Mr. Mike Defensor. Instead he has chosen to go to jail to assert legally and politically that there are absolutely no grounds for his arrest. Rather, he is a victim of Malacanang’s political vendetta and its desperate attempts to deodorize the stink of the NBN-ZTE and other corrupt deals.
Too bad for Malacanang, Mr. Lozada’s story was much more believable; his body language, more spontaneous and sincere; and the dramatic circumstances surrounding his decision to testify in the Senate and state the truth as he knew it, not only added to his credibility but was so gripping, the usually boring Senate investigations became material for prime time TV.
Overwhelming public opinion at the time was that Mr. Lozada told the truth while FG’s and Mrs. Arroyo’s cohorts like Mr. Abalos, and her lapdogs like Mr. Defensor, lied through their teeth. What with the Arroyo regime’s moves to keep then NEDA Secretary Romulo Neri from giving damaging testimony by invoking “executive privilege”, the Arroyo regime’s legal acrobatics was exposed as its way to maintain a humongous lie and get off the hook, the way it did with the “Hello Garci” election fraud scandal and later, the Jocjoc Bolante fertilizer scam.
At first blush, it would appear that Mr. Lozada is trying to be some kind of martyr, if not trying to get public sympathy as an underdog. But what he has done is embark on a determined campaign for justice: first, in the court of public opinion; and secondly, but no less importantly, in the judge’s court.
By refusing to post bail, he has squarely taken on the gross injustice of the court’s finding of probable cause (that he had lied in his sworn testimony) and its issuance of a warrant for his arrest. Had he immediately filed bail to avoid detention, it would have meant accepting the court’s findings and submitting himself to it. The news would have merited a small spot in the inside pages of the newspapers and thereafter been consigned to oblivion. Malacañang would have won Round 1 of the fight.
Mr. Defensor stated in a press conference - while Mr. Lozada was being arrested and just before he flew off on a vacation to the USA with his entire family in tow - that he had sought relief from the courts because he wanted to preserve the honor of his name. Of course, no one really believes the guy considering he has allowed himself to be used repeatedly by his Great Patroness, Mrs. Arroyo, for all sorts of missions impossible, doing political damage control. He only ended up with egg on his face and his name and reputation damaged further each time.
Mr. Lozada has repeatedly stated that this is not just about him and the seemingly peevish Mr. Defensor. He had initially thought of resuming a normal life, going back home with his family and putting up some kind of business so that he would no longer have to depend on the sanctuary program of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines. Then this reversal of the court ruling that he had not perjured himself and the order for his arrest.
He could have chosen to go down quietly, i.e. not fight this latest legal setback and just hope that his tormentors get tired of playing games with him and for things to blow over. Like other whistleblowers before him who picked up the pieces of their life after courageously testifying in the Senate or in court and then finding themselves hung out high and dry with no legal and physical protection against the powerful people they dared expose.
Instead Mr. Lozada has chosen passive resistance: to go to jail yet still do battle albeit within the confines of the judicial processes that have been shown highly stacked against him.
His move has taken Malacañang by surprise and is likely causing Mrs. Arroyo and her political advisers sleepless nights. It has landed in print and broadcast media headlines. And it has the potential to capture people’s imaginations and get them on their feet, raging against the injustice of this regime and its manipulation of the flawed judicial system.
But on the part of those who support him - the truth seekers, the social and political activists and those who are just plain fed up with the exploitative and oppressive system - resistance must be active.
Jun Lozada deserves our support. His recent actions are showing him to be an essentially upright and courageous man with an intense sense of patriotism and an unflagging confidence his fellow Filipinos will see the truth and embrace it. His fight is also our fight. And it can be the occasion to further the struggle against systemic corruption and elite politics that is almost universally abhorred except by those who gain from it and wish to maintain the status quo.
Jun Lozada is a leading member of Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change, a new movement that gathers concerned citizens desirous of a more meaningful change in our society; not just a change of leadership in government but a decisive break from the poverty-ridden, unjust and corrupt social system that grew worse even after two EDSA uprisings. His active participation in Pagbabago! shows he has gone a long, long way from being an accidental hero.
Would it not be an irony of the most triumphant kind if this latest attempt to silence Jun Lozada, to break his will and to isolate him, should in fact turn into an outpouring of support for him and a denunciation of this lying, plundering, and murderous regime?
Let it be so.#
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Unionism in the University of the Philippines: A post-Marcos dictatorship gain
by: Judy M. Taguiwalo, Ph.D.
The UP Forum
Volume 10, Number 2, March-April 2009
Introduction
Unions are established where an employer-employee relationship exists. The basic concerns of unions are the protection of the rights of employees, the advancement of their economic welfare and improvements in their terms and conditions of work.
Public sector unionism in the Philippines is a relatively recent reclaimed right by government personnel in the country. The reclaiming of such a right cannot be divorced from the gains won by the Filipino people in ending the 20-year martial rule when through presidential edict the right of public sector employees to form unions was removed.
Prior to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, unionism in the public sector except in government-owned and controlled-corporations was prohibited by Presidential Decree No. 442 or “The Labor Code of the Philippines.”1
The rights of Filipino government employees to form unions were recognized only after the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship. These rights are enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution:
Article III, Sec. 8. The right of the people, including those employed in the public and private sectors, to form unions, associations, or societies for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged;
Article IX-B, Sec. 2 (5). The right to self organization shall not be denied to government employees; and
Article XIII, Sec. 3. The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.
The State shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.
Executive Order No. 180, issued on June 1, 1987 by then President Corazon Aquino spelled out the scope and limits of public sector unionism.2
Unionism in the University of the Philippines: Beginnings
In the University of the Philippines, a number of UP faculty members, administrative staff and research, extension and professional staff banded together in 1987 to exercise the newly recognized right to form a union and established the All-UP Workers Union. Another union composed solely of administrative staff, the Organization of Non-Academic Personnel of UP (ONAPUP) was registered in 1987.
There has been no controversy regarding the need for a union of administrative staff of the university. But questions have been raised about the composition of a faculty union in the university.
In 1990, the UP Administration, through its General Counsel, objected to the inclusion of all teaching personnel as “rank-and-file” and therefore eligible to become union members. It averred that “only those holding appointments at the instructor level may be so considered, because those holding appointments from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to full Professor take part, as members of the University Council, a policy making body, in the initiation of policies and rules with respect to faculty tenure and promotions.” 3
The Supreme Court in its July 14, 1992 decision ruled that in light “of Executive Order No. 180 and its implementing rules, as well as the University’s charter and relevant regulations, the professors, associate professors and assistant professors (hereafter simply referred to as professors) cannot be considered as exercising such managerial or highly confidential functions as would justify their being categorized as ‘high-level’ employees of the institution.”4 The court also ruled that membership of professors in the University Council is not sufficient to consider them as “policy-determining” since decisions of the University Council are subject to review, evaluation and final approval of the Board of Regents. The Supreme Court further clarified that whatever policy determining functions the University Council has are in the realm of “academic matters, those governing the relationship between the University and its students, and not the University as an employer and the professors as employees”. The same 1992 Supreme Court decision’s final paragraph stated that academic employees of the institution – i.e., full professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors and the research, extension and professional staff, “may, if so minded, organize themselves into a separate (from the administrative staff) collective bargaining unit”.
In conformity with this Supreme Court decision, the All-UP Academic Employees Union, as the union of academic teaching and non-teaching personnel, was formed in December 2001 and the All-UP Workers Union transformed itself to become an all-administrative staff union. The All-UP Workers Alliance provides the mechanism for the two UP unions to work together to advance common interests.
Gains made by the UP-accredited unions
The All UP Workers Union and the All UP Academic Employees Union basically adhere to the same basic principles and aims which are reflected in the preamble of their Constitutions:
We are aware of our role in the pursuit of the mission of the University as a sacred trust of the Filipino people. We are also conscious of the need to consolidate our collective strength as a means towards effective participation in decision making on matters affecting our interests and welfare.
We commit ourselves to protect our rights and to advance our interests towards decent work, under conditions which enhance creativity, excellence, freedom, justice, dignity, security and equity without discrimination for all academic/administrative employees in the University.
We fully realize that our effort to enhance the quality of our life forms part of the general movement to achieve a just and democratic social order, and a better standard of living for the Filipino people. We affirm our responsibility to contribute to the unity and well-being of all employees of the University of the Philippines and all disadvantaged members of Philippine society.
To more effectively advance the rights and welfare of rank-and-file personnel of the University which they represent, unions have to win the right to negotiate with the university administration and thus have to be accredited.
Registration and accreditation of a union are two different things. Registration means the formation of a public sector union and registering such with the Department of Labor and Employment and the Civil Service Commission. Registration does not automatically give the union the right to negotiate with the employer. Accreditation or the right to be the sole-and-exclusive representative of the rank-and-file personnel of a negotiating unit requires proof that the union has gained the majority support of such personnel. This is achieved through a certification election (CE) where members of the negotiating unit vote for their union of choice (or in the absence of more than one union, to vote for no union representation) or through the automatic recognition of a union attained by garnering the signatures of the majority of the rank-and-file personnel.
The All-UP Workers Union has twice been accredited by winning the certification elections in 2001 and 2007. The All-UP Academic Employees Union won accreditation in 2006 through the automatic recognition given to it by the Civil Service Commission after the latter verified that the union has garnered the support of the majority of the rank-and-file faculty and REPS of the university.
Through the dual thrusts of negotiations and collective actions, the All UP Workers Union and the All UP Academic Employees Union have won numerous economic and non-economic benefits for the administrative staff and even prior to the accreditation of the academic union, for the academic personnel on the basis of equity. These economic benefits include yearend incentive allowances of P69,000 in the past seven years, the grant of rice subsidy for personnel starting 2003, the first time in the history of the University that personnel received such subsidy; the increase in loyalty pay award from P2,500 to P5,000 for every five years of service; P1,000 annual grocery allowance since 2006, among others. 5
During UPs centennial year, the unions advocated and won the P20,000 centennial bonus for every regular UP employee still employed as of June 2008.* The unions actively and successfully lobbied for the inclusion of the UP personnel in the 10% salary increase automatically granted to other government employees in July 2008 after the Department of Budget and Management initially excluded UP on account of the 2008 UP Charter. A Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) incentive of P10, 000 each was awarded early this year to all UP employees after the approval of the CNAs between the two unions and the UP Administration.
The unions have also won non-monetary benefits for the rank-and-file administrative and academic personnel through the grant of additional three-day special leave privileges and additional three-day job-related sickness leave, among others.
Beyond the economic benefits, the unions’ CNAs expanded rank-and-file participation in the university’s governance. The CNAs recognize union representation in key university committees especially those committees involving “terms and conditions of work.” This ensures that representatives of the rank-and-file chosen by them are involved in drafting proposals, in implementing and in reviewing university policies related to their welfare.
The two unions have also facilitated information dissemination on decisions and policies related to UP personnel welfare whether these emanate from the national government or from the University administration. They have worked toward ensuring that transparency and due process are upheld in administrative decisions involving renewal, tenure, promotions or disciplinary actions against UP personnel. In a number of cases, the unions have assisted individual UP personnel with grievance issues raised in the agency or unit levels. And they have proposed enabling conditions for faculty and REPS to fulfill new academic requirements for tenure and promotion.
Consistent with the declarations in their Constitution and by-laws that the All-UP Workers Union and the All-UP Academic Employees Union are part of the “general movement to achieve a just and democratic social order and a better standard of living for the Filipino people.” the two unions have participated in advocacies against corruption in government, against electoral fraud, against human rights violation in the country and against policies which diminish Philippine sovereignty.
Challenges
Conditions internal and external to the University demand that the university unions persist in its advocacy for the rights and welfare of UP personnel and to link this advocacy with national and international issues.
The university unions need to make sure that the following purposes of the university embodied in the 2008 UP Charter and which directly affect them are attained:6
Protect and promote the professional and economic rights and welfare of its academic and non-academic personnel;
Provide democratic governance in the University based on collegiality, representation, accountability, transparency and active participation of its constituents, and promote the holding of fora for students, faculty, research, extension and professional staff (REPS), staff, and alumni to discuss non-academic issues affecting the University
At the same time, the unions need to continue to advocate that UP as a state university should “promote, foster, nurture and protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality education.”7 They have to persist in opposing university policies which “corporatize” university governance and financial management as these erode the public and democratic character of the university and emphasize a market or profit orientation while diminishing the service character of the institution. Aware of the link between national policies and the University’s and its personnel’s welfare, the unions must work for national economic and education policies which give priority to financing education and other social services and an educational direction that would put emphasis on national development and service to the Filipino people instead of education for meeting the needs of the global market through the export of labor.
__________
Dr. Judy Taguiwalo is professor at the College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines Diliman, and founding National President of the All-UP Academic Employees Union (December 2001-April 2008). She also served as National Secretary of the All-UP Workers Union from 1998-2001.
Notes:
1 Article 244 of PD 442, “Right of employees in the public service. - Employees of government corporations established under the Corporation Code shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively with their respective employers. All other employees in the civil service shall have the right to form associations for purposes not contrary to law.”
2 Executive Order No. 180 June 1, 1987, Providing Guidelines for the Exercise of the Right to Organize Government Employees. http://www.lawphil.net/executive/execord/eo1987/eo_180_1987.html, accessed August 12, 2007
3 As cited in the Supreme Court decision, G.R. No. 96189, July 14, 1992. p. 4
4 ibid. p. 6.
5 Clodualdo Cabrera, “ Ang Maikling Kasaysayan ng All UP Workers Union”, Serve the People, Ang Kasaysayan ng Radikal na Kilusan sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, edited by Bienvenido Lumbera et al. (Quezon City: Ibon Foundation, Inc., 2008).
6 SEC. 3. Purpose of the University; (e) and (h). Republic Act 9500 or the 2008 UP Charter
7 SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy. Republic Act 9500 or the 2008 UP Charter.
Additional Notes:
* Appealed to for clarification, the Office of the UP President provided this information: In response to urgent requests from different sectors of the UP community for a Centennial bonus, President Emerlinda R. Roman began meeting as early as February 2008 with the different chancellors, to determine if funds for this could be sourced. When they were able to identify such sources, the request was submitted to DBM, and subsequently to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Final approval came only on UPs Centennial Day, June 18.
While unionism in state universities and colleges in the Philippines is relatively new, academic unions in the United States have gained ground in the past thirty yeas.
An historical example from the United States illustrates the intimate connection between the founding of faculty unions and the pursuit of academic freedom.
The historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy and the philosopher John Dewey initiated the formation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)(Unions of Faculty and other Members of the Academic Community in the United States) in 1915 when they saw how easily the noted economist, Edward Ross was unjustly deprived of his job at Stanford University because the owner didn’t like his views on immigrant labor and railroad monopolies.1
Much more recently, in a November 2005 document entitled “Unionism: Principles and Goals”2 the AAUP noted that:
Over the past thirty years, faculty and other members of the academic community have increasingly turned to unions to protect their individual rights, their shared role in institutional governance, and the standards and practices that guarantee the quality of American higher education. Unions have proven effective in struggles to defend tenure, protect academic freedom, and secure “a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability.
In that same AAUP document, the association enumerated a number of benefits that academic unions provide:
(1) Unions enable faculty and other members of the academic community, who would be powerless alone, to safeguard their teaching and working conditions by pooling their strengths.
(2) Unions make it possible for different sectors of the academic community to secure contractual, legally enforceable claims on college administrations, at a time when reliance on traditional advice and consent has proved inadequate.
(3) Unions provide members with critical institutional analyses—of budget figures, enrollment trends, and policy formulations—that would be unavailable without the resources provided by member dues and national experts.
(4) Unions increase the legislative influence and political impact of the academic community as a whole by maintaining regular relations with state and federal governments and collaborating with affiliated labor organizations.
(5) Unions reinforce the collegiality necessary to preserve the vitality of academic life under such threats as deprofessionalization and fractionalization of the faculty, rivatization of public services, and the expanding claims of managerial primacy in governance.
Notes
1 “History of AAUP”. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/history/ , accessed March 28, 2009
2 “Unionism: Principles and Goals”. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/protect/bargaining/aaup-unionism.htm, accessed April 22, 2008.
The UP Forum
Volume 10, Number 2, March-April 2009
Introduction
Unions are established where an employer-employee relationship exists. The basic concerns of unions are the protection of the rights of employees, the advancement of their economic welfare and improvements in their terms and conditions of work.
Public sector unionism in the Philippines is a relatively recent reclaimed right by government personnel in the country. The reclaiming of such a right cannot be divorced from the gains won by the Filipino people in ending the 20-year martial rule when through presidential edict the right of public sector employees to form unions was removed.
Prior to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, unionism in the public sector except in government-owned and controlled-corporations was prohibited by Presidential Decree No. 442 or “The Labor Code of the Philippines.”1
The rights of Filipino government employees to form unions were recognized only after the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship. These rights are enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution:
Article III, Sec. 8. The right of the people, including those employed in the public and private sectors, to form unions, associations, or societies for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged;
Article IX-B, Sec. 2 (5). The right to self organization shall not be denied to government employees; and
Article XIII, Sec. 3. The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.
The State shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.
Executive Order No. 180, issued on June 1, 1987 by then President Corazon Aquino spelled out the scope and limits of public sector unionism.2
Unionism in the University of the Philippines: Beginnings
In the University of the Philippines, a number of UP faculty members, administrative staff and research, extension and professional staff banded together in 1987 to exercise the newly recognized right to form a union and established the All-UP Workers Union. Another union composed solely of administrative staff, the Organization of Non-Academic Personnel of UP (ONAPUP) was registered in 1987.
There has been no controversy regarding the need for a union of administrative staff of the university. But questions have been raised about the composition of a faculty union in the university.
In 1990, the UP Administration, through its General Counsel, objected to the inclusion of all teaching personnel as “rank-and-file” and therefore eligible to become union members. It averred that “only those holding appointments at the instructor level may be so considered, because those holding appointments from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to full Professor take part, as members of the University Council, a policy making body, in the initiation of policies and rules with respect to faculty tenure and promotions.” 3
The Supreme Court in its July 14, 1992 decision ruled that in light “of Executive Order No. 180 and its implementing rules, as well as the University’s charter and relevant regulations, the professors, associate professors and assistant professors (hereafter simply referred to as professors) cannot be considered as exercising such managerial or highly confidential functions as would justify their being categorized as ‘high-level’ employees of the institution.”4 The court also ruled that membership of professors in the University Council is not sufficient to consider them as “policy-determining” since decisions of the University Council are subject to review, evaluation and final approval of the Board of Regents. The Supreme Court further clarified that whatever policy determining functions the University Council has are in the realm of “academic matters, those governing the relationship between the University and its students, and not the University as an employer and the professors as employees”. The same 1992 Supreme Court decision’s final paragraph stated that academic employees of the institution – i.e., full professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors and the research, extension and professional staff, “may, if so minded, organize themselves into a separate (from the administrative staff) collective bargaining unit”.
In conformity with this Supreme Court decision, the All-UP Academic Employees Union, as the union of academic teaching and non-teaching personnel, was formed in December 2001 and the All-UP Workers Union transformed itself to become an all-administrative staff union. The All-UP Workers Alliance provides the mechanism for the two UP unions to work together to advance common interests.
Gains made by the UP-accredited unions
The All UP Workers Union and the All UP Academic Employees Union basically adhere to the same basic principles and aims which are reflected in the preamble of their Constitutions:
We are aware of our role in the pursuit of the mission of the University as a sacred trust of the Filipino people. We are also conscious of the need to consolidate our collective strength as a means towards effective participation in decision making on matters affecting our interests and welfare.
We commit ourselves to protect our rights and to advance our interests towards decent work, under conditions which enhance creativity, excellence, freedom, justice, dignity, security and equity without discrimination for all academic/administrative employees in the University.
We fully realize that our effort to enhance the quality of our life forms part of the general movement to achieve a just and democratic social order, and a better standard of living for the Filipino people. We affirm our responsibility to contribute to the unity and well-being of all employees of the University of the Philippines and all disadvantaged members of Philippine society.
To more effectively advance the rights and welfare of rank-and-file personnel of the University which they represent, unions have to win the right to negotiate with the university administration and thus have to be accredited.
Registration and accreditation of a union are two different things. Registration means the formation of a public sector union and registering such with the Department of Labor and Employment and the Civil Service Commission. Registration does not automatically give the union the right to negotiate with the employer. Accreditation or the right to be the sole-and-exclusive representative of the rank-and-file personnel of a negotiating unit requires proof that the union has gained the majority support of such personnel. This is achieved through a certification election (CE) where members of the negotiating unit vote for their union of choice (or in the absence of more than one union, to vote for no union representation) or through the automatic recognition of a union attained by garnering the signatures of the majority of the rank-and-file personnel.
The All-UP Workers Union has twice been accredited by winning the certification elections in 2001 and 2007. The All-UP Academic Employees Union won accreditation in 2006 through the automatic recognition given to it by the Civil Service Commission after the latter verified that the union has garnered the support of the majority of the rank-and-file faculty and REPS of the university.
Through the dual thrusts of negotiations and collective actions, the All UP Workers Union and the All UP Academic Employees Union have won numerous economic and non-economic benefits for the administrative staff and even prior to the accreditation of the academic union, for the academic personnel on the basis of equity. These economic benefits include yearend incentive allowances of P69,000 in the past seven years, the grant of rice subsidy for personnel starting 2003, the first time in the history of the University that personnel received such subsidy; the increase in loyalty pay award from P2,500 to P5,000 for every five years of service; P1,000 annual grocery allowance since 2006, among others. 5
During UPs centennial year, the unions advocated and won the P20,000 centennial bonus for every regular UP employee still employed as of June 2008.* The unions actively and successfully lobbied for the inclusion of the UP personnel in the 10% salary increase automatically granted to other government employees in July 2008 after the Department of Budget and Management initially excluded UP on account of the 2008 UP Charter. A Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) incentive of P10, 000 each was awarded early this year to all UP employees after the approval of the CNAs between the two unions and the UP Administration.
The unions have also won non-monetary benefits for the rank-and-file administrative and academic personnel through the grant of additional three-day special leave privileges and additional three-day job-related sickness leave, among others.
Beyond the economic benefits, the unions’ CNAs expanded rank-and-file participation in the university’s governance. The CNAs recognize union representation in key university committees especially those committees involving “terms and conditions of work.” This ensures that representatives of the rank-and-file chosen by them are involved in drafting proposals, in implementing and in reviewing university policies related to their welfare.
The two unions have also facilitated information dissemination on decisions and policies related to UP personnel welfare whether these emanate from the national government or from the University administration. They have worked toward ensuring that transparency and due process are upheld in administrative decisions involving renewal, tenure, promotions or disciplinary actions against UP personnel. In a number of cases, the unions have assisted individual UP personnel with grievance issues raised in the agency or unit levels. And they have proposed enabling conditions for faculty and REPS to fulfill new academic requirements for tenure and promotion.
Consistent with the declarations in their Constitution and by-laws that the All-UP Workers Union and the All-UP Academic Employees Union are part of the “general movement to achieve a just and democratic social order and a better standard of living for the Filipino people.” the two unions have participated in advocacies against corruption in government, against electoral fraud, against human rights violation in the country and against policies which diminish Philippine sovereignty.
Challenges
Conditions internal and external to the University demand that the university unions persist in its advocacy for the rights and welfare of UP personnel and to link this advocacy with national and international issues.
The university unions need to make sure that the following purposes of the university embodied in the 2008 UP Charter and which directly affect them are attained:6
Protect and promote the professional and economic rights and welfare of its academic and non-academic personnel;
Provide democratic governance in the University based on collegiality, representation, accountability, transparency and active participation of its constituents, and promote the holding of fora for students, faculty, research, extension and professional staff (REPS), staff, and alumni to discuss non-academic issues affecting the University
At the same time, the unions need to continue to advocate that UP as a state university should “promote, foster, nurture and protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality education.”7 They have to persist in opposing university policies which “corporatize” university governance and financial management as these erode the public and democratic character of the university and emphasize a market or profit orientation while diminishing the service character of the institution. Aware of the link between national policies and the University’s and its personnel’s welfare, the unions must work for national economic and education policies which give priority to financing education and other social services and an educational direction that would put emphasis on national development and service to the Filipino people instead of education for meeting the needs of the global market through the export of labor.
__________
Dr. Judy Taguiwalo is professor at the College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines Diliman, and founding National President of the All-UP Academic Employees Union (December 2001-April 2008). She also served as National Secretary of the All-UP Workers Union from 1998-2001.
Notes:
1 Article 244 of PD 442, “Right of employees in the public service. - Employees of government corporations established under the Corporation Code shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively with their respective employers. All other employees in the civil service shall have the right to form associations for purposes not contrary to law.”
2 Executive Order No. 180 June 1, 1987, Providing Guidelines for the Exercise of the Right to Organize Government Employees. http://www.lawphil.net/executive/execord/eo1987/eo_180_1987.html, accessed August 12, 2007
3 As cited in the Supreme Court decision, G.R. No. 96189, July 14, 1992. p. 4
4 ibid. p. 6.
5 Clodualdo Cabrera, “ Ang Maikling Kasaysayan ng All UP Workers Union”, Serve the People, Ang Kasaysayan ng Radikal na Kilusan sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, edited by Bienvenido Lumbera et al. (Quezon City: Ibon Foundation, Inc., 2008).
6 SEC. 3. Purpose of the University; (e) and (h). Republic Act 9500 or the 2008 UP Charter
7 SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy. Republic Act 9500 or the 2008 UP Charter.
Additional Notes:
* Appealed to for clarification, the Office of the UP President provided this information: In response to urgent requests from different sectors of the UP community for a Centennial bonus, President Emerlinda R. Roman began meeting as early as February 2008 with the different chancellors, to determine if funds for this could be sourced. When they were able to identify such sources, the request was submitted to DBM, and subsequently to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Final approval came only on UPs Centennial Day, June 18.
While unionism in state universities and colleges in the Philippines is relatively new, academic unions in the United States have gained ground in the past thirty yeas.
An historical example from the United States illustrates the intimate connection between the founding of faculty unions and the pursuit of academic freedom.
The historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy and the philosopher John Dewey initiated the formation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)(Unions of Faculty and other Members of the Academic Community in the United States) in 1915 when they saw how easily the noted economist, Edward Ross was unjustly deprived of his job at Stanford University because the owner didn’t like his views on immigrant labor and railroad monopolies.1
Much more recently, in a November 2005 document entitled “Unionism: Principles and Goals”2 the AAUP noted that:
Over the past thirty years, faculty and other members of the academic community have increasingly turned to unions to protect their individual rights, their shared role in institutional governance, and the standards and practices that guarantee the quality of American higher education. Unions have proven effective in struggles to defend tenure, protect academic freedom, and secure “a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability.
In that same AAUP document, the association enumerated a number of benefits that academic unions provide:
(1) Unions enable faculty and other members of the academic community, who would be powerless alone, to safeguard their teaching and working conditions by pooling their strengths.
(2) Unions make it possible for different sectors of the academic community to secure contractual, legally enforceable claims on college administrations, at a time when reliance on traditional advice and consent has proved inadequate.
(3) Unions provide members with critical institutional analyses—of budget figures, enrollment trends, and policy formulations—that would be unavailable without the resources provided by member dues and national experts.
(4) Unions increase the legislative influence and political impact of the academic community as a whole by maintaining regular relations with state and federal governments and collaborating with affiliated labor organizations.
(5) Unions reinforce the collegiality necessary to preserve the vitality of academic life under such threats as deprofessionalization and fractionalization of the faculty, rivatization of public services, and the expanding claims of managerial primacy in governance.
Notes
1 “History of AAUP”. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/history/ , accessed March 28, 2009
2 “Unionism: Principles and Goals”. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/protect/bargaining/aaup-unionism.htm, accessed April 22, 2008.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Failon syndrome
Streetwise
by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
In this country, the name Failon has instantly become associated with police brutality and abuse of authority. The untimely death of Trinidad Etong, the wife of popular radio and television news anchor Ted Failon, likely by her own hand, has resulted in a series of tragic events for her family. What would otherwise be a personal cross to bear for Mr. Failon and his children has become a highly publicized spectacle of the police venting their ire and their incompetence on the hapless members of Mr. Failon’s household, including his wife’s siblings, who just happened to be there.
This is not just a case of police overzealousness, nor of police brutality. All the elements that should have stayed the hand of the police were present. At the outset the case was an apparent suicide attempt; the commission of a felony was not self-evident although it could not be ruled out. Mr. Failon is a high- profile media personality, a former Congressman, a man of some means and with connections in high places, as high up as Vice President Noli de Castro, who rushed to Mr. Failon’s side after the incident.
Prudence and judiciousness were clearly the way to go for any responsible police investigator but the police authorities did the exact opposite.
Very early on the investigators drew the conclusion that they were dealing with a parricide case; i.e. Mr. Failon had attempted to kill his wife. Even while Ms. Etong was fighting for her life in the hospital, the police were engaged, not in investigating the circumstances of the shooting, but in building up a case against her husband.
They were quick to speculate that the wife had been shot in Mr. Failon’s car and then transferred to the bathroom. This despite the testimony of all the household help, Ms. Etong’s sister and Mr. Failon that they found her in the bathroom bathed in a pool of her own blood, with a gun at her side, and that she was subsequently rushed by Mr. Failon to the hospital in his car.
The police initially stated that there was no evidence of the spent bullet ricocheting in the bathroom (they later found it); that the husband had scratches on his back indicating that the “victim” had fought off her “assailant” (there were none); and that there were solid indications of an attempted cover-up by cleaning the scene of the crime, both the bloodied bathroom and the vehicle.
The “law enforcers” were uncharacteristicall y swift in hauling off Mr. Failon for questioning; they took forever to process his sworn statement; and it was only through the intervention of the Chief of the Public Attorney’s Office that he was temporarily released. Whereupon police officials peremptorily declared that he was the object of a manhunt for illegally removing himself from their custody.
They manhandled, summarily arrested and arbitrarily detained Mr. Failon’s house help, driver, and in-laws on the groundless charge of “obstruction of justice” when they had not even established if a crime had been committed.
Their brash and excessive actions indicate confidence that they had the approval, if not the direct orders of “higher ups” in the Philippine National Police (PNP) and perhaps even in the higher reaches of government.
The immediate and unwavering support for the police by the Justice Secretary compared to the slow response to complaints of police abuse by those directly supervising the PNP, strongly suggest that powerful quarters are at work here. They have an axe to grind against Mr. Failon. Perhaps they want to put an end to his hard-hitting commentaries against the Arroyo regime, erring public officials and their criminal cohorts. Could it be that they are out to cut Mr. Failon and other critical media practitioners like him down to size?
So much so that police brutality and highhandedness, extensively covered by the mass media, were allowed to go on unimpeded for several days after the incident. This was only stopped by overwhelming public sympathy for Mr. Failon, his family and household members and almost universal condemnation of the actuations of the police. For if the police could do this to Mr. Failon, how much more ordinary citizens without the means, the connection, and the clout with the media? What about those who have consistently been in their crosshairs like activists, critics of government and others in opposition to it.
The Arroyo government has been forced to suspend six of the police officers involved and to shift the investigation from the police to the National Bureau of Investigation, an agency under the control of the notoriously biased Justice Secretary. It is clearly in damage control mode. The incident will be dismissed as an isolated case. A few will be “punished” and thereafter investigation into their culpabilities and liabilities will be conveniently forgotten. Involved higher-ups and the system that breeds these kinds of abuse will be firewalled.
It remains to be seen whether the victims will find the steps taken by government to redress their grievances satisfactory. Otherwise they risk being dismissed as unreasonable, incorrigible critics or even allowing themselves to be used by Mrs. Arroyo’s political enemies what with the upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Unfortunately, if the underlying reasons for such an incident are not probed and exposed and if the government is allowed once more to sweep this atrocity under the rug, impunity for such crimes, by those in authority, will again reign supreme.
The message still for many is that one must not “run afoul of the law” meaning, do not criticize much less oppose government authorities, from the policeman on the beat to the untouchables in and around Malacañang. In this country, crime does pay especially if you have the power and the means to crush your opponents including paying off the police, the military and corrupt fiscals and judges to do your bidding. #
by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
In this country, the name Failon has instantly become associated with police brutality and abuse of authority. The untimely death of Trinidad Etong, the wife of popular radio and television news anchor Ted Failon, likely by her own hand, has resulted in a series of tragic events for her family. What would otherwise be a personal cross to bear for Mr. Failon and his children has become a highly publicized spectacle of the police venting their ire and their incompetence on the hapless members of Mr. Failon’s household, including his wife’s siblings, who just happened to be there.
This is not just a case of police overzealousness, nor of police brutality. All the elements that should have stayed the hand of the police were present. At the outset the case was an apparent suicide attempt; the commission of a felony was not self-evident although it could not be ruled out. Mr. Failon is a high- profile media personality, a former Congressman, a man of some means and with connections in high places, as high up as Vice President Noli de Castro, who rushed to Mr. Failon’s side after the incident.
Prudence and judiciousness were clearly the way to go for any responsible police investigator but the police authorities did the exact opposite.
Very early on the investigators drew the conclusion that they were dealing with a parricide case; i.e. Mr. Failon had attempted to kill his wife. Even while Ms. Etong was fighting for her life in the hospital, the police were engaged, not in investigating the circumstances of the shooting, but in building up a case against her husband.
They were quick to speculate that the wife had been shot in Mr. Failon’s car and then transferred to the bathroom. This despite the testimony of all the household help, Ms. Etong’s sister and Mr. Failon that they found her in the bathroom bathed in a pool of her own blood, with a gun at her side, and that she was subsequently rushed by Mr. Failon to the hospital in his car.
The police initially stated that there was no evidence of the spent bullet ricocheting in the bathroom (they later found it); that the husband had scratches on his back indicating that the “victim” had fought off her “assailant” (there were none); and that there were solid indications of an attempted cover-up by cleaning the scene of the crime, both the bloodied bathroom and the vehicle.
The “law enforcers” were uncharacteristicall y swift in hauling off Mr. Failon for questioning; they took forever to process his sworn statement; and it was only through the intervention of the Chief of the Public Attorney’s Office that he was temporarily released. Whereupon police officials peremptorily declared that he was the object of a manhunt for illegally removing himself from their custody.
They manhandled, summarily arrested and arbitrarily detained Mr. Failon’s house help, driver, and in-laws on the groundless charge of “obstruction of justice” when they had not even established if a crime had been committed.
Their brash and excessive actions indicate confidence that they had the approval, if not the direct orders of “higher ups” in the Philippine National Police (PNP) and perhaps even in the higher reaches of government.
The immediate and unwavering support for the police by the Justice Secretary compared to the slow response to complaints of police abuse by those directly supervising the PNP, strongly suggest that powerful quarters are at work here. They have an axe to grind against Mr. Failon. Perhaps they want to put an end to his hard-hitting commentaries against the Arroyo regime, erring public officials and their criminal cohorts. Could it be that they are out to cut Mr. Failon and other critical media practitioners like him down to size?
So much so that police brutality and highhandedness, extensively covered by the mass media, were allowed to go on unimpeded for several days after the incident. This was only stopped by overwhelming public sympathy for Mr. Failon, his family and household members and almost universal condemnation of the actuations of the police. For if the police could do this to Mr. Failon, how much more ordinary citizens without the means, the connection, and the clout with the media? What about those who have consistently been in their crosshairs like activists, critics of government and others in opposition to it.
The Arroyo government has been forced to suspend six of the police officers involved and to shift the investigation from the police to the National Bureau of Investigation, an agency under the control of the notoriously biased Justice Secretary. It is clearly in damage control mode. The incident will be dismissed as an isolated case. A few will be “punished” and thereafter investigation into their culpabilities and liabilities will be conveniently forgotten. Involved higher-ups and the system that breeds these kinds of abuse will be firewalled.
It remains to be seen whether the victims will find the steps taken by government to redress their grievances satisfactory. Otherwise they risk being dismissed as unreasonable, incorrigible critics or even allowing themselves to be used by Mrs. Arroyo’s political enemies what with the upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Unfortunately, if the underlying reasons for such an incident are not probed and exposed and if the government is allowed once more to sweep this atrocity under the rug, impunity for such crimes, by those in authority, will again reign supreme.
The message still for many is that one must not “run afoul of the law” meaning, do not criticize much less oppose government authorities, from the policeman on the beat to the untouchables in and around Malacañang. In this country, crime does pay especially if you have the power and the means to crush your opponents including paying off the police, the military and corrupt fiscals and judges to do your bidding. #
Thursday, April 16, 2009
'Wang-wang'
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Editorial
First Posted 03:07:00 04/16/2009
Call her Jackie S. The “interim first lady” of East Timor, Jacqueline Aquino Siapno, is a Filipina political scientist married to Fernando de Araujo, president of the new country’s National Parliament. She was back in the Philippines recently, for what she called a private visit. It was not the determinedly private nature of her visit that caught the attention of the Philippine Daily Inquirer; it was the resolutely modest way she went a-visiting.
The best way to capture this exemplary modesty is to quote at some length the report written by Inquirer correspondent Gabriel Cardinoza. “After exchanging greetings [at the Manila airport] they [Jackie S. and her mother] took a cab and headed to a bus terminal in Pasay City where they boarded a bus bound for her native Dagupan. The Friday night trip took five hours. At the station, they hailed a tricycle and asked to be taken to their house in Barangay Bonuan Gueset.”
This isn’t merely a charming anecdote: it is an indirect indictment of the way most public officials or political personalities in the Philippines conduct themselves, when travelling. It makes for a good story because it reminds us of the inexhaustibly surprising quality of human nature. But it makes for a front-page story because it offers a contrast to the “wang-wang” culture our political VIPs, both high and petty, take for granted.
Ms Siapno may not know the meaning of “wang-wang”—she has lived abroad for most of her adult life, earning (among other distinctions) a Ph.D. from the University of California in Berkeley—but she should recognize the self-importance her old country’s politicians attach to themselves. Wang-wang is the siren that “very important people” acquire, whether they ride unescorted or as part of a convoy; the sound is a sign that the usual (traffic) rules do not apply to VIPs. They are, obviously, too important.
Already, we can anticipate the objections, the clarifications, that officials who feel alluded to will issue. Her visit, they would say, was a private affair. There is no comparison with their official travel.
Yes, but they would miss the point. Jackie S. could have used or borrowed a private vehicle. That she did not consider herself too good for an ordinary bus or—Que barbaridad!—a rickety tricycle tells us more about the dignity of public office than flashing lights and wailing sirens ever can.
But East Timor is a small, impoverished country, other politicians or their hired spokesmen might say. There is no comparison.
Again, they would miss the point. Substantial government resources are spent every year to provide public officials with the illusion that we are already a rich country. How many hundreds of soldiers, how many thousands of policemen, are assigned to public officials as personal security? How many vehicles must be deployed to ferry a VIP and his security retinue from venue to venue? Does a vice mayor of a second-class municipality really need a close-in bodyguard? Does a congressman back in her district really need a motorcycle escort? Does a Cabinet secretary making the rounds in Metro Manila really need two beige-colored, red-plated AUVs to shadow his gas-guzzling SUV?
You get the point. Or at least we ordinary citizens do. We are not asking our public officials to use public transportation to go to and from work—although that would amount to a moral revolution. We are only asking them to reconsider the sense of entitlement, the sense of inflated dignity they display because of their complicity in the wang-wang culture.
But the “interim first lady” of East Timor is not even an official, nor does she hold a permanent position, still other officials would say. There is no comparison.
They would, again, be missing the point. All public office is temporary. And too many of our own officeholders use their office to aggrandize not only themselves but their families. Who has not seen police bodyguards deployed to secure an official’s child, or a convoy of government vehicles to accompany an official’s spouse?
In her simplicity, in her sure sense of self, Jackie S. reminds us how spoiled, how self-indulgent, how corrupt, many of our high-riding officials have become.
Editorial
First Posted 03:07:00 04/16/2009
Call her Jackie S. The “interim first lady” of East Timor, Jacqueline Aquino Siapno, is a Filipina political scientist married to Fernando de Araujo, president of the new country’s National Parliament. She was back in the Philippines recently, for what she called a private visit. It was not the determinedly private nature of her visit that caught the attention of the Philippine Daily Inquirer; it was the resolutely modest way she went a-visiting.
The best way to capture this exemplary modesty is to quote at some length the report written by Inquirer correspondent Gabriel Cardinoza. “After exchanging greetings [at the Manila airport] they [Jackie S. and her mother] took a cab and headed to a bus terminal in Pasay City where they boarded a bus bound for her native Dagupan. The Friday night trip took five hours. At the station, they hailed a tricycle and asked to be taken to their house in Barangay Bonuan Gueset.”
This isn’t merely a charming anecdote: it is an indirect indictment of the way most public officials or political personalities in the Philippines conduct themselves, when travelling. It makes for a good story because it reminds us of the inexhaustibly surprising quality of human nature. But it makes for a front-page story because it offers a contrast to the “wang-wang” culture our political VIPs, both high and petty, take for granted.
Ms Siapno may not know the meaning of “wang-wang”—she has lived abroad for most of her adult life, earning (among other distinctions) a Ph.D. from the University of California in Berkeley—but she should recognize the self-importance her old country’s politicians attach to themselves. Wang-wang is the siren that “very important people” acquire, whether they ride unescorted or as part of a convoy; the sound is a sign that the usual (traffic) rules do not apply to VIPs. They are, obviously, too important.
Already, we can anticipate the objections, the clarifications, that officials who feel alluded to will issue. Her visit, they would say, was a private affair. There is no comparison with their official travel.
Yes, but they would miss the point. Jackie S. could have used or borrowed a private vehicle. That she did not consider herself too good for an ordinary bus or—Que barbaridad!—a rickety tricycle tells us more about the dignity of public office than flashing lights and wailing sirens ever can.
But East Timor is a small, impoverished country, other politicians or their hired spokesmen might say. There is no comparison.
Again, they would miss the point. Substantial government resources are spent every year to provide public officials with the illusion that we are already a rich country. How many hundreds of soldiers, how many thousands of policemen, are assigned to public officials as personal security? How many vehicles must be deployed to ferry a VIP and his security retinue from venue to venue? Does a vice mayor of a second-class municipality really need a close-in bodyguard? Does a congressman back in her district really need a motorcycle escort? Does a Cabinet secretary making the rounds in Metro Manila really need two beige-colored, red-plated AUVs to shadow his gas-guzzling SUV?
You get the point. Or at least we ordinary citizens do. We are not asking our public officials to use public transportation to go to and from work—although that would amount to a moral revolution. We are only asking them to reconsider the sense of entitlement, the sense of inflated dignity they display because of their complicity in the wang-wang culture.
But the “interim first lady” of East Timor is not even an official, nor does she hold a permanent position, still other officials would say. There is no comparison.
They would, again, be missing the point. All public office is temporary. And too many of our own officeholders use their office to aggrandize not only themselves but their families. Who has not seen police bodyguards deployed to secure an official’s child, or a convoy of government vehicles to accompany an official’s spouse?
In her simplicity, in her sure sense of self, Jackie S. reminds us how spoiled, how self-indulgent, how corrupt, many of our high-riding officials have become.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Writer's 'Racist Slur’ Offends Filipinos
By Danilo Reyes
Column: Point of Action
UPI Asia Online, March 31, 2009
Hong Kong, China — A journalist in Hong Kong who described the Philippines as a “nation of servants” in his column may have written his article as a satire, and perhaps his insults were “not intentional,” but the Filipinos’ reaction demonstrates they could not take it lightly. Such comments are deeply hurtful, satirical or otherwise.
The article entitled “The War At Home,” written by Chip Tsao, was published in HK Magazine on March 27, but the publishing company, the Asia City Publishing Group, had to pull it from their website three days later. Massive condemnation of the article in both Hong Kong and the Philippines forced the company to make an apology on Monday.
Before Chip Tsao’s article came to light, another local newspaper, The Standard, had published a report on Feb. 25 claiming that Filipinos were carriers of an infectious disease, a “superbug,” quoting an expert from the Center for Health Protection. Considering this a serious issue, I personally wrote to the CHP asking for clarification, only to find out the report did not “express the views of the CHP.”
But unlike HK Magazine, The Standard did not apologize, nor did its editor, Ivan Tong, reply to my letter or email. The journalist who wrote the article, Patsy Moy, stands by her story despite the disclaimer in the CHP’s letter to me.
In searching for a remedy to the problem of articles that misrepresent the Filipino community, I was told that the newly passed Racial Discrimination Ordinance in Hong Kong, though it has provisions to protect ethnic minorities from discrimination, applies only in the workplace. There is no redress for an ethnic group that is offended by published articles or reports.
Thus Filipinos in Hong Kong, for lack of other options, must resort to issuing statements and press releases to protest against discrimination or offensive and false comments. The Filipinos’ reaction to Chip Tsao’s supposedly “satirical” column is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that Filipinos collectively protested against comments they thought offensive.
I recall a controversy over Hollywood actress Claire Danes, who was declared “persona non grata” in the Philippines and whose movies were banned in the country after she commented, following filming in the city, that Manila was infested with cockroaches and rats. She later apologized. There was another case of a Canadian mentor who was condemned over her offensive comments about a Filipino toddler for not being able to use spoon and fork at a primary school.
The Filipinos may be fragmented and divided in some ways – by social class, ethnic group, dialect and ideology – but if their identity as Filipinos is shaken, if they are humiliated or offended, they come together. Perhaps this is a byproduct of their historical colonial past and oppressive regimes.
Let’s take Chip Tsao’s column as an example. He may argue that his article was intended as a satire; however, he touches upon the very reasons Filipinos have to come to Hong Kong to work as domestic helpers. They come not by their own choice, but are forced to do so by the lack of opportunities at home. This is due to both the abject failure of the Philippines government to develop the country’s economy and to the policy of exporting labor set up during the Marcos regime in the 1970s.
Therefore, it is not the Filipinos’ choice as citizens that pushes them to serve foreign households as “modern slaves.” This is the product of a policy, crafted by a dictatorial and oppressive regime, that has lasted to this day. It impacts the whole range of Filipinos, which actually includes different ethnic minorities scattered in more than 7,000 islands in the archipelago.
Writings and literary articles that are satirical in nature are not a monopoly of any group of people. This approach is nothing new to Filipinos. In fact, satire was widely used in works by Filipino nationalists like Jose Rizal in his novels, and others who inspired the Philippine revolution against colonial Spain in the 1800s. Thus, to argue that the Filipinos, in reading Chip Tsao, could not “read between the lines” is not accurate.
Filipino domestic workers are often better English speakers and writers than their employers, as English has been their medium of instruction from grade school through college – once again a product of a colonial American past imposed in the 1900s that continues in the education system to this day. It is not accurate to say they cannot grasp subtle meanings.
But in Rizal’s writings, in his politically charged satirical novel “Noli Me Tangere,” he used as his objects of ridicule the Spanish friars, the oppressors and plunderers – not those who were suffering due to oppression, the Filipinos. This is what makes Chip Tsao’s approach condemnable. His objects of satire were the domestic workers who are already suffering, forced to separate from their families and to serve foreign households.
The problem with some writers is that they know full well what is offensive but they nevertheless test the waters. Journalism also entails responsibility. When U.S. President Barack Obama was elected, a Filipino-owned newspaper headline read: “Black in White House,” and not “Negro in White House.” In our modern times, not only Filipinos, but everyone knows how deeply it hurts for blacks to be described as Negroes.
In conclusion, I would like to borrow the late Filipino nationalist Jose “Pepe” Diokno’s words from an essay written in 1984, in which he described the Philippines as “a nation for our children,” not a nation of servants as Tsao described it. Building a nation for our children has long been the aspiration of all Filipinos, including me.
--
(Danilo Reyes is a staff member of the Asian Human Rights Commission, a regional human rights NGO in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the organization’s work on the Philippines. Previously, he worked as a human rights activist and journalist in the Philippines.)
Column: Point of Action
UPI Asia Online, March 31, 2009
Hong Kong, China — A journalist in Hong Kong who described the Philippines as a “nation of servants” in his column may have written his article as a satire, and perhaps his insults were “not intentional,” but the Filipinos’ reaction demonstrates they could not take it lightly. Such comments are deeply hurtful, satirical or otherwise.
The article entitled “The War At Home,” written by Chip Tsao, was published in HK Magazine on March 27, but the publishing company, the Asia City Publishing Group, had to pull it from their website three days later. Massive condemnation of the article in both Hong Kong and the Philippines forced the company to make an apology on Monday.
Before Chip Tsao’s article came to light, another local newspaper, The Standard, had published a report on Feb. 25 claiming that Filipinos were carriers of an infectious disease, a “superbug,” quoting an expert from the Center for Health Protection. Considering this a serious issue, I personally wrote to the CHP asking for clarification, only to find out the report did not “express the views of the CHP.”
But unlike HK Magazine, The Standard did not apologize, nor did its editor, Ivan Tong, reply to my letter or email. The journalist who wrote the article, Patsy Moy, stands by her story despite the disclaimer in the CHP’s letter to me.
In searching for a remedy to the problem of articles that misrepresent the Filipino community, I was told that the newly passed Racial Discrimination Ordinance in Hong Kong, though it has provisions to protect ethnic minorities from discrimination, applies only in the workplace. There is no redress for an ethnic group that is offended by published articles or reports.
Thus Filipinos in Hong Kong, for lack of other options, must resort to issuing statements and press releases to protest against discrimination or offensive and false comments. The Filipinos’ reaction to Chip Tsao’s supposedly “satirical” column is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that Filipinos collectively protested against comments they thought offensive.
I recall a controversy over Hollywood actress Claire Danes, who was declared “persona non grata” in the Philippines and whose movies were banned in the country after she commented, following filming in the city, that Manila was infested with cockroaches and rats. She later apologized. There was another case of a Canadian mentor who was condemned over her offensive comments about a Filipino toddler for not being able to use spoon and fork at a primary school.
The Filipinos may be fragmented and divided in some ways – by social class, ethnic group, dialect and ideology – but if their identity as Filipinos is shaken, if they are humiliated or offended, they come together. Perhaps this is a byproduct of their historical colonial past and oppressive regimes.
Let’s take Chip Tsao’s column as an example. He may argue that his article was intended as a satire; however, he touches upon the very reasons Filipinos have to come to Hong Kong to work as domestic helpers. They come not by their own choice, but are forced to do so by the lack of opportunities at home. This is due to both the abject failure of the Philippines government to develop the country’s economy and to the policy of exporting labor set up during the Marcos regime in the 1970s.
Therefore, it is not the Filipinos’ choice as citizens that pushes them to serve foreign households as “modern slaves.” This is the product of a policy, crafted by a dictatorial and oppressive regime, that has lasted to this day. It impacts the whole range of Filipinos, which actually includes different ethnic minorities scattered in more than 7,000 islands in the archipelago.
Writings and literary articles that are satirical in nature are not a monopoly of any group of people. This approach is nothing new to Filipinos. In fact, satire was widely used in works by Filipino nationalists like Jose Rizal in his novels, and others who inspired the Philippine revolution against colonial Spain in the 1800s. Thus, to argue that the Filipinos, in reading Chip Tsao, could not “read between the lines” is not accurate.
Filipino domestic workers are often better English speakers and writers than their employers, as English has been their medium of instruction from grade school through college – once again a product of a colonial American past imposed in the 1900s that continues in the education system to this day. It is not accurate to say they cannot grasp subtle meanings.
But in Rizal’s writings, in his politically charged satirical novel “Noli Me Tangere,” he used as his objects of ridicule the Spanish friars, the oppressors and plunderers – not those who were suffering due to oppression, the Filipinos. This is what makes Chip Tsao’s approach condemnable. His objects of satire were the domestic workers who are already suffering, forced to separate from their families and to serve foreign households.
The problem with some writers is that they know full well what is offensive but they nevertheless test the waters. Journalism also entails responsibility. When U.S. President Barack Obama was elected, a Filipino-owned newspaper headline read: “Black in White House,” and not “Negro in White House.” In our modern times, not only Filipinos, but everyone knows how deeply it hurts for blacks to be described as Negroes.
In conclusion, I would like to borrow the late Filipino nationalist Jose “Pepe” Diokno’s words from an essay written in 1984, in which he described the Philippines as “a nation for our children,” not a nation of servants as Tsao described it. Building a nation for our children has long been the aspiration of all Filipinos, including me.
--
(Danilo Reyes is a staff member of the Asian Human Rights Commission, a regional human rights NGO in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the organization’s work on the Philippines. Previously, he worked as a human rights activist and journalist in the Philippines.)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Modernisayon ng Philippine General Hospital: Para saan?… Para kanino?
Sa araw ng Lunes, ika 30 ng Marso, 2009 ay inaasahan na darating si GMA upang pasinayaan ang bagong PABX/Paging System ng PGH (Philippine General Hospital). Isang okasyon kung saan maaari nating iparating ang ating saloobin para sa hinaharap ng Ospital ng Bayan – ang PGH nating mahal!
Para saan at para kanino nga ba ang mga kosmetikong pagbabago at pagpapaunlad ng mga inprastraktura, equipment at iba pang kagamitan?
Layunin nga ba nito na magbigay ng dagdag na serbisyo... o dagdag na bayarin sa mga taong lumalapit sa ating tanggapan? Ano ang silbi ng mga bagong equipments na bigay ng mga donors (Presidente, mga Senador at Congresssman at iba pa na karamihan ay galing rin naman sa buwis ng taumbayan) kung ang kapalit nito ay mas mataas na singilin para sa ating mga kliyente? Bakit pinahihintulutan ang pagpasok ng mga pribadong equipment/apparatus sa likod ng mga MOA na ang bunga ay hindi makakuha ng libre o discount sa serbisyo ng ospital and ating mga mamamayan at maging ang sarili mismong mga kawani nito? Dahil talaga bang ang matingkad na tunguhin ng pagpapatakbo ng ating ospital ay kita, kita at kumita pa rin?
Bilang isa sa mga abanteng organisasyon sa loob ng U.P. ang ating Unyon ay naninindigan na ang PGH, bilang Ospital ng Bayan ay itinatag upang magbigay ng laan at abot kayang serbisyong pangkalusugan at hindi maging behikulo sa pagpapasulpot ng mga dagdag kita na mamamayan din ang magpapasan. Hindi totoo na wala o kulang ang pondo ng gobyerno para tustusan ang pangangailangan ng mamamayan para sa mga panlipunang serbisyo katulad ng edukasyon at kalusugan. Tayong lahat ay saksi sa malawakan at bilyon-bilyong Pisong korupsiyon na kinasasangkutan hanggang ng mga sa kataas-taasang mga opisyal gobyerno na siyang umuubos sa kaban ng bayan, bukod pa sa pambayad utang na karamihan sa mga utang na ito ay sa bulso rin ng iilan pumupunta.
Kasama rin sa ating matagal ng kahilingan ay ang pagdaragdag ng badyet ng U.P. at PGH para mapunuan ang kakulangan sa bilang ng mga kawani, maibigay ang mga nararapat na mga benepisyo at upang makapaglingkod ng laan at abot-kayang serbisyong pangkalusugan sa ating mamamayan.
Sa totoo lang, sa ilalim ng pamunuan ng Administrasyong Alfiler, walang nadagdag na pondo ng PGH mula sa pambansang pamahalaan lalong-lalo ang sa MOOE (Maintenance, Operating and Other Expenses). Sa halip na igiit ang dagdag pondo, patong-patong na bayarin sa mga diagnostic exams at treatment procedures ang ipinapatupad na lalong nagpapahirap at siyang pumapatay sa ating mga pasyente.
ANG ATING MGA PANAWAGAN:
• Badyet ng Edukasyon at Kalusugan, Dagdagan!
• Joint Resolution No. 24 (Salary Standardization Law Part 3) – Anti-Health Workers, Mapanlinlang! Pondohan at Ipatupad ang mga Benepisyo ng mga Manggagawang Pangkalusugan, Huwag Tanggalin!
• Korporatisasyon/Privatization ng mga Pampublikong Ospital, Tutulan, Labanan!
• PGH – Ospital ng Bayan, Todo Serbisyo sa Mamamayan, Hindi Negosyo!
Para saan at para kanino nga ba ang mga kosmetikong pagbabago at pagpapaunlad ng mga inprastraktura, equipment at iba pang kagamitan?
Layunin nga ba nito na magbigay ng dagdag na serbisyo... o dagdag na bayarin sa mga taong lumalapit sa ating tanggapan? Ano ang silbi ng mga bagong equipments na bigay ng mga donors (Presidente, mga Senador at Congresssman at iba pa na karamihan ay galing rin naman sa buwis ng taumbayan) kung ang kapalit nito ay mas mataas na singilin para sa ating mga kliyente? Bakit pinahihintulutan ang pagpasok ng mga pribadong equipment/apparatus sa likod ng mga MOA na ang bunga ay hindi makakuha ng libre o discount sa serbisyo ng ospital and ating mga mamamayan at maging ang sarili mismong mga kawani nito? Dahil talaga bang ang matingkad na tunguhin ng pagpapatakbo ng ating ospital ay kita, kita at kumita pa rin?
Bilang isa sa mga abanteng organisasyon sa loob ng U.P. ang ating Unyon ay naninindigan na ang PGH, bilang Ospital ng Bayan ay itinatag upang magbigay ng laan at abot kayang serbisyong pangkalusugan at hindi maging behikulo sa pagpapasulpot ng mga dagdag kita na mamamayan din ang magpapasan. Hindi totoo na wala o kulang ang pondo ng gobyerno para tustusan ang pangangailangan ng mamamayan para sa mga panlipunang serbisyo katulad ng edukasyon at kalusugan. Tayong lahat ay saksi sa malawakan at bilyon-bilyong Pisong korupsiyon na kinasasangkutan hanggang ng mga sa kataas-taasang mga opisyal gobyerno na siyang umuubos sa kaban ng bayan, bukod pa sa pambayad utang na karamihan sa mga utang na ito ay sa bulso rin ng iilan pumupunta.
Kasama rin sa ating matagal ng kahilingan ay ang pagdaragdag ng badyet ng U.P. at PGH para mapunuan ang kakulangan sa bilang ng mga kawani, maibigay ang mga nararapat na mga benepisyo at upang makapaglingkod ng laan at abot-kayang serbisyong pangkalusugan sa ating mamamayan.
Sa totoo lang, sa ilalim ng pamunuan ng Administrasyong Alfiler, walang nadagdag na pondo ng PGH mula sa pambansang pamahalaan lalong-lalo ang sa MOOE (Maintenance, Operating and Other Expenses). Sa halip na igiit ang dagdag pondo, patong-patong na bayarin sa mga diagnostic exams at treatment procedures ang ipinapatupad na lalong nagpapahirap at siyang pumapatay sa ating mga pasyente.
ANG ATING MGA PANAWAGAN:
• Badyet ng Edukasyon at Kalusugan, Dagdagan!
• Joint Resolution No. 24 (Salary Standardization Law Part 3) – Anti-Health Workers, Mapanlinlang! Pondohan at Ipatupad ang mga Benepisyo ng mga Manggagawang Pangkalusugan, Huwag Tanggalin!
• Korporatisasyon/Privatization ng mga Pampublikong Ospital, Tutulan, Labanan!
• PGH – Ospital ng Bayan, Todo Serbisyo sa Mamamayan, Hindi Negosyo!
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