INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories
June 28, 2005 @ 2:58 am
Posted by Sheila Coronel
Filed under In the News
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's apology raises more questions than it answers. Tonight, after three weeks of silence, she admitted calling a Comelec official before and during the canvassing of the results of last year's elections. She apologized for this "lapse in judgment" and insisted that her actions were meant "not to influence the outcome of the election" but merely to protect her vote.
Mrs. Arroyo admitted to an impropriety, and asked Filipinos that she be allowed "to close this chapter and move on with the business of governing.
"This statement is a gamble. For sure, the President did not admit to conspiring to rig the vote. But her carefully worded apology in effect confirmed that the conversation or conversations with an unnamed Comelec official, presumably Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, took place.
Tonight's announcement also confirmed, if only indirectly, the authenticity of the "Garci" tapes (or at least portions of these), which have been at the center of the controversy roiling her administration. Such a confirmation has serious repercussions, if not for the President herself, then for a whole slew of other individuals, most of all Garcillano himself, who is recorded as being involved in various transactions aimed at rigging the count.
The conversations, after all, provide damning proof that Garcillano was, in the words of a Comelec official, "the plotter for electoral fraud, the overall supervisor and commander in chief" of the manipulation of the count in favor of the administration. The recording points to systemic and institutional fraud perpetrated by the Comelec. Does this mean that the President, by confirming her phone calls to the commissioner, also provided, albeit indirectly, a virtual confirmation of the fraud?
The President also in effect implicated former Senator Robert Barbers, who was caught on the tape arranging a payoff of P1.5 million to P2 million to Garcillano. About a dozen other Comelec officials and bureaucrats, whose conversations with the commissioner alluded, however indirectly, to manipulating the vote, should also be held to account, even if the President were found to be innocent.
But is she really? Were her calls to the commissioner really as harmless as she claims?
The President, according to the three-hour recording of Garcillano's conversations from May 17 to June 19, 2004, made 15 phone calls to the Comelec commissioner. On one day alone, May 29, she made three phonecalls. Were so many calls needed to "protect" her vote? Wouldn't a blanket statement to the commissioner that he should ensure that no cheating is done have sufficed? And why didn't she call the Comelec Chairman, instead of a functionary lower down the totem pole? Did she have to personally ask Garcillano about the count in specific towns and about specific incidents regarding the opposition's accusation of fraud in Mindanao?
Perhaps the most damning conversation between Garcillano and thePresident was the one that took place at 10:29 p.m. on June 2, 2004. During that call, Mrs. Arroyo expressed concern that the statement of votes (SOVs) that support the provincial/municipal certificates of canvass (COCs) in Basilan and Lanao del Sur did not match.
In that call, Garcillano said that the mismatch was possible but that the president should not worry because "itong ginawang pagpataas sa inyo…maayos naman ang paggawa, eh (the way in which your votes were increased was done well)." This was in effect an admission that there was, as the opposition had alleged then, a manipulation of the votes in those two provinces. Confirming that this conversation took place is a virtual admission that the cheating in those places also happened.
In the same conversation, Garcillano alluded to a rigging of the canvass in Basilan and Sulu. He told the President: "Sa Basilan, alam nyo naman ang military doon eh hindi masyadong marunong kasi silang gumawa eh. Katulad don sa Sulu, si Gen. Habacon. Pero hindi naman ho, kinausap ko na yung chairman ng board (of canvassers) sa Sulu. Ang akin pataguin ko muna ang EO (election officer) ng Pangutaran para hindi siya makatestigo ho. (In Basilan, the military wasn't so good at doing these things, like in Sulu, with Gen. Habacon. But I already talked to the chairman of the board of canvassers in Sulu. I think we should just ask the election officer of Pangutaran to hide first so he doesn't have to testify).
"This conversation implicates Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, commanding general of the Army's 1st Infantry Division, whose area of operation covers Basilan, Sulu and the Zamboanga Peninsula. Garcillano implied that Habacon was party to the fraud.
The election officer of Pangutaran town in Sulu was Cipriano Ebron. It was in Pangutaran that the opposition alleged massive dagdag bawas operations took place, with Mrs. Arroyo's vote being padded by 8,000 and Poe's being shaved by 2,000. Such an operation would not have been possible without Ebron's cooperation. Apparently, the President was worried that Ebron would talk. This was why Garcillano assured her that Ebron would be asked to hide in the meantime so that the opposition he would not be able to force him testify on the anomalies. If the President says this conversation took place, then was she also not party, if not to fraud, at the very least to obstruction of justice?
In fact, more details surface in another conversation, this time with a certain "Ruben" to whom Garcillano recounted that the military had already told Ebron to make himself scarce. In yet another call, the commissioner described Ebron as his man ("tao ko yan") and even boasted that "kahit pakainin mo ng bala yun, di na magpapakita (evenn if they made him eat bullets, he wouldn't show up)."
But that is not all. Other conversations in the three-hour recording leave a trail of doubt about the intent of the President's conversations. At face value, the most frequently replayed question she asked of Garcillano, in a call at 9:43 a.m. on May 29, 2004, "So will I still lead by more than 1 M(million)?" may seem innocent enough.
But Garcillano's reply, "Pipilitin ho natin 'yan," would seem to indicate that the commissioner was in a position to ensure such alead. How can a Comelec official do that, except by manipulating the count?
In fact, Garcillano told the President during the same phone call that while Poe was leading in some places in Mindanao, votes from seven municipalities in Lanao would make up for the shortfall. The reality on the ground was this: Poe was ahead in Lanao del Sur 42,374 to32,389, at least according to the preliminary Namfrel count. But upon the Comelec's orders, special elections were called in seven towns where a failure of elections had been declared. Unsurprisingly, Mrs.Arroyo got an overwhelming majority of the vote in those towns: 30,447, against Poe's 6,805.
But the Namfrel chapter in the province, after comparing the certificates of canvass and the precinct-level election returns, found that the President's tally in seven Lanao del Sur towns was padded by 21,217 votes, while Poe's were shaved by 9,174. In another town, Poona Bayabao, the certificate of canvass showed Arroyo getting 4,700 votes, while Poe got zero, and this was what was reflected in the final count. The Namfrel chapter, however, showed precinct-level election returns that listed Arroyo getting 964 votes against Poe's 767.
In the end, the congressional canvass showed her final count in Lanao del Sur at 128,301 versus 43,302 for Poe. Given this context, Garcillano's assurance to the President that she could get her one million "if we can get more in Lanao" does not seem as innocuous as Mrs. Arroyo would like us to believe.
In fact, the overall sense of Garcillano's conversations was that the fraud was extensive and systemic, as it involved not just the Comelec but also the military and the police. Mrs. Arroyo's admission and apology tonight therefore open a can of worms. If Garcillano said all of those things, then he was guilty of fraud. But he was surely, certainly, not alone. He had a whole infrastructure of fraud behind him, and as Mrs. Arroyo herself confirmed tonight, also the implicit support of the President for what he was doing.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Friday, June 17, 2005
Arroyo's 'Martial Law' Will Be Thwarted By Waves Of Broad Protests
NEWS RELEASE
June 17, 2005
Reference: Elmer Labog, KMU Chairman
0920-6388960
Workers say never again to dictatorship" -- KMUMilitant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) today said that whatever plans by Malacanang and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to put the country under Martial Law in order to suppress the people's growing clamor for her ouster will be frustrated by broad people's protests and resistance.
"KMU received information this morning that Arroyo is planning to declare Martial Law on or before June 21 and that hit squads are positioned within Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The hit squads can either arrest or exterminate leaders of militant mass organizations.
We are currently taking all necessary precautions and security measures," said KMU Chairman Elmer Labog.
"The information may or may not be true, but we are expecting the worst. We are preparing our ranks for any scenario. Knowing Gloria, she can and she will do anything to hold on to her weakening presidency. But she will not succeed, workers say never again to another dictatorship," Labog stressed.
"Arroyo knows for sure that her regime is destined to collapse. She will be thrown out of Malacanang either through by people power or impeachment procedures following the exposure of audio tapes that are hard proof of the electoral fraud she committed during the elections last year. The political and economic crisis is so intense, even Arroyo and her clique doesn't know how to handle it."
"Like what Marcos did in 1972 when the country is in deep political and economic turmoil and tens of thousands of people are protesting against Marcos' policies, Arroyo is likely to declare open fascist rule to save her illegitimate leadership.
Actually, there is already an undeclared Martial Law with Arroyo's militarization campaign and severe political repression. Political activists and members of militant organizations are constantly harassed, abducted or murdered.
"We will frustrate Arroyo's Martial Law. We will hold a major mobilization on June 24 at Liwasang Bonifacio together with other sectors who are fed up with Arroyo's leadership. ###
June 17, 2005
Reference: Elmer Labog, KMU Chairman
0920-6388960
Workers say never again to dictatorship" -- KMUMilitant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) today said that whatever plans by Malacanang and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to put the country under Martial Law in order to suppress the people's growing clamor for her ouster will be frustrated by broad people's protests and resistance.
"KMU received information this morning that Arroyo is planning to declare Martial Law on or before June 21 and that hit squads are positioned within Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The hit squads can either arrest or exterminate leaders of militant mass organizations.
We are currently taking all necessary precautions and security measures," said KMU Chairman Elmer Labog.
"The information may or may not be true, but we are expecting the worst. We are preparing our ranks for any scenario. Knowing Gloria, she can and she will do anything to hold on to her weakening presidency. But she will not succeed, workers say never again to another dictatorship," Labog stressed.
"Arroyo knows for sure that her regime is destined to collapse. She will be thrown out of Malacanang either through by people power or impeachment procedures following the exposure of audio tapes that are hard proof of the electoral fraud she committed during the elections last year. The political and economic crisis is so intense, even Arroyo and her clique doesn't know how to handle it."
"Like what Marcos did in 1972 when the country is in deep political and economic turmoil and tens of thousands of people are protesting against Marcos' policies, Arroyo is likely to declare open fascist rule to save her illegitimate leadership.
Actually, there is already an undeclared Martial Law with Arroyo's militarization campaign and severe political repression. Political activists and members of militant organizations are constantly harassed, abducted or murdered.
"We will frustrate Arroyo's Martial Law. We will hold a major mobilization on June 24 at Liwasang Bonifacio together with other sectors who are fed up with Arroyo's leadership. ###
Monday, June 13, 2005
Scandals in the (First) Family
This is an excerpt from the Weblog of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (http://pcij.org/blog) related to the recent series of scandals that rocked the Presidency, and more...
June 13, 2005 @ 5:55 pm
Posted by Yvonne Chua Filed under General, In the News
IN his comment on the post "The missing pieces," cy_nick asked about the scandals that have rocked the Arroyo administration. Besides the two current controversies, now being called the "Juetenggate" and "Gloriagate," we’ve come up with this initial list. Feel free to add to it.
IMPSA: Four days after it assumed office, the Arroyo administration approved the awarding of a controversial $470-million contract to the Argentine firm IMPSA (Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima) to rehabilitate a hydroelectric plant in Laguna. Justice Secretary Hernando Perez was later accused of demanding and receiving $2 million dollars from ex-Rep. Mark Jimenez, who brokered the deal. Jimenez said he wired the amount to the account of Ernest Escaler in Hong Kong on Feb. 23, 2001 from his bank in Uruguay. The former congressman has been extradited to the United States and has pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and making illegal campaign contributions.
SAN FRANCISCO: From the time she was first elected senator in 1992, President Arroyo had failed to declare in her sworn Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth the properties her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, bought in San Francisco through his California-based LTA Realty Corp. Newsbreak reported that Mr. Arroyo acquired, re-sold, and managed at least five properties with a total value of at least $7.1 million in the Bay City from 1992 to 2000. The First Couple said they bought the properties in trust for Mr. Arroyo’s younger brother, Ignacio, now a congressman.
BONG PINEDA: President Arroyo got loudly questioned about her personal connection with alleged jueteng boss Bong Pineda: She is godmother to one of Pineda’s sons. She denied any impropriety, saying she doesn’t associate with Pineda or his crowd. In an interview with Time Magazine in 2001, she said that when she was asked to be godmother, she got counsel from then archbishop of Manila Jaime Cardinal Sin. "Cardinal Sin said, as a Christian, if I am asked to be a godmother, it is my Christian duty," she relates, "because the sins of the father are not the sins of the son."
MIKEY’S HORSES: Newsbreak broke the news on a plan of first presidential son Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo to import the 32 thoroughbred horses from Melbourne, Australia. The then Pampanga vice governor, now a congressman, denied the allegation. He admitted, though, he was in the horse trade business; he owns Franchino Farms along with cousin Franchino Pamintuan and friend Ralph Mondragon.JOSE PIDAL: On Aug. 18, 2003, opposition senator Panfilo Lacson accused First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo of money laundering for supposedly siphoning off at least P321 million in campaign funds and contributions to a secret bank account under the fictitious name Jose Pidal and three other accounts using the names of his aides. Among the “donors,” Lacson said, was then Rep. Mark Jimenez who contributed a total of P8 million. Lacson also accused Mr. Arroyo of having an affair with his accountant, Victoria Toh. Following Lacson’s allegations, Mr. Arroyo’s younger brother, Ignacio, came forward to say he is Jose Pidal.
AGRI FUND: First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo was linked in May 2004 to the alleged diversion of P728 million from the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani program to President Arroyo’s campaign war chest in the form of development assistance funds to local government units. Then Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn I. Bolante, Mr. Arroyo’s classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University and a colleague at the Rotary Club District 3830, cleared the First Gentleman of involvement. Bolante was tasked to oversee the implementation of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani program at the time.
PHILHEALTH CARDS: Six weeks before the May 2004 elections, two lawyers from PRO-CON(stitution) filed a disqualification case against President Arroyo before the Comelec, saying she was behind the enhanced Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s Greater Medicare Access or GMA program which they claimed was meant to prop up her candidacy. Earlier, another PRO-CON lawyer filed a criminal suit, also before the Comelec, against then PCSO chief Maria Livia “Honeygirl” de Leon and PhilHealth president (now Health Secretary) Francisco T. Duque for vote buying, intervention of a public officer, using public funds for election purposes and using banned election propaganda. Public funds were allegedly spent to enroll families in PhilHealth for one year to induce the enrollees to vote for President Arroyo. The premium cost of P1,200 for each family member was chargeable to PhilHealth and the PCSO. The PhilHealth identification cards bore the President’s picture and the name. Their distribution coincided with the start of the election campaign.
LAS VEGAS SUITE: First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo was the subject of another controversy over his alleged use of a $20,000-a-night suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Mexico’s Erick Morales last March 19. The story first appeared as a blind item in the March 23 column of Inquirer sports columnist Recah Trinidad which said a "heavyweight backer" of Pacquiao had stayed in the $20,000 suite at the MGM Grand. The column did not mention Mr. Arroyo. Mr. Arroyo said he did not see anything corrupt about accepting a generous offer of a suite from the hotel as he thought that his stature as the husband of a head of state entitled him to such perks.
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June 13, 2005 @ 5:55 pm
Posted by Yvonne Chua Filed under General, In the News
IN his comment on the post "The missing pieces," cy_nick asked about the scandals that have rocked the Arroyo administration. Besides the two current controversies, now being called the "Juetenggate" and "Gloriagate," we’ve come up with this initial list. Feel free to add to it.
IMPSA: Four days after it assumed office, the Arroyo administration approved the awarding of a controversial $470-million contract to the Argentine firm IMPSA (Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima) to rehabilitate a hydroelectric plant in Laguna. Justice Secretary Hernando Perez was later accused of demanding and receiving $2 million dollars from ex-Rep. Mark Jimenez, who brokered the deal. Jimenez said he wired the amount to the account of Ernest Escaler in Hong Kong on Feb. 23, 2001 from his bank in Uruguay. The former congressman has been extradited to the United States and has pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and making illegal campaign contributions.
SAN FRANCISCO: From the time she was first elected senator in 1992, President Arroyo had failed to declare in her sworn Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth the properties her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, bought in San Francisco through his California-based LTA Realty Corp. Newsbreak reported that Mr. Arroyo acquired, re-sold, and managed at least five properties with a total value of at least $7.1 million in the Bay City from 1992 to 2000. The First Couple said they bought the properties in trust for Mr. Arroyo’s younger brother, Ignacio, now a congressman.
BONG PINEDA: President Arroyo got loudly questioned about her personal connection with alleged jueteng boss Bong Pineda: She is godmother to one of Pineda’s sons. She denied any impropriety, saying she doesn’t associate with Pineda or his crowd. In an interview with Time Magazine in 2001, she said that when she was asked to be godmother, she got counsel from then archbishop of Manila Jaime Cardinal Sin. "Cardinal Sin said, as a Christian, if I am asked to be a godmother, it is my Christian duty," she relates, "because the sins of the father are not the sins of the son."
MIKEY’S HORSES: Newsbreak broke the news on a plan of first presidential son Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo to import the 32 thoroughbred horses from Melbourne, Australia. The then Pampanga vice governor, now a congressman, denied the allegation. He admitted, though, he was in the horse trade business; he owns Franchino Farms along with cousin Franchino Pamintuan and friend Ralph Mondragon.JOSE PIDAL: On Aug. 18, 2003, opposition senator Panfilo Lacson accused First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo of money laundering for supposedly siphoning off at least P321 million in campaign funds and contributions to a secret bank account under the fictitious name Jose Pidal and three other accounts using the names of his aides. Among the “donors,” Lacson said, was then Rep. Mark Jimenez who contributed a total of P8 million. Lacson also accused Mr. Arroyo of having an affair with his accountant, Victoria Toh. Following Lacson’s allegations, Mr. Arroyo’s younger brother, Ignacio, came forward to say he is Jose Pidal.
AGRI FUND: First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo was linked in May 2004 to the alleged diversion of P728 million from the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani program to President Arroyo’s campaign war chest in the form of development assistance funds to local government units. Then Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn I. Bolante, Mr. Arroyo’s classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University and a colleague at the Rotary Club District 3830, cleared the First Gentleman of involvement. Bolante was tasked to oversee the implementation of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani program at the time.
PHILHEALTH CARDS: Six weeks before the May 2004 elections, two lawyers from PRO-CON(stitution) filed a disqualification case against President Arroyo before the Comelec, saying she was behind the enhanced Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s Greater Medicare Access or GMA program which they claimed was meant to prop up her candidacy. Earlier, another PRO-CON lawyer filed a criminal suit, also before the Comelec, against then PCSO chief Maria Livia “Honeygirl” de Leon and PhilHealth president (now Health Secretary) Francisco T. Duque for vote buying, intervention of a public officer, using public funds for election purposes and using banned election propaganda. Public funds were allegedly spent to enroll families in PhilHealth for one year to induce the enrollees to vote for President Arroyo. The premium cost of P1,200 for each family member was chargeable to PhilHealth and the PCSO. The PhilHealth identification cards bore the President’s picture and the name. Their distribution coincided with the start of the election campaign.
LAS VEGAS SUITE: First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo was the subject of another controversy over his alleged use of a $20,000-a-night suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Mexico’s Erick Morales last March 19. The story first appeared as a blind item in the March 23 column of Inquirer sports columnist Recah Trinidad which said a "heavyweight backer" of Pacquiao had stayed in the $20,000 suite at the MGM Grand. The column did not mention Mr. Arroyo. Mr. Arroyo said he did not see anything corrupt about accepting a generous offer of a suite from the hotel as he thought that his stature as the husband of a head of state entitled him to such perks.
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Sunday, June 05, 2005
When Classes Open Today, Many Boys Won't Be in School
Posted on 5 June 2005
by YVONNE T. CHUA
"WHERE ARE the boys?"
Quezon City Schools Division supervisor Beth Meneses has been asking this question the past several years. On really bad days, she says, as many as one in five of the male students in the city's high schools could be anywhere — the streets, the canteen, the mall, the computer gaming shop — but in the classroom.
Throughout the country, even in Muslim Mindanao where girls have traditionally been kept out of the classroom, public high school teachers have been worrying about the boys. When classes open today and teachers in jampacked classrooms survey a sea of mostly female faces, they will again be wondering where the boys are.
Some teachers have personally hunted down the wayward teenagers, or at least sent the female students to chase after them. If the boys aren't brought back immediately to the classroom, the teachers say, the school system would lose a number of them for good.
Boys have long been more likely to drop out of school than girls in either the grade- or high school level. But as more families require more hands to generate income, parents and teachers get busier, and teenage distractions multiply, the ratio of males to females exiting prematurely from high school has worsened.
There were three male dropouts for every two female dropouts in high school eight years ago. There are now two for every one.
Boys are also leaving school earlier. Of the 211,171 male dropouts in schoolyear 2003-2004, 43 percent were freshmen or 13- to 14-year-olds. There are so many boys dropping out that only 57 of every 100 boys who entered first year end up with a high school diploma, compared to 71 girls.
Indicators in Public Secondary Education, Schoolyear 2002-2003
INDICATOR TOTAL MALE FEMALE
Gross Enrolment Ratio (%) 65.66 62.96 68.41
Net Enrolment Ratio (%) 45.56 41.76 49.44
Cohort Survival Rate (%) 63.88 56.71 71.22
Years Input per Graduate 5.66 6.24 5.19
Graduation Rate (%) 90.62 88.41 92.58
Promotion Rate (%) 83.82 78.49 88.97
Repetition Rate (%) 2.81 4.35 1.32
Failure Rate (%) 9.6 12.59 6.72
Dropout Rate (%) 6.58 8.92 4.31
SOURCE: Department of Education
The trend has altered the landscape of high schools, especially public ones, which account for 80 percent of student enrolment. Across the country, girls now outnumber boys in secondary education. While the excess of high school girls stands at seven percent on average, the gender imbalance is more pronounced in some parts of the country, where females outnumber the males by as much as 30 percent.
Says Eusebio San Diego, Quezon City's values education supervisor: "We keep talking about discrimination against women, but it's the boys we've forgotten."
There are now far more illiterate boys than girls. As a result, more men are jobless and subsequently suffer from low self-esteem. As it is, three out of five unemployed Filipino are now male while nearly 70 percent of today's overseas Filipino workers are female.
Ironically, one of the more frequently cited reasons why boys have gone missing from school is that they have to work. Educators say the deepening poverty in the country is forcing more schoolchildren — usually the boys — to contribute to the family coffers.
About 2.5 million or two-thirds of the four million working children are male, mostly from the rural areas and households with about six members, according to a 2001 survey on children by the National Statistics Office (NSO).
National Achievement Test - Fourth Year, Schoolyear 2003-2004
SUBJECT MALE FEMALE
English 44.08 50
Science 33.52 35.16
Mathematics 31.11 32.36
Total Test 36.24 39.17
SOURCE: Department of Education
San Diego says that poor families tend to make the boys work because they are considered to be more physically able than girls. In broken homes, mothers also expect the boys to take on the father's role. "They are depended on to help support the family," he says.
Because boys generally perform poorer in school, it also seems easier for parents to make them quit and get a job. "Parents would tell kids, 'If you're not doing well in school, drop out and work,'" says Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz.
Most rural boys help farm and fish, says Rene Romero, presidential assistant on special projects and concerns at the Philippine Normal University (PNU). They also land temporary jobs in street diggings or drainage clearings. In some places, says Romero, young boys are employed in "light" work, such as collecting jueteng bets.
The NSO survey found that working boys who are still in school tend to have difficulty catching up with the lessons. Parents, in turn, find that work has affected their children's school performance, pointing to low grades and declining interest in learning.
More than a third of the country's four million child workers had stopped or dropped out of school. Male dropouts outnumbered the females with a ratio of 2:1, citing loss of interest in schooling as the top reason. Others dropped out because their families could not afford their education.
On the whole, Luz says, loss of interest is the chief reason that boys — whether working or not — give up on school. "Boys tend to do poorly than girls," he says. "As they become frustrated, they tend to drop out."
Overall, boys indeed score lower than girls in the National Achievement Test, which checks a child's learning in English, science and math. The biggest difference lies in English, where the boys' scores are five to six percentage points lower than girls'.
More boys (4.35 percent) than girls (1.32 percent) also have to repeat a year level. It also takes boys longer to finish high school: 6.24 years compared to the girls' 5.19 years.
These do not mean the boys are mentally inferior, emphasizes Gertrudes Macusi, assistant to the principal of Ramon Magsaysay High School in Quezon City. They are simply less academically prepared for various reasons, including their inattentiveness in class.
PNU's Romero says that girls value education more than boys do because they no longer see themselves merely staying at home when they grow up; they expect to have careers. Boys tend to assume they would be able to work even without finishing school. Says Romero: "If you let a girl study, she's more likely to finish and find a job here or overseas. You don't have to force them. But with boys, the parents have to force them to finish their schooling."
Girls, he adds, have good study habits compared to boys who have less patience and less endurance for studying, especially in reading and language subjects. Meneses, who taught English for more than two decades before becoming supervisor last year, agrees. "Boys don't like reading at all," she says. "They think reading is girl stuff."
San Francisco High School guidance counselor Philip Austria also observes, "We find that the problematic boys were lazy since elementary. Their study habits weren't formed. They're in second year, but they can't read and write English. They can't understand the lessons. Nababagot sila, naaburido sila (They get annoyed, they get frustrated)."
When that happens, some boys just give up. Jonathan Boadilla of Agoo, La Union was 15 when he enrolled at the town's President Elpidio Quirino National High School five years ago. When the second semester opened, he walked up to his teacher and returned all his books. He was quitting, he declared, because "school was hard."
Boadilla's mother persuaded him to return the following year, but he still passed freshman year with difficulty. Sophomore year turned out to be even harder for him. When the term ended, Boadilla had flunked his math and was asked by the school to enroll in summer class so he could proceed to junior year. He never did.
But grades were not Boadilla's only problems. His mother later found out that he usually cut classes, and instead drank and smoked with his barkada at a sari-sari store near the school. The principal's office kept sending his mother letters about his absences, but one in particular made Beth Boadilla decide to just let her son drop out. "He was caught drinking and smoking in school," she says. "It was embarrassing." In the months that followed, Jonathan's friends also dropped out.
San Diego is not surprised. He points out that adolescent boys are more adventurous, rebellious and daring than adolescent girls, and peer influence is strongest at this stage of development. "Boys are easily convinced (to do stuff) by their friends," he says.
These days the distractions available to the boys come in many forms, among them billiards, the malls and basketball. But educators in urban areas today brand network gaming as among their top foes. Meneses says most boys who miss class hang out in computer shops. "Computer gaming is like a vice," she says. "It's like gambling. You get hooked on computer games. Their allowance for school they use to buy load. I've had male students who lose interest in school because of gaming and drop out. When their teacher scolds them, they stop going to class."
She recalls one student's mother who went around computer shops looking for her son who had gotten hooked on network gaming. The determined mother would march the boy back to school, making sure he finished high school. But the consequence of missing too many classes had set in. The boy was not academically prepared for college or technical school despite having obtained a scholarship from a foreign foundation. Now jobless, he hangs around at the street corner where his mother sells fried bananas and cold drinks.
The problem has also been observed outside Manila. Delia Rivera, a teacher in La Union, recalls that truant boys used to be out playing in the fields or swimming in the river, and would even attend class with wet pants. "Come the 1990s and now, boys are cutting classes and you find them in computer shops," she says.
If not there, they hang out elsewhere. Says Lui Libatique, a master teacher at the Quirino National High School in La Union: "Here, the boys are fond of going out at night, sit under the trees to just talk. They wake up late in the morning and they miss class."
There are, of course, some extreme reasons why boys have gone missing in classes. A World Bank report says many more boys in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao drop out of school in their early teens, and do so about two years earlier than among boys in other parts of the country.
The pattern, the report says, "could be due to the continual armed conflict in the region, its disruptive effects on homes and schools, and its adverse impact on the economy. These consequences appear to have had a more disruptive effect on teenage boys than on girls of the same age. At the same time, early male dropout itself feeds the supply of boys who take up arms."
Still, educators themselves say that sometimes the conditions in the schools, teachers' attitudes, as well as the boys' families are crucial factors in just how long male students would keep going to class.
"Many parents," says Macusi, "are simply not paying enough attention to their children." She says several parents at her school, Ramon Magsaysay, a model institution in the Quezon City educational system, are market vendors and drivers who have to leave home very early and are unaware if their children ever make it to school later in the day. Unfortunately, some of the children head straight for the video and computer shops at Nepa Q Mart, a pedestrian bridge away from the school, rather than to class.
"When the child comes home, his mother is not yet there. The child really has no one to turn to but his friends, his barkada," Macusi says. Still, she says, the reality is that many parents do have to work long hours and cannot be there for their children all the time. "They're too busy. We have to accept that," she says.
Educators say the absence of one parent can have a big effect on a child's — especially a boy's — education. But they differ on which absentee parent has more impact on a boy's drive to go to school.
San Diego says, "When the father is missing, the boy has no one to be afraid of. Boys are scared of their fathers more than their mothers." Yet Romero argues, "When it is the mother who isn't there, it's more likely you won't go to school. The nanay takes care of the baon. The mother would supervise about homework. She is the extension of the school. The father rarely asks about homework or offers a child to help him or her do it."
Educators, though, agree the constant presence and supervision of both parents would minimize juvenile delinquency, which leads partly to the dropout problem. While some are expelled for serious misdemeanors, those who are suspended use that as a reason not to go back to school. Guidance counselor Austria says boys who get into trouble at the San Francisco High School tend to come from broken, large-size families. "They're into marijuana and gambling," he says. "Some cases involve carrying deadly weapons."
Yet even when the boys show up in school relatively ready to learn, it still takes some doing to hold their attention, especially in big, crowded schools. Public high schools have been growing at an annual five percent as hard times force more students to transfer out of private schools and into public institutions.
At the San Francisco High School alone, a standard classroom for 40 has been divided into two classes, each holding 50 to 70 students per section. "We're packed like sardines," says Meneses. She has noticed that the boys get easily irritated and are hot-tempered because they can barely move.
Ballooning school populations have also made monitoring students much harder. In some Quezon City high schools, a teacher handling five to six sections could have as many as 450 students. As a result, the teachers don't know their students well, and can barely tell one from the other.
The sectioning system employed in most schools is no help as well. Quezon City Schools Division journalism supervisor Ligaya Regis says that it only leaves the poor performers among the students even less inspired to improve. "The best teachers are in Sections 1, 2 or 3," she says. "The also-rans are in 29 to 30."
But sometimes, the teachers are themselves the problem. "We need to also discipline teachers," says Austria. "Some teachers don't show up because they're demoralized over low pay, lack of support to their profession, the low evaluation they are getting." Once a teacher is absent, the boys tend to slip out of class and don't return to school for the day, especially if the teacher who is absent happens to be assigned to the first subject of the day.
Austria also laments that some teachers don't mind when some of their students are missing. He observes, "Some teachers even prefer children to be absent. That means less kids whom they have to teach." — with additional reporting by Avigail Olarte
Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
by YVONNE T. CHUA
"WHERE ARE the boys?"
Quezon City Schools Division supervisor Beth Meneses has been asking this question the past several years. On really bad days, she says, as many as one in five of the male students in the city's high schools could be anywhere — the streets, the canteen, the mall, the computer gaming shop — but in the classroom.
Throughout the country, even in Muslim Mindanao where girls have traditionally been kept out of the classroom, public high school teachers have been worrying about the boys. When classes open today and teachers in jampacked classrooms survey a sea of mostly female faces, they will again be wondering where the boys are.
Some teachers have personally hunted down the wayward teenagers, or at least sent the female students to chase after them. If the boys aren't brought back immediately to the classroom, the teachers say, the school system would lose a number of them for good.
Boys have long been more likely to drop out of school than girls in either the grade- or high school level. But as more families require more hands to generate income, parents and teachers get busier, and teenage distractions multiply, the ratio of males to females exiting prematurely from high school has worsened.
There were three male dropouts for every two female dropouts in high school eight years ago. There are now two for every one.
Boys are also leaving school earlier. Of the 211,171 male dropouts in schoolyear 2003-2004, 43 percent were freshmen or 13- to 14-year-olds. There are so many boys dropping out that only 57 of every 100 boys who entered first year end up with a high school diploma, compared to 71 girls.
Indicators in Public Secondary Education, Schoolyear 2002-2003
INDICATOR TOTAL MALE FEMALE
Gross Enrolment Ratio (%) 65.66 62.96 68.41
Net Enrolment Ratio (%) 45.56 41.76 49.44
Cohort Survival Rate (%) 63.88 56.71 71.22
Years Input per Graduate 5.66 6.24 5.19
Graduation Rate (%) 90.62 88.41 92.58
Promotion Rate (%) 83.82 78.49 88.97
Repetition Rate (%) 2.81 4.35 1.32
Failure Rate (%) 9.6 12.59 6.72
Dropout Rate (%) 6.58 8.92 4.31
SOURCE: Department of Education
The trend has altered the landscape of high schools, especially public ones, which account for 80 percent of student enrolment. Across the country, girls now outnumber boys in secondary education. While the excess of high school girls stands at seven percent on average, the gender imbalance is more pronounced in some parts of the country, where females outnumber the males by as much as 30 percent.
Says Eusebio San Diego, Quezon City's values education supervisor: "We keep talking about discrimination against women, but it's the boys we've forgotten."
There are now far more illiterate boys than girls. As a result, more men are jobless and subsequently suffer from low self-esteem. As it is, three out of five unemployed Filipino are now male while nearly 70 percent of today's overseas Filipino workers are female.
Ironically, one of the more frequently cited reasons why boys have gone missing from school is that they have to work. Educators say the deepening poverty in the country is forcing more schoolchildren — usually the boys — to contribute to the family coffers.
About 2.5 million or two-thirds of the four million working children are male, mostly from the rural areas and households with about six members, according to a 2001 survey on children by the National Statistics Office (NSO).
National Achievement Test - Fourth Year, Schoolyear 2003-2004
SUBJECT MALE FEMALE
English 44.08 50
Science 33.52 35.16
Mathematics 31.11 32.36
Total Test 36.24 39.17
SOURCE: Department of Education
San Diego says that poor families tend to make the boys work because they are considered to be more physically able than girls. In broken homes, mothers also expect the boys to take on the father's role. "They are depended on to help support the family," he says.
Because boys generally perform poorer in school, it also seems easier for parents to make them quit and get a job. "Parents would tell kids, 'If you're not doing well in school, drop out and work,'" says Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz.
Most rural boys help farm and fish, says Rene Romero, presidential assistant on special projects and concerns at the Philippine Normal University (PNU). They also land temporary jobs in street diggings or drainage clearings. In some places, says Romero, young boys are employed in "light" work, such as collecting jueteng bets.
The NSO survey found that working boys who are still in school tend to have difficulty catching up with the lessons. Parents, in turn, find that work has affected their children's school performance, pointing to low grades and declining interest in learning.
More than a third of the country's four million child workers had stopped or dropped out of school. Male dropouts outnumbered the females with a ratio of 2:1, citing loss of interest in schooling as the top reason. Others dropped out because their families could not afford their education.
On the whole, Luz says, loss of interest is the chief reason that boys — whether working or not — give up on school. "Boys tend to do poorly than girls," he says. "As they become frustrated, they tend to drop out."
Overall, boys indeed score lower than girls in the National Achievement Test, which checks a child's learning in English, science and math. The biggest difference lies in English, where the boys' scores are five to six percentage points lower than girls'.
More boys (4.35 percent) than girls (1.32 percent) also have to repeat a year level. It also takes boys longer to finish high school: 6.24 years compared to the girls' 5.19 years.
These do not mean the boys are mentally inferior, emphasizes Gertrudes Macusi, assistant to the principal of Ramon Magsaysay High School in Quezon City. They are simply less academically prepared for various reasons, including their inattentiveness in class.
PNU's Romero says that girls value education more than boys do because they no longer see themselves merely staying at home when they grow up; they expect to have careers. Boys tend to assume they would be able to work even without finishing school. Says Romero: "If you let a girl study, she's more likely to finish and find a job here or overseas. You don't have to force them. But with boys, the parents have to force them to finish their schooling."
Girls, he adds, have good study habits compared to boys who have less patience and less endurance for studying, especially in reading and language subjects. Meneses, who taught English for more than two decades before becoming supervisor last year, agrees. "Boys don't like reading at all," she says. "They think reading is girl stuff."
San Francisco High School guidance counselor Philip Austria also observes, "We find that the problematic boys were lazy since elementary. Their study habits weren't formed. They're in second year, but they can't read and write English. They can't understand the lessons. Nababagot sila, naaburido sila (They get annoyed, they get frustrated)."
When that happens, some boys just give up. Jonathan Boadilla of Agoo, La Union was 15 when he enrolled at the town's President Elpidio Quirino National High School five years ago. When the second semester opened, he walked up to his teacher and returned all his books. He was quitting, he declared, because "school was hard."
Boadilla's mother persuaded him to return the following year, but he still passed freshman year with difficulty. Sophomore year turned out to be even harder for him. When the term ended, Boadilla had flunked his math and was asked by the school to enroll in summer class so he could proceed to junior year. He never did.
But grades were not Boadilla's only problems. His mother later found out that he usually cut classes, and instead drank and smoked with his barkada at a sari-sari store near the school. The principal's office kept sending his mother letters about his absences, but one in particular made Beth Boadilla decide to just let her son drop out. "He was caught drinking and smoking in school," she says. "It was embarrassing." In the months that followed, Jonathan's friends also dropped out.
San Diego is not surprised. He points out that adolescent boys are more adventurous, rebellious and daring than adolescent girls, and peer influence is strongest at this stage of development. "Boys are easily convinced (to do stuff) by their friends," he says.
These days the distractions available to the boys come in many forms, among them billiards, the malls and basketball. But educators in urban areas today brand network gaming as among their top foes. Meneses says most boys who miss class hang out in computer shops. "Computer gaming is like a vice," she says. "It's like gambling. You get hooked on computer games. Their allowance for school they use to buy load. I've had male students who lose interest in school because of gaming and drop out. When their teacher scolds them, they stop going to class."
She recalls one student's mother who went around computer shops looking for her son who had gotten hooked on network gaming. The determined mother would march the boy back to school, making sure he finished high school. But the consequence of missing too many classes had set in. The boy was not academically prepared for college or technical school despite having obtained a scholarship from a foreign foundation. Now jobless, he hangs around at the street corner where his mother sells fried bananas and cold drinks.
The problem has also been observed outside Manila. Delia Rivera, a teacher in La Union, recalls that truant boys used to be out playing in the fields or swimming in the river, and would even attend class with wet pants. "Come the 1990s and now, boys are cutting classes and you find them in computer shops," she says.
If not there, they hang out elsewhere. Says Lui Libatique, a master teacher at the Quirino National High School in La Union: "Here, the boys are fond of going out at night, sit under the trees to just talk. They wake up late in the morning and they miss class."
There are, of course, some extreme reasons why boys have gone missing in classes. A World Bank report says many more boys in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao drop out of school in their early teens, and do so about two years earlier than among boys in other parts of the country.
The pattern, the report says, "could be due to the continual armed conflict in the region, its disruptive effects on homes and schools, and its adverse impact on the economy. These consequences appear to have had a more disruptive effect on teenage boys than on girls of the same age. At the same time, early male dropout itself feeds the supply of boys who take up arms."
Still, educators themselves say that sometimes the conditions in the schools, teachers' attitudes, as well as the boys' families are crucial factors in just how long male students would keep going to class.
"Many parents," says Macusi, "are simply not paying enough attention to their children." She says several parents at her school, Ramon Magsaysay, a model institution in the Quezon City educational system, are market vendors and drivers who have to leave home very early and are unaware if their children ever make it to school later in the day. Unfortunately, some of the children head straight for the video and computer shops at Nepa Q Mart, a pedestrian bridge away from the school, rather than to class.
"When the child comes home, his mother is not yet there. The child really has no one to turn to but his friends, his barkada," Macusi says. Still, she says, the reality is that many parents do have to work long hours and cannot be there for their children all the time. "They're too busy. We have to accept that," she says.
Educators say the absence of one parent can have a big effect on a child's — especially a boy's — education. But they differ on which absentee parent has more impact on a boy's drive to go to school.
San Diego says, "When the father is missing, the boy has no one to be afraid of. Boys are scared of their fathers more than their mothers." Yet Romero argues, "When it is the mother who isn't there, it's more likely you won't go to school. The nanay takes care of the baon. The mother would supervise about homework. She is the extension of the school. The father rarely asks about homework or offers a child to help him or her do it."
Educators, though, agree the constant presence and supervision of both parents would minimize juvenile delinquency, which leads partly to the dropout problem. While some are expelled for serious misdemeanors, those who are suspended use that as a reason not to go back to school. Guidance counselor Austria says boys who get into trouble at the San Francisco High School tend to come from broken, large-size families. "They're into marijuana and gambling," he says. "Some cases involve carrying deadly weapons."
Yet even when the boys show up in school relatively ready to learn, it still takes some doing to hold their attention, especially in big, crowded schools. Public high schools have been growing at an annual five percent as hard times force more students to transfer out of private schools and into public institutions.
At the San Francisco High School alone, a standard classroom for 40 has been divided into two classes, each holding 50 to 70 students per section. "We're packed like sardines," says Meneses. She has noticed that the boys get easily irritated and are hot-tempered because they can barely move.
Ballooning school populations have also made monitoring students much harder. In some Quezon City high schools, a teacher handling five to six sections could have as many as 450 students. As a result, the teachers don't know their students well, and can barely tell one from the other.
The sectioning system employed in most schools is no help as well. Quezon City Schools Division journalism supervisor Ligaya Regis says that it only leaves the poor performers among the students even less inspired to improve. "The best teachers are in Sections 1, 2 or 3," she says. "The also-rans are in 29 to 30."
But sometimes, the teachers are themselves the problem. "We need to also discipline teachers," says Austria. "Some teachers don't show up because they're demoralized over low pay, lack of support to their profession, the low evaluation they are getting." Once a teacher is absent, the boys tend to slip out of class and don't return to school for the day, especially if the teacher who is absent happens to be assigned to the first subject of the day.
Austria also laments that some teachers don't mind when some of their students are missing. He observes, "Some teachers even prefer children to be absent. That means less kids whom they have to teach." — with additional reporting by Avigail Olarte
Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Teachers Deplore Dole-out, Demand Immediate Pay Hike for Government Employees
ALLIANCE OF CONCERNED TEACHERS
2/F Teachers’ Center, Mines St. cor. Dipolog St., Bgy.VASRA, Q.C.
Telefax 453-9116
Mobile 0920-9220817
Email actphils@edsamail.com.ph
SEC Registration 0108727
TIN 236-090-727-000
June 2, 2005
Reference: Antonio L. Tinio (0920-9220817)
ACT Chairperson
“Is that it? Is that all this government can give to state workers this year? Crumbs!” This was the reaction of public school teachers to Malacañang’s announcement that it would provide a P1,000 “education assistance” bonus to all government employees.
“We need a salary increase, not a dole-out,” said ACT Chairperson Antonio Tinio.
“Malacañang is giving us crumbs. Meanwhile, corrupt fat cats closely linked to Malacañang rake in huge incomes with this administration’s blessing. WinstonGarcia earns over P300,000 monthly, Mikey Arroyo received P600,000 monthly,” added Tinio. “The vast majority of honest workers in the government bureaucracy live on a pittance. Public school teachers earn a mere P9,939 per month—less than half of the monthly cost of living in Metro Manila.” He noted that the Arroyo government has imposed a crippling salary freeze on state workers since 2001.
Teachers further denounced the Arroyo government for its continuing refusal to provide an immediate salary increase for government employees even as LaborSecretary Patricia Sto. Tomas recently announced that private sector workers in Metro Manila would receive a P25 increase in their daily wage.
“This administration really has no compassion for teachers and government employees,” said Tinio. “It continues to refuse to grant a pay hike this year despite the skyrocketing cost of living. We’re feeling the pain of the economic crisis just as much as our counterparts in the private sector.”
Tinio noted that the P25/day wage hike granted in NCR was well below the P125 increase demanded by workers nationwide. “It’s a measly sum compared to the workers’ demands. At best it would have a marginal impact on the standard of living of wage earners. But something is better than nothing—which is what we’regetting.”
“Enough is enough! Four years without a salary increase is no longer acceptable to public school teachers,” said Tinio. “On the first day of the new school year, we will lead protest actions in schools. In the coming weeks and months, we will launch big rallies and mass leaves to press for our demands.” #
2/F Teachers’ Center, Mines St. cor. Dipolog St., Bgy.VASRA, Q.C.
Telefax 453-9116
Mobile 0920-9220817
Email actphils@edsamail.com.ph
SEC Registration 0108727
TIN 236-090-727-000
June 2, 2005
Reference: Antonio L. Tinio (0920-9220817)
ACT Chairperson
“Is that it? Is that all this government can give to state workers this year? Crumbs!” This was the reaction of public school teachers to Malacañang’s announcement that it would provide a P1,000 “education assistance” bonus to all government employees.
“We need a salary increase, not a dole-out,” said ACT Chairperson Antonio Tinio.
“Malacañang is giving us crumbs. Meanwhile, corrupt fat cats closely linked to Malacañang rake in huge incomes with this administration’s blessing. WinstonGarcia earns over P300,000 monthly, Mikey Arroyo received P600,000 monthly,” added Tinio. “The vast majority of honest workers in the government bureaucracy live on a pittance. Public school teachers earn a mere P9,939 per month—less than half of the monthly cost of living in Metro Manila.” He noted that the Arroyo government has imposed a crippling salary freeze on state workers since 2001.
Teachers further denounced the Arroyo government for its continuing refusal to provide an immediate salary increase for government employees even as LaborSecretary Patricia Sto. Tomas recently announced that private sector workers in Metro Manila would receive a P25 increase in their daily wage.
“This administration really has no compassion for teachers and government employees,” said Tinio. “It continues to refuse to grant a pay hike this year despite the skyrocketing cost of living. We’re feeling the pain of the economic crisis just as much as our counterparts in the private sector.”
Tinio noted that the P25/day wage hike granted in NCR was well below the P125 increase demanded by workers nationwide. “It’s a measly sum compared to the workers’ demands. At best it would have a marginal impact on the standard of living of wage earners. But something is better than nothing—which is what we’regetting.”
“Enough is enough! Four years without a salary increase is no longer acceptable to public school teachers,” said Tinio. “On the first day of the new school year, we will lead protest actions in schools. In the coming weeks and months, we will launch big rallies and mass leaves to press for our demands.” #
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Police's Closure of PGH Main Gate: Shade of Martial Law
PRESS STATEMENT
May 11, 2005
Reference: MR. JOSSEL I. EBESATE
National PRO and Manila Chapter President, All UP Workers Union
Mobile Phone No: 09189276381
May 11, 2005
Reference: MR. JOSSEL I. EBESATE
National PRO and Manila Chapter President, All UP Workers Union
Mobile Phone No: 09189276381
The All UP Workers Union strongly condemned the barbaric acts of the Philippine National Police against the participants to the celebration of the National Health Workers Day last Friday, May 6, 2005 at the Philippine General Hospital compound. The participants, numbering about 600 who are all employees of public hospitals in Metro Manila with some support from urban poor individuals were prevented by the police from marching to the Chino Roces Bridge (Mendiola) by closing the main gate of PGH at around 9:30 AM to 12:00 noon. The gate was opened only after the voluntary, organized dispersal by the Public Health Workers at around 11:30 in the morning - the workers being fully aware and true to their calling as public servants.
The police's action had not only stopped the group from heading to Mendiola but more importantly, it proved that we are now in a state of an undeclared Martial Law. By sacrificing the services provided by PGH to the public and unduly suppress the constitutional rights of individuals – its very own public health workers at that - the police only succeeded in putting further the sitting government in a quagmire; and alienated from it, a large segment of the Public Health Workers.
It is further lamentable that this government, instead of leading the celebration of the National Health Workers Day (as declared by President Aquino in 1987), by focusing on the flight of its own Public Health Workers, what we got was political repression and the deprivation of an affordable and quality health services to our people.
The Union therefore, together with the Alliance of Health Workers’ that organizes last Friday’s activity, is appealing to all freedom loving Filipino people to join us in our crusade. Our crusade that for this government to respect our rights especially our right to health and our freedom of expression and of assembly. The incident last Friday had proven that: it is not only the provincial journalists rights and lives that were at risks, neither were the provincial and regional leaders of progressive party list groups - but all of us.
We call on Congress to investigate the said incident in PGH. Was the action of the police headed by a certain Superintendent Paglinawan and Senior Inspector Peco, an isolated case or a general policy of the state. Are we in a state of an undeclared Martial Law?
We finally call on our fellow Public Health Workers not to lose hope, instead, we must unite so that together, we forcefully carry on in our struggle for P3,000.00 across the board salary increase, implementation of the benefits under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers (RA 7305), the Nursing Law of 2002 (RA 9173), the increase of health budget and an affordable quality health services to our people. We must be also conscious and vigilant that while we pursue our sectoral concerns, we shall not forget that our concerns were part of the aspiration of the Filipino people for a genuine development and a real change.###
Monday, May 09, 2005
Health Workers on Health Workers’ Day: Sick with Government Neglect
It was health workers’ day last May 7 but the more than 400 health workers from different hospitals in Manila gathered a day before not to celebrate but to call the government’s attention to the worsening condition of the health sector. Their plan to bring their grievances to Malacañang Palace was blocked when the police refused to allow them to march.
BY AUBREY MAKILAN
Bulatlat
It was health workers’ day last May 7 but the more than 400 health workers from different hospitals in Manila gathered a day before not to celebrate but to call the government’s attention to the worsening condition of the health sector. Their plan to bring their grievances to Malacañang Palace was blocked when the police refused to allow them to march.
The protesters assembled inside the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) compound in Manila at 9 a.m. and were planning to march along Taft Avenue. However, a 50-man anti-riot police contingent from the Western Police District (WPD), armed with truncheons and batons, closed the hospital gates, including the pedestrian gates. They banned the entry and exit even of patients and relatives who needed to buy medicine from the hospital pharmacy. Everyone was made to use the Padre Faura gate, including a woman in labor.
The rallyists, led by the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) and Kilosbayan para sa Kalusugan (KBK) then decided to hold their protest action inside the PGH compound.
One of the rally speakers, Remedios Maltu, president of the San Lazaro Hospital Employees Association-Alliance of Health Workers, using the sound system addressed the anti-riot police that blocked the gates of the PGH where they assembled before proceeding to Mendiola, the road leading to the presidential palace.
“Kung wala kaming mga unyonistang nakikipaglaban dito, may matitira pa bang ospital na libre ngayon?,” (Without unionists like us, do you think there would still be hospitals offering free services?), asked Maltu.
Maltu said the government should not have declared a “special” day for them if they could not even exercise their freedom of expression on that day. Through an executive order, former Corazon Aquino declared May 7 as health workers’ day.
Jenny Manuel of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) said the creation of Health Workers’ Day was just a consuelo de bobo (meaningless token) to them. “Kami na nga lang ang nagse-celebrate, di pa pinapayagan,” she said. “They have lined us with the other unsung heroes, and are now forgotten.”
Bulatlat called the Department of Health (DoH) but its personnel said no one is available that Friday due to the new four-day work policy of the government.
Health crisis
Both AHW and KBK hold President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo responsible for the health sector’s worsening condition. The administration’s inaction with regards the health workers’ demands – a P3,000 across-the-board salary increase; higher budget allocation for health workers’ benefits; and priority to health budget – are part of the reasons the militant health workers support the call for Macapagal-Arroyo’s ouster. Aside from health-related issues, they also criticize other state policies, particularly the anti-terrorism bill and value-added tax (VAT).
Manuel added that aside from reducing the budget for health services, the government is gearing on the restructuring of government-owned hospitals, including the Lung Center, National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), Philippine Heart Center, East Avenue Medical Center and Philippine Children’s Medical Center.
Meanwhile, Celestina Latonero, also called Nanay Seling by her fellow protesters and a community health volunteer in Pook Libis, Diliman, Quezon City, said in Filipino that Macapagal-Arroyo “may be the smallest president but the worst of all.”
Nanay Seling, 68, is a native of Samar (a Visayan province 800 kms south of Manila). She told Bulatlat how difficult and expensive it is to avail of medical services whether in the province or in Manila. The problem doesn’t end when the patient dies, she said. She shared how even children are forced to play sakla (a card game) to raise money for the burial expenses of their dead loved ones.
Dr. Gene Nisperos, secretary general of Health Alliance for Democracy (Head), said that the police’s behavior was not surprising and reflects only their chief’s attitude.
Sympathy
Although they blocked the protesters as instructed by their superiors, some members of the anti-riot police believe that the health workers’ calls were legitimate.
Five policemen interviewed by Bulatlat said they sympathized with them but they had to follow orders. One of them even said, “Sana ‘wag naman nila kaming i-reject sa mga ospital, pero wala talaga kaming magagawa, kaysa naman mawalan kami ng trabaho.”
According to another, they know how hard life is with a meager salary. This PO2 ranking policeman said he only receives around P11, 000 because of so many deductions.
But Maltu pointed out that performing their task should not mean the curtailment of other people’s rights. Bulatlat
© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
BY AUBREY MAKILAN
Bulatlat
It was health workers’ day last May 7 but the more than 400 health workers from different hospitals in Manila gathered a day before not to celebrate but to call the government’s attention to the worsening condition of the health sector. Their plan to bring their grievances to Malacañang Palace was blocked when the police refused to allow them to march.
The protesters assembled inside the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) compound in Manila at 9 a.m. and were planning to march along Taft Avenue. However, a 50-man anti-riot police contingent from the Western Police District (WPD), armed with truncheons and batons, closed the hospital gates, including the pedestrian gates. They banned the entry and exit even of patients and relatives who needed to buy medicine from the hospital pharmacy. Everyone was made to use the Padre Faura gate, including a woman in labor.
The rallyists, led by the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) and Kilosbayan para sa Kalusugan (KBK) then decided to hold their protest action inside the PGH compound.
One of the rally speakers, Remedios Maltu, president of the San Lazaro Hospital Employees Association-Alliance of Health Workers, using the sound system addressed the anti-riot police that blocked the gates of the PGH where they assembled before proceeding to Mendiola, the road leading to the presidential palace.
“Kung wala kaming mga unyonistang nakikipaglaban dito, may matitira pa bang ospital na libre ngayon?,” (Without unionists like us, do you think there would still be hospitals offering free services?), asked Maltu.
Maltu said the government should not have declared a “special” day for them if they could not even exercise their freedom of expression on that day. Through an executive order, former Corazon Aquino declared May 7 as health workers’ day.
Jenny Manuel of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) said the creation of Health Workers’ Day was just a consuelo de bobo (meaningless token) to them. “Kami na nga lang ang nagse-celebrate, di pa pinapayagan,” she said. “They have lined us with the other unsung heroes, and are now forgotten.”
Bulatlat called the Department of Health (DoH) but its personnel said no one is available that Friday due to the new four-day work policy of the government.
Health crisis
Both AHW and KBK hold President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo responsible for the health sector’s worsening condition. The administration’s inaction with regards the health workers’ demands – a P3,000 across-the-board salary increase; higher budget allocation for health workers’ benefits; and priority to health budget – are part of the reasons the militant health workers support the call for Macapagal-Arroyo’s ouster. Aside from health-related issues, they also criticize other state policies, particularly the anti-terrorism bill and value-added tax (VAT).
Manuel added that aside from reducing the budget for health services, the government is gearing on the restructuring of government-owned hospitals, including the Lung Center, National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), Philippine Heart Center, East Avenue Medical Center and Philippine Children’s Medical Center.
Meanwhile, Celestina Latonero, also called Nanay Seling by her fellow protesters and a community health volunteer in Pook Libis, Diliman, Quezon City, said in Filipino that Macapagal-Arroyo “may be the smallest president but the worst of all.”
Nanay Seling, 68, is a native of Samar (a Visayan province 800 kms south of Manila). She told Bulatlat how difficult and expensive it is to avail of medical services whether in the province or in Manila. The problem doesn’t end when the patient dies, she said. She shared how even children are forced to play sakla (a card game) to raise money for the burial expenses of their dead loved ones.
Dr. Gene Nisperos, secretary general of Health Alliance for Democracy (Head), said that the police’s behavior was not surprising and reflects only their chief’s attitude.
Sympathy
Although they blocked the protesters as instructed by their superiors, some members of the anti-riot police believe that the health workers’ calls were legitimate.
Five policemen interviewed by Bulatlat said they sympathized with them but they had to follow orders. One of them even said, “Sana ‘wag naman nila kaming i-reject sa mga ospital, pero wala talaga kaming magagawa, kaysa naman mawalan kami ng trabaho.”
According to another, they know how hard life is with a meager salary. This PO2 ranking policeman said he only receives around P11, 000 because of so many deductions.
But Maltu pointed out that performing their task should not mean the curtailment of other people’s rights. Bulatlat
© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
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