Bregada Eskwela 2013

It was an extra-ordinary day!

You get to scratch clean the dirty walls and smack yellow paint over it, of course in a coordinated manner. It was my first Bregada Eswkela experience. A yearly program of DepEd where an army of volunteers composed of students, teachers, parents and other concerned citizen do systematic repainting and repairs in different public schools. We were assigned to Old Balaran Elementary School in Quezon City.

It was a fairly small school with a covered court at the center sided by buildings. The new ones, as seen by the bright colour and modernish design sits on the right while we are to repair and repaint the building sitting on the right of the covered courts.

Sanding, cleaning and repainting may at first impression, appear to be a face lift service. But I saw that this one day exercise does more than just give the school a new and fresh feel. It is a symbolic call that education, particularly in public schools is everybody’s business: cleaning it outside – and reforming it within.

Needless to say, education is key in building an enlightened citizenry that would elect enlightened leaders who would eventually make and implement enlightened policies. This series of outcomes will eventually strengthen our intuitions and our nation as a whole.

A heroic response to this call aside from a week of school cleaning is two years of teaching as a public school teacher at Teach Philippines. 

A Call to Action for a City in Transition

For almost half of my life, I only know your family name as the mayor of my birthplace.

Under your watch, I have seen this city rise from a place that is not even included in TV patrol’s weather bulletin to a thriving hub that has attracted big brands and big corporations. Under your watch, I have seen Divisoria rise from its sleepy obscure status to a center of local commerce. And under your watch we’ve seen a slowly defining skyline with flyovers albeit weirdly colored sprout in and around the city. Yes, it is true. I felt economic growth under your watch but as any economics student understands, economic growth can only last when the systems and structures that support it grows with it or else things will collapse under its own weight. Crime will soar, incomes will stagnate health will deteriorate . And this is exactly why I embraced the need for your brand and style to go.

We are transitioning as a city from highly urbanized to a metropolitan area, that is the center of gravity in the region. And this transformation calls a new kind of political leadership . One that does not merely transact the affairs of the city or worse, run it like a business or source of livelihood, but transforms the public institutions within it. This is important and that is also why this victory is historic and critical as well. Historic in a sense that it shattered the seeming invincibility of the Emano brand . Critical in a sense that majority of the solons of city hall still have their hands tied with the old style.

And this in itself poses a rare and great opportunity. The campaign for the candidacy of Moreno has been composed not only of Liberal Party political operatives and allied coalitions but it includes in its ranks a spectrum of local NGOs and Civil Society Groups whose rootedness in community concerns capacitates it to engage fruitfully with the political leadership . A Mayor who won by these broad support and trust opens the door for these sectors to directly engage the political leadership. And this is a chance we never had before in recent memory.

Let us make full use of it. Let us make Hapsay a real thing. And this requires us to organize ourselves in the ground and strategically engage with the  new leadership under the agenda put forward during the campaign. History has taught us that reform oriented leaders fail or get eaten up by the rotten deals of the system when there is no reform oriented constituency to support and engage them. And let us not forget the youth. They play a very vital role in organizing and developing this reform oriented constituency. It is their sheer energy, population,  tech savvy, fresh ideas and burning idealism that would make this project more cohesive and long term. And glad to know that these are the ones who rallied behind the campaign.   

So let us not commit those mistakes in this exciting point in our national story. Cities play a vital role in our national economic development. And for these cities to work, its local public institutions have to be put into proper order. Institutions such as the local school boards, the RTA, the local social service, the health centers, the development councils, the budget and the like must be diagnosed or better yet, dissected so that all can see where the cancer lies. These local institutions are the closest to the people and its state of health are immediately felt and its efficiency or lack thereof spells the big difference in poverty alleviation, city development and risk reduction.  We learned that before the hard and deadly way.

All politics is local as they say. This can never be more true now. The politics of Tuwid na Daan is a national call that sees its face in the locality. It is the LGUs, the more basic unit of government that drives this forward. And most importantly, it is the audacity and commitment of the citizens of these LGUs which will ultimately spell a better city, a better province, a better Philippines. 

It is Short of Marriage

I finally got to  wear my formal attire under the piercing Quezon City heat.

Atty. De Vera and I visited NLRC for a mediation on an a case decided way back in 2006. The merits were interesting. The illegal dismissal case all started with two cans of dalandan and it all ballooned into a million peso damage suit. The decisions of the labor arbiter and the NLRC was all in favor of the worker and them come together to settle. But this day’s story is not about the case but the whole experience I had waiting for our case to be mediated.

I was able to observe cases prior to ours. This one in particular, I can tell you the feeling there was raw and intense. For the first part, there was this lawyer trying to settle with his client’s worker. The employer wasn't there and from the looks of it, has no intention to face the guy. You can see it in the laborer’s eyes. The mix of anger and frustration can be felt even observing from afar. His eyes then teared up eventually.  He has this shrill in his voice that he strives to control because emotions might consume him and compromise the whole thing. And it ended with no settlement.

What I’ve observed is the sheer rawness of the emotion that plays in these mediations. I can just imagine the years of close relationship between them and that was no ordinary relationship. This kind entails confidence, entails mutual benefit and support, entails mentorship as well. Sounds familiar right? It is short of marriage but far from acquaintances. And all of the sudden it is shattered with feelings of deep contempt towards one another. And the bargaining power always tips in favor of the rich employer.

This is the struggle of the worker and this experience has reinforced my view that indeed for the poor who struggles to find regular work , the loss of a job through unjust causes is equivalent to the loss of their chance to pursue their own measure of happiness. It is an attack to an inherent right needless to say.

Labor Law has become a lot more meaningful and interesting.

Araw ng Manggagawa

Under the piercing glare of the sun and on heat-radiating asphalt, the Labor Day march and rally was an experience that has surely left a mark.  Not so much because I endured intense Manila heat, but because of thousands of others who also did in solidarity to get the message of the dignity of labor across to the law makers and the public. 

Balancing the interest of labor and the general cost of doing business is a constant balancing act. It is a tricky policy debate and as an economics graduate, I understand that rushing to conclusion without thorough analysis can only produce detrimental effects in the long run. I am all for security of tenure and I see the intention behind such push is clearly good however this should be viewed with other economic factors such as its effect on the volume of potential jobs, cost of goods, prices, and purchasing power. Further discourse must be ironed out on the immediate and long-term effects of the economy. But all this analysis should be in a framework that highly respects the inherent dignity of human labor over profit and capital. This I believe can only be achieved by constant study and discourse in government halls and/or on the streets.