ABUSIVE POOR

We hear the term ‘abusive rich’ on a daily basis. But have you ever come across the term abusive poor?

Let me give you examples:

• I work overtime most nights, to the point that half of the time, dinner is at the office. So I go home past bedtime, sometimes near or past midnight. When I approach our gate, I always have to slow down since our neighbors have this nightly habit of downing Ginebra San Miguel at the side of the road. These are the same people who complain that the government is not giving them enough food and jobs, not enough education for their children, and well, the government is basically doing nothing. Yet they can afford the nightly booze and cigarettes.

• Enrollment time is another good time where the abusive poor show up. Why is enrolment in public schools chaotic? Parents are complaining why they have to pay for the boy scout / girl scout fees, and PTA fees of their five children. Five children? All in the elementary? Is it the government’s fault that they did not space their children properly and cannot support them afterwards?

• And oh, this one I really love. This came out in the Sun Star daily on June 25, 2008. The residents have been complaining about a lagoon which formed after the property owner had done a reclamation project. The lagoon allegedly causes health hazards for the residents. The barangay officials brought up the problem to the City Hall, prompting Mayor Osmena to ask the lot owner to do something about it. Turns out that the residents have illegally put up their shanties there after they were evicted from a nearby lot. “We can’t force him to accommodate the squatters in his property. I don’t think it’s fair for me to make him spend to maintain this area for the benefit of the squatters,” the mayor told reporters. That makes a lot of sense. And it generally summarizes the attitude of the poor: they want the best things in life for free, because they are poor.

• This one is closer to the heart. During one of the site visits among community projects, I came across loans disbursed for a cattle fattening program. Some farmers say that this is where they get their extra income. The process is rather simple, requires minimal labor and is profitable. That is if you follow the instructions to the letter. The procedure is to buy a full grown cow, fatten it for a month and sell it afterwards. The loan is repaid and a profit is earned. Simple. But some farmers, upon receipt of the loan, buy a television or a sala set instead. Since part of the loan has already been spent, they buy a young cow instead of a full grown one. They try to sell it when the loan is due, but since the cow can only fetch so much money, the loan is not repaid and interest charges pile up. End of the success story.

• Lots of foreign grants find their way into the country, into the hands of non government organizations, and ultimately into poor communities. These grants are designed to improve the lives of the poor and financially challenged communities. Sad to say, the poor don’t appreciate it that much. These foundations just don’t give donations. They require the communities to give counterpart contributions, more often in the form of labor and services. Take the case of water systems. The granting agencies usually give materials and money for the construction of the water system; the recipients donate their labor. And afterwards, the community maintain and run the water system for the benefit of everybody. After the water system is inaugurated and starts to distribute water to the community, everyday is happy. Now the committee in charge of maintaining the system starts to bill the users. The users refuse to pay. It is a donation; it is for free. What will happen if the water system breaks down? Where will they get the funds to pay for its maintenance? “Then we will ask for another grant”, came the reply. Same with multi purpose loans. The grant is supposed to be a seed money for a credit cooperative. But the people who received the loans refuse to pay the amortization. This is a grant, a donation. This is not supposed to be paid. So we witness another credit cooperative folding up.


Today, I came across an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer about Mang Pandoy. I heard his name some years back but I only have a vague memory of him. For the benefit of all, Mang Pandoy became a symbol of poverty during the time of the Ramos administration. He made an offer on TV that he was willing to be killed if P100,000 will be left behind for his family. He was even invited to Ramos’ first State of the Nation Address. Sixteen years later, he died as he had lived: poor.

Now, our first reaction would be to say that the Ramos Administration, followed by the Cory administration, Erap and then Gloria administrations had done nothing to pull Mang Pandoy out of poverty.

Now the fact is that he had received many gifts outright at the height of his popularity. He was given a P200,000 loan to start and business and was paid a P2,000 weekly talent fee for appearing on a government TV show for three years. These are not large amounts, I agree. But if used properly, I believe his financial condition could have been at least improved.

There were also missed opportunities. His seven children by his second wife were all given scholarship grants – yet not one of them finished schooling. One daughter complained that she wasn’t able to finish her studies due to lack of school allowance. A perfect example of what I’ve mentioned before: THEY WANT EVERYTHING TO BE FREE.

PRIESTS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GET MARRIED AND HAVE CHILDREN

Priests Should Be Allowed To Get Married And Have Children

It cannot be denied that once in a while, a priest will emphasize a point in his homily, and you will say to yourself, “This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about!” (Granting of course, that you are paying attention to the priest’s homily and not absently gazing at the pink strap of the bra the lady in front of you is wearing).

I think priests should be allowed to get married. This will dramatically change their outlook of life in general and the contents of their homily, in particular. (That is, if they compose their own homily and not hire some ghost writers or copy the homily of others.) Why? First and foremost, married guys will agree with me that having in laws in general, and a mother-in-law in particular, changes a lot of things. This will be one of the biggest catalysts in his life. Whether this is for better or for worse will solely depend upon the character and courage of the priest. I’m sure he will have second thoughts talking about the deadly sin sloth, when his own jobless, good for nothing brother in law is sitting in the front pew, about to doze off. Or, he might be thinking of omitting the discussion of being faithful when his father in law is in attendance, not with his wife but with their sexy neighbor.

But what really irritates me is when priests go on lengthy discussions on how to bring up children. “Ang mga bata dili angay nga bunalan”. (We should not use force in disciplining our children) Oh, really? Why don’t you let my seven year old son and his four year old cousin stay in the convent for at least a week? Then, let us see if the priest will still abide by his rule.

There was also this senior citizen priest, who at the end of the mass, made this announcement: “Try to discipline your small children. Do not let them wander around the church. Most of all, do not allow them to shout or to cry. Discipline them.” My God! Do not allow them to cry?

I think we should not only allow our priests to get married and have children. We must also require them to have grandchildren. Then their sermon will be more brief.

SPEND AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE WITH YOUR LOVED ONES

Yeah, we hear those words often enough. And that we should tell them that we love them. Majority of us are good with this theoretically, but don’t fare well in actual practice. We have to work hard to feed our family. Work overtime to pay the bills. These are the ills of modernization.

As for me I try to spend much time with my loved ones, due to this one experience. It wasn’t really my experience but that of a friend. Her father, who was living in their hometown, died suddenly. When the news was relayed to her, she really cried. Of course. But it was only later that she told me that what hurts most was that she hadn’t spent time with her father lately. Her father had already invited her for a vacation in their hometown, but her busy work schedule plus her responsibilities as a wife and mother had prevented her from going home. I told her it’s not her fault. But that’s not the point. It seems that during that period, there were instances wherein she had the opportunity to go home, but didn’t. Lots of reasons were at hand for her to postpone going home:

· The stay will only be for a few days, so the travel expenses would not be maximized.

· The stay will be longer, but as of now we don’t have enough money.

· We will just go there during the fiesta, so that we will meet a lot of relatives.

· We will go there when you uncle gets married

And so on and so forth. Lots of excuses not go home.

Then her father died. Had she known that her father will die, she would have dropped off everything in her hands just to spend those precious moments…

How many hours do you work each week?

I came across this article in the internet:

“According to some recent surveys, more than 50% of business executives work 46 hours a week or more, more than 56% find their working hours too long. Whatever their responsibilities in the firm, more and more executives dream of a more balanced life.”

I work for an industry where working long hours is normal, especially during the “busy” season. During the lean period, working hours can be considered highly desirable – eight hours a day, Monday to Friday. That’s a total of 40 hours a week. Very light work.

But come busy season, which lasts for four months, almost all other aspects of our daily lives take a back seat. We usually work for 14 hours a day (that’s up to 11:30 pm) and whole day Saturday. If there are really pressing matters and deadly deadlines to beat, we even have to work on Sundays. If that busy season falls on Holy Week, we are exempt from working only on Good Friday. Which means that Holy Thursday, Black Saturday and Easter Sunday are just regular working days. Total working hours often reach 80 hours a week. Whew!

Naturally, turn over rate of employees in this industry is high. An employee usually stays with a company for 2 years (or 3 busy seasons), and off he goes looking for another job, earning the bragging right that he was once connected with this firm and that he was able to survive all the long hours of work. Some employees cannot stand the thought of rendering long hours, and quit after a month or two. Most survive a year just to get the experience and the feel of it.

Generally, employees in the industry get paid for overtime work. However, some companies have time allocations for the assigned projects. If an employee is not able to finish the assigned work for the allocated time, he forfeits the overtime pay. Since long hours are rendered, employees usually have lots of extra money during this period. Unfortunately, they cannot find the time to spend their hard earned money due to time constraint. What a shame.

So you might ask: how long have you been in the job? You might be surprised if I tell you that I am on my 14^th year on the job and that I already spent 15 nerve wracking, time consuming seasons. Why did you stay that long? – you might add. I myself cannot understand it, so I am slowly dissecting it now.

My original plan was to stay on the job for a year or two to gain experience, the usual trend in the industry. I was about to quit after a year, for obvious reasons. Then my father gave me a call. He told me he just quit his job. Uhhh…Ergo I cannot quit mine. That’s fine. I got a raise anyway.

So for various reasons, I stayed on the job, whether I got an increase or came a project which I really liked and made me momentarily forget that I don’t really like my job. As the seasons rolled on I kind of got addicted to the feeling everyone experiences right after the last assigned task is passed, just in the nick of time. The feeling of ultimately relief sends shivers across your whole body and you can smile and laugh again, genuine laughter from the bottom of the heart after all those sleepless nights. I guess that kind of feeling made me want to stay.

2.11.08