What's being prepared?

The newspapers run nothing else but the continuing saga in Japan and so do all the television networks, both local and foreign. The papers and TV are full of gut-wrenching images of the devastation wrought on this powerful nation, the third biggest economy in the world. We as a nation reach out to the Japanese people in this bleakest of time. Japan has always led other countries in giving aid to other countries stricken by disasters. We join the nation in prayers that recovery may be quick and that the threats of a nuclear fall-out will not prosper.

We hope too that our leaders will realize that, though we cannot accurately predict when and where these monumental disasters will strike our soil, much is left to be desired in the country’s preparedness to cope with such disasters. In a disciplined and prosperous country like Japan where earthquakes are a matter of course, they were still not prepared for the magnitude of the calamity visited on them. Most of their buildings are earthquake-proofed. Evidently, most of ours are not. Their citizenry is calm and trained while ours largely unwilling to stay within the structures of regimen and discipline. With so many high-rise buildings cropping up, the race is on as to who can build the tallest yet. Is the government agency tasked with overseeing the safety and viability of these buildings on top of the situation? If we do have the expertise and technical capability to gauge this, the agency will have its hands full checking out all the tall buildings first, then all the others in the pecking order. If a building is found to be faulty and cannot meet the standards of safety as far as earthquake-proofing is concerned, do we have the political will to condemn it as a public hazard?

In the wake of recent natural disasters, accountability has never been so challenged. Our government agencies must be reminded that they are duty-bound to protect the public at all costs.

Tentative?

The bill seeking to implement a P125/day across-the-board wage increase filed by party list representatives is now on the committee level in the House. There are now public hearings conducted by the Labor Committee in the House.

In last week’s column, we printed some salient points in the position paper of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) which they submitted to Congress. We were able to talk with Ed Lacson, president of ECOP who elucidated the employers’ concerns about the pending bill. Immediately after, we sought out a member of the party list group who introduced the bill. Rep. Teddy Casino of Bayan Muna, who I had the pleasure of interviewing a couple of years back, graciously granted an interview to our staff.

In that previous interview years back, Cong. Teddy was accommodating, eloquent and spontaneous, honest and well-informed. Even with his extremely busy schedule, he gave me a whole afternoon for the interview which turned out to be a very pleasant one.

When I viewed his recent interview with one of our field reporters, I noticed that he was guarded and maybe even a little reticent. Because I’ve always sought to be fair in my dealings, I want to give both sides equal space to defend their positions in any given issue. Having aired ECOP’s position, I wanted to do the same for the bill’s authors.

In essence, Rep. Casino simply stated that the basis for their filing of the bill was to protect the Filipino worker which we all can safely surmise. To address the issues in ECOP’s position paper (which was a lengthy one, replete with data and figures), the Congressman had little to say:

1. Their proposal is based on the computation of living wages as computed by the government. By their reckoning, the current minimum wage does not measure up to a living wage. In fact, even if doubled, it will still not count as a living wage.

2. They feel that the proposed P125/day wage increase will not only benefit the workers but the national economy as well – more wages means more purchasing power, which means more consumer spending, and thus a bigger boost to the national economy.

3. His personal view is that, at this time, an increase of P125/day is too little for the Filipino worker, but since it has already been settled among his colleagues and filed, he is willing to stay with this figure for now.

4. There is obviously a problem on enforcement, should the bill be passed. They acknowledge this, but at the moment they have no concrete plans on how to address it. Their position is simply that it will be addressed.

5. Feeling that the ECOP position on the issue is one-sided, Cong. Teddy says that it is high time that the businessmen do their bit of sharing with the Filipino worker. Acknowledging that the new legislated wage increase, if passed, will eat into the enterprise’s profit margin, it will be “minimal”, he says – “hindi naman palagi ang manggagawa na lang ang palaging nagsisikip ng sinturon”.

While any economist will tell you that consumer spending will definitely drive a country’s economy, it is simplistic to rationalize the hefty wage increase in this pending bill through the consumer-spending route. I was also looking forward to a more point-by-point rebuttal of some issues raised by ECOP, from their standpoint of course, on how excessive wage increases can shrink the formal sector and widen the informal sector and how this can distort the market, for instance. I wanted their views on ECOP’s position that wage increases should not be legislated but should be productivity-based as well as market-based. I also wanted to know what measures they have put in place in order to address the problem of enforcement.

I guess they have their reasons to be guarded at this time, when the bill is still pending in Congress and they have to defend their position with the many businessmen/politicians sitting in the House. Maybe, they are reserving the hard arguments when the day of reckoning comes, and we cannot pre-empt them. But given such a simplistic defense of the bill’s merits, it comes across as a populist measure which belies the lofty ideals they have always espoused. 

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino. 

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