EDITORIAL - Two crying shames begging for Noynoy's justice

Two underlying themes of the new Aquino government are change and justice. Of course real change, change that we can believe in, is not going to happen overnight, perhaps not even in the six years of Noynoy's presidency. But he can start the process. That, we are willing to believe.

On the other hand, justice, whose brand Noynoy likes to describe as complete and for all, can be dispensed quickly, especially in areas where it is required, not just in that one solitary aspect which most objective people really believe is what this is all about: Get Gloria.

For example, there are two areas of complete and sweeping injustice that not only have been overlooked but, most objective people have come to suspect, are in fact being deliberately ignored, or even perpetuated, by certain influential sectors with the complicity of government.

These two areas of complete and sweeping injustice involve the domestic employment of nurses, and the growing "contractualization" of the mode of employment, especially in the service sector.

In case Noynoy is unaware of the situation, the cost of nursing education has skyrocketed so high it is now one of the most expensive courses in college. And quite interestingly, nursing has overhauled the principle of supply and demand.

One would have thought that with nursing students falling head over heels to enroll, even in schools that normally would make a nursing course stick out like a sore thumb, the cost of a nursing course would have plummeted. Instead the cost has skyrocketed.

But that is not where the real injustice lies. The real injustice lies in the kind of pay nurses employed domestically are getting. Local nurses are being paid peanuts after paying an arm and a leg for their degrees. So how about swift justice for local nurses, Mr. President.

And then there is that crying shame of contractualization prevailing in the service sector, which ensures that nobody gets elevated to regular status, thus allowing companies to avoid complying with mandated benefits.

Contractual employees are forced to submit to this indignity and injustice out of their desperate need to be employed. Better to eat once a day than not to eat at all, never mind if, like red-bottomed flies, they flit from one dung heap to the next. Justice, Mr. President.