Political coalitions will end in.junking!

For all their ballyhooed prowess, it turns out that the Liberal Party (LP) is still having problems in the local level even if in the national level, it has already coalesced with the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), which, by its name, is already a coalition in itself. This was revealed last Sunday at the 14th National Congress of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP).

The last report we heard from the NP was that, to solidify the coalition with the LP, they should have at least four slots in the Senatorial line up. These would go to Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Cynthia Villar, the wife of Sen. Manny Villar who is pushing for the inclusion of Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Teddy Casiño, and the last slot to be given to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who took his oath with the NP last July 8. What about former Rep. Ace Barbers who is the NP spokesman? I thought that he was also running for senator? How this will be resolved will certainly be interesting.

Meanwhile, firming up the NP line up is not without problems because for instance, the entry of Teddy Casiño has been blocked by no less than Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III himself, who is the Liberal Party titular head. That PNoy is an avowed Akbayan loyalist, the reason why he said that “Akbayan and I think the same,” means that they could never coalesce with the Bayan Muna. Now how long will this coalition hold? We really don’t know… remember that these so-called “smart-assed” politicos have a favorite pastime just a few days before elections and it’s called “junking.”

On the other hand, the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) would have two slots, which would go to Sen. Loren Legarda (who is fast earning the distinction of being the new Madame Butterfly for being in so many political parties) and Sen. Francis Escudero. Again, there’s a big question that remains unanswered. Why should NPC give a slot to Sen. Escudero when he already gave up his membership in the NPC? This only proves to one and sundry that NPC needs personalities that could carry the vote, rather than politicians having an ideology. Abangan!

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Meanwhile back to the 14th Congress of the ALU-TUCP, we read that the new leadership wanted to organize the workers in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, which today is considered the industry that employs most of our workers next to the Philippine government. Call me lucky that the other night I bumped into my good friend Mr. Joel Mari Yu of the Cebu Investment Promotion Center (CIPC) having dinner in an uptown Chinese restaurant and they were at the next table.

So we talked about the BPO industry and the possible threats that could destroy it and so we ended up asking each other whether allowing unions in the BPO industry would help it grow or would it be a hindrance. Joel told me in no uncertain terms, “The problem with this country is, there is no repudiation in concepts that no longer work like communism which continues to thrive even if it is already passé’. Unionism is one of the reasons why the BPO industry moved to the Philippines, because this caused wages to skyrocket and therefore no longer economically feasible. But by the nature of their business, BPOs can establish in places like Cebu and still make money.”

I fully agree with Joel’s views and it is a fact that in the Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) there has been at least 50 attempts by the unions to organize, but they failed for the simple reason that MEPZ companies are paid well and treated better thanks to a great human resources group. But Joel still sees some use for unions when he said, “Unions can thrive where there is injustice.” Perhaps they would work in a banana plantation, but for sure they would have difficulty in organizing in a call center that pays the highest wages in this country today.

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The Blackbox:

Last Monday, in preparation for the coming Aboitiz Invitational Golf next week, the organizers held a game of golf prior to the presscon and call me lucky that we played a round of golf with Miguel Tabuena, the 17-year old golf prodigy together with Bayani Garcia and Atty. Elias Espinoza of SunStar.

The two youngsters played the back tee, while Ely and I played the white tee and we were just amazed with the power of these two young men. On the first hole, Miguel’s drive was a mere 40-yards from the hole. Bayani made hole no.2 in two shots even in the blustery conditions. That game was just a preview of the up and coming Philippine Golf Tour and Asian Development Tour that’s called the Aboitiz Invitational 2012 that would start next week, Aug. 8, where the top prize has gone up to US$65,000. Watching Miguel Tabuena battle it out with best of the best pros in this country would surely be an entertaining week.

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