‘Moderate their greed’

The original line came from former socio-economic planning secretary Romulo Neri who advised an associate/turned whistle blower Jun Lozada to moderate the greed of certain government officials who wanted to milk an orchestrated government loan intended for the National Broadband project during the Presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. That controversy and the criminal complaints that followed have yet to be settled, but in the mean time there is a new bunch of people who seriously need to be told or advised to “Moderate their greed.”

This new bunch I’m referring to are the many executives, CEOs, owners and private sector investors all over the country whose corporations and conglomerates have been raking in billions of pesos or dollars in profits annually, bragging about their double or triple digit percentage earnings but have the gall and extreme greed and selfishness to oppose salary increases claiming it would lead to job losses! That is sick and even worse it is wicked in biblical proportions. Many of the profits earned by big corporations are no longer a reflection of good business and sound management but evidence of profit for profit’s sake, success brought about by size and financial war chests as well as cutthroat business practices and conspiracies.

It’s sick that while they gloat over profits, expansions, mergers and takeovers, a close look into their daily human relations reveal that many employees are left struggling to make payments for educational plans, housing loans, car loans or financially destabilizing emergency medical procedures that are beyond the coverage of company HMOs if any. What makes me puke is how the self-appointed spokespersons for businesses and industry who don’t even own corporations or businesses will energetically bad-mouth or block demands for wage increase for the people who can no longer make ends meet without making real sacrifices in their quality of life and health.

I challenge these talking heads to live on below minimum or current minimum wage that ordinary people earn. Let’s see how long before you realize that you can’t buy your maintenance medicines as prescribed by the doctor. That you have to sleep as you commute because if you don’t you’ll have to get by on three hours a day, spend 10 to 15% of your wage paying installments for a thrice sold scooter or Japanese bike bought at the surplus store because you can no longer afford to ride PUVs, live on 90% kanin or rice diet, borrow money and juggle the money in order to spend part of it and use part of it to pay debts as quick as flickering Christmas lights!

I don’t want to condemn the ultra rich or profitable corporations. But please ask yourself: for what purpose are you growing and growing businesses, making and making more money, earning more and more profits? What good and how many percent of your humongous profits really go to changing the quality of life, first of the people who helped the company earn the money and then to those in your own community, then your own circle? And last for people who cannot in anyway be of help or add to your profit. Remember, yesterday we commemorated a lot of dead and forgotten successful people all of them in the cemetery, in a box or urn dusted once a year.

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I don’t know if my post on Facebook will pick up traction but just to make sure that credit is given where credit is due, I’m repeating the story in this column in the hope that Mayor Bobby Eusebio of Pasig City will recognize one of his dedicated Blue Boys in Pasig.

Last Tuesday Oct. 31 at 1:10 p.m. I was driving out at the bottom of Pasig Boulevard on to C5 when the traffic slowed down almost to a halt and that’s when I discovered that the pouring rain had effectively flooded the narrow access road and inexperienced drivers were crawling through the gutter deep water. In between the cars, I caught sight of a Pasig City traffic enforcer a.k.a “Blue Boy” because of their uniform, trying to clear the drainage with a piece of stick. That apparently was not working and in his frustration he simply got on his knees and cleared the drainage with his hands. Unfortunately the traffic did not allow us to pull over to help or give the guy money for merienda and laundry service. The rain also prevented us from getting decent pictures of the guy’s face or name but we tried our best and posted them on Facebook where several friends have shared the same. I hope Mayor Eusebio can find and reward the guy because it was a real case of acting beyond the call of duty.

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Local government units all over the country have continued to ignore the order of DILG Secretary Año to ban tricycles from operating on national highways. One repeated complaint I got was from the Tarlac area particularly the town of La Paz where tricycle drivers ignore the honking of cars, vans and buses trying to get past them as they straddle the left lane. Unfortunately ignorance on the matter is not limited to tricycle drivers because we encountered so many belligerent and ignorant drivers who insist on staying on the overtaking lane of the SLEX just because they are doing 80 to 100 kilometers per hour. Please understand that the leftmost lane is for passing others or overtaking. You can continue driving at 80 to 100 kph in the middle lane and simply pass the slower ones using the passing lanes. If people are flashing their lights behind you or honking or giving you a dirty look or dirty finger, it is because you are in fact violating the rule.

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