Still on the issue of golf caddies

Last Wednesday I was able to play my first round for the 33rd Coral Invitational Golf Tournament despite the efforts by the Associated Labor Unions to disrupt the golf tournament of the Cebu Country Club by urging the caddies to go on strike. Yes, there were strikers out in the front gate of  CCC who carried placards that read "We are on Strike!" But the golf tournament proceeded without a hitch.

What really is happening here is that, ALU is trying to muscle in on the caddies who are already earning their keep. I checked with the other golf clubs and found out that there are less than 250 caddies in Alta Vista, 300 in CCC and probably 150 in Mactan. So overall we are talking about 600 plus people who caddy for a living. Yes, there could be another 300 or 400 umbrella girls who also serve their "amos" in various golf courses.

So the big question to ask is: "are caddies being oppressed by the golf clubs or in CCC in particular?" I don't think so. I already mentioned how much we pay for caddy fees the other day. Not many of you know that we have a lot of doctors who play golf and when they are at the club, every now and then, they are approached by caddies for free medical advice. And I have heard of many stories than when some of these caddies are hospitalized, they don't even pay for their doctor's fees. In many instances, the CCC pays for the hospital bills for caddies. So frankly speaking, ALU has no reason to "force" their hand to unionize those caddies.

For those of you who do not know anything about golf, yes, in the old days, being a caddy was tough work as you had to carry that heavy golf bag for at least seven kilometers or a round of 18 holes of golf. But that was in the 60's & 70's. Today, CCC and all the other clubs provide a carry cart for those bags and all that the caddy has to do is push those bags around the course. But it gets better. In Alta Vista, golf carts are a must and therefore caddies merely ride with the golfer. So being a caddy nowadays isn't backbreaking work like the good old days.

On a final note, I guess it is time to ask ourselves: which sporting activity has helped a greater number of our poor in this country? I dare say that golf is the only such sport where a player can hire a caddy and pay him higher than the minimum wage. Thankfully, the well-heeled are playing golf these days; otherwise many caddies would have no job. In my book, what ALU is doing is to rock the boat, which could force our golf clubs to stop using caddies because they are a luxury here and when that time comes all the caddies would pin the blame on ALU. Remember that in western countries, they no longer use caddies when they play golf.

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I got this statement from the Facebook page of my good friend and fellow Philippine Star columnist Carmen "Chit" Pedrosa. It's an open letter from another good friend; Atty. Romulo Macalintal who wrote a very lengthy discourse entitled "With only one law passed, it's time to abolish Congress." Of course, this came as a shocker to me because of the so many issues that we have to cover on a day-to-day basis, we did not realize that this Congress only passed one albeit insignificant law in the year 2013 and that was the P35.2 billion budget.

Atty. Mac then gave a litany of reasons why Congress should be abolished. He stated, "The very dismal performance of our legislators in 2013 with only one insignificant law enacted for that year with a whopping P35.2 billion budget is enough justification to call for a Charter Change to abolish Congress and let the Provincial Governors and Mayors of highly-urbanized cities to form the legislative assembly. After all, these local government executives know the kind of law needed in their respective areas. We already have enough national laws waiting implementation with some of them already obsolete."

From the way I size up the commentary of Atty. Macalintal, he is pushing for a change in the system of governance and this sounds very familiar like a federal system of government. But while we have the same objective, Atty. Mac knows too well that Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III has shunned every effort to change the charter, which is why in her column a couple of weeks ago, Ma'am Chit Pedrosa said, "Mr. President if you continue; blocking our efforts to change the charter, you are alone and therefore, you have become irrelevant."

This Congress has appropriated for the Senate and House of Representatives a total of P3.3 billion and P6.4 billion, respectively, for what? Their operational cost? And in return, they only get to pass one law? If Congress or the Senate are no longer productive then I fully concur with the observations of Atty. Macalintal to change our system of governance because they are just wasting the people's money.

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