Workers' income and tuition fee hikes

There is something terribly wrong when the government is very fast in approving tuition fee increases, while continuing to maintain workers' income to a minimum level, even below the government's own established poverty line. The minimum wage is indubitably shown to be much lower than the cost of living and the level of what is called by the economists as the living wage. In fact, the Constitution itself assures labor, not only of full employment, but also of living wage. But these promises remain unfulfilled, and there is no palpable evidence, which is visible to the masses that government intends to fulfill them at all. The people are suffering and wages are kept low in the guise of attracting investments. The working class is always the sacrificial lambs. The nation embraces economic policies at the expense of the poor, without any safety nets.

To top it all and perhaps, to exacerbate the sufferings of the people, the unkindest cut of all is when the same government approves, left and right, up and down, almost all applications for increases in tuition fees and miscellaneous fees. The educational systems are controlled either by the moneyed elite in society or by some religious organizations that might have forgotten that even the least of God's brethren are also entitled to the fundamental right of a basic education. By increasing tuition and miscellaneous fees, along with the rising costs of books, uniforms, school supplies, and transport costs to and from schools, while at the same time pegging the workers' income, the government continues to exclude the millions of poor children from access to quality and decent education. This is virtually pushing the poor from both ends. Until when the social fabric of the nation can endure when the majority are being sacrificed for the sake of the minority.

And when, by government's own policies and decisions, the economic growth is allowed to be elitist, and even abetted by wage and education officials not to be inclusive, then there really is something terribly wrong in the way this government is managing the social and economic development of the country. The parents cannot afford an education for the rapidly growing population because the income of the working class is being pegged at minimum levels. The wages that workers received are not even enough for food, shelter, and other basic needs. How can minimum wage-earners, who constitute the greater bulk of our working class afford the high cost of education? Why is it easy to approve tuition fee hikes while refusing to adjust wages to a decent level? Why is government too callously unmindful of this very fundamental fact?

The 7.2% economic growth attained by our country in 2013 and the even higher economic projection for 2014 is nothing but a mockery to the growing poverty of the people. Only the taipans and the tycoons are amassing billions, those who control the economy, and only those who monopolize all the means of economic production, distribution and sales are the ones getting all the benefits from the rapid economic growth. It is a growth for the rich, a growth that is not inclusive, a growth that excludes the greater bulk of the masses, the working class, and the poorest of the poor. The owners of schools and the officials in their management and administration are assured of income and profit but the doors of the institutions are closed to the poor children of workers. That is the saddest part of it.

I am the eldest son of two poor public school teachers from the mountains straddling between Ronda in the southwest and Argao in the southeast. I had to work in the farm at age 7 and worked as a school janitor at age 12 in one of the universities in Cebu City. I lived in the squatters' area without any running water or electricity. I had to support myself until I obtained an academic scholarship and became a lawyer, without paying my law school a single cent. But I have seen how other poor students like me faltered along their struggles, and failed in the pursuit of their dreams because of lack of access to education. I have seen my cousins and relatives who have the same dreams but were denied opportunity to study. If the elitist, non-inclusive and profit-oriented educational system in this country remains unabated, there will always be something wrong in the way we lead and manage this nation. The only exceptions perhaps in Cebu that I know of are the Gullases, who run the University of the Visayas precisely to give access to the poor.

There is a straight line that connects wages and income on one side and tuition and cost of education on the other side. If the government continues to ignore this straight line, then it is not treading along the straight and narrow path. It is no different to all the previous governments that cater only to the pressures of the elite. The elite control all the factors of socio-economic life, including schools. The poor are left on their own. They are only remembered come election time. That, my friends, is what is fundamentally wrong with this country. One does not have to be a genius to figure that out.