Underplayed

How could such an important event have been so underplayed?

Until President Aquino made his appearance on the final day of the Second Abu Dhabi Dialogue last Thursday, our media generally ignored the event. Even then, all the President said in his speech was to appeal for better treatment of our migrant workers. That call fell far short of the potential for concrete policy action of this high-level meeting.

The Abu Dhabi Dialogue brought together labor and employment ministers from 19 major labor-importing and -exporting countries. The obvious opportunity here is for the ministers to weave together a comprehensive multilateral policy framework for achieving uniform labor protection standards.

The Philippines might have seized on the opportunity of this Second Dialogue being held in Manila to take the lead in building consensus towards uniform labor protection standards. We did not seize that opportunity.

To the contrary, all our agencies involved with migrant workers, beginning with the DOLE, seemed bent on keeping the Dialogue’s profile low. The high-level meeting was not publicly discussed in the weeks before the event. Stakeholders were not invited. Representatives of the migrant workers were not asked to outline their concerns as an input to the discussions.

Perhaps, as in the Davao energy meeting last week, our officials did not want to attract protesters to the meeting venue. The Davao meeting, as we know, ended in a monologue. The Second Abu Dhabi Dialogue, for its part, passed almost unnoticed.

The Dialogue is an initiative of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), host to hundreds of thousands of Filipino migrant workers. Abu Dhabi, through its indefatigable labor minister, funded the meeting and did much of the organizational work that brought together ministers from many countries.

The UAE’s efforts to promote a sustained dialogue between labor-exporting and -importing countries is a commendable enterprise. It provides an excellent forum for threshing out the many issues plaguing large-scale migrant labor flows.

The Philippines, as a major labor exporting country that must constantly deal with the multifold grief of abused contract workers, should have initiated a dialogue like this one — except that we are constantly without the means to underwrite the costs of holding a forum like this one. We should at least express profuse gratitude that the UAE has taken the initiative and absorbed the costs of an important forum like this one.

Our government instead behaved rather oddly in this particular case. Our agencies seemed reluctant hosting this meeting, trying very hard not to trumpet its coming and limiting public discussion on its proceedings. We did not take the lead in forging a policy consensus with other labor-exporting countries, presenting the host countries with a clear menu of expectations.

The weak engagement of our agencies is a disappointment. There should be enough time to correct this, however. Abu Dhabi, in its generosity, decided to continue making Manila the venue for this Dialogue in the coming years. The Philippines will hopefully prove a livelier counterpart in the future.

Mobocracy

Poor Joel Reyes, he has become a convenient target for the mobocracy that seems to have reigned supreme in all its cruel glory.

A witness who established some sort of record for telling lies implicated the former Palawan governor in a most stupid murder. A DOJ panel convened to look into the case twice cleared him of involvement in the murder of a block-timer in the radio station of one of his rivals in the crazy local politics of this resource-rich province. The victim also served as campaign manager of the very owner of that station in a losing electoral bid.

Under intense political pressure, the DOJ dissolved the first panel and appointed a new one to look at the case a third time. The new panel, without new evidence, implicated the former governor. A warrant of arrest for an offense without recourse to bail was issued to please the mob.

Reyes sought judicial relief from the Court of Appeals. In the meantime, he has disappeared from view. Submitting to the arrest warrant would mean incarceration at the Puerto Princesa jail — an almost suicidal option. That jail is under the control of Edward Hagedorn, the same one who has now added his own money to the bounty put on Reyes’ head.

Although the warrant is still being contested in a higher court, those who see Reyes as a political threat speak loosely about getting him “dead or alive.” He is not only vilified in the mainstream and social media. He is threatened daily with remarks made by influential persons wishing he would be shot on sight. His wife regularly receives threatening mail, often with photos of their children attached, implying truly terrifying possibilities.

The local politics of Palawan is uniquely unkind, especially in the case of an outsider like Reyes who, from an outlying municipality challenged the old ruling families and dealt them one electoral defeat after another. The politics became distinctly unkinder with the lure of Malampaya’s grand revenues, a good portion of which will be at the disposal of whoever rules the province hence.

Somehow, the unkindness has become pretty generic at this time where the easiest thing to do it seems is to implicate people and then demonize them thoroughly before they could gain their day in court. The horrible turn of events for Reyes has become less atypical. At this time, it appears to be the fashion to jail politically inconvenient people on the most tenuous evidence, keep them without bail until a competent court eventually sets them free.

Jail now, ask questions later. Demonize without fair hearing. These seem to be the modus operandi of the powerful in this age of mobocracy.