Salute to all workers!

Archbishop Jose Palma, during the April 27th mass for the 15th anniversary of the AOS-Cebu Stella Maris Seafarers’ Center, shared these words of Pope and Saint John Paul II: “Remember the past with gratitude. Live the present with enthusiasm. Look forward to the future with confidence.”

As we bid goodbye to April with gratitude, we welcomed the first day and new month of May with enthusiasm, with joy and look forward to tomorrow, to the future, with confidence, with hope.

May 1 is dedicated to all workers throughout the world. We owe all workers so much gratitude and appreciation for taking care of us all and our planet. In turn, they deserve to be taken care of, in terms of sufficient salary and protective work conditions and terms. As we celebrate and salute them this first day of May, together, can we look and move forward with hope and confidence that workers will get their fair and just rewards and benefits they have long deserved?

Our teachers are among those awaiting higher salary long promised them. Like them, our lowly-paid employees and laborers are just as valuable and deserving of our nation’s appreciation. They deserve and should be accorded, immediately, the same appreciation, decent work, and better salaries and benefits like Du30’s pampered soldiers and military. Will today and tomorrow be one of rejoicing and enthusiasm, of hope and confidence that their life and those of their families will be better?

There are also our farmers and fisherfolks who spend their time in the farms, at sea to bring food for us all. They are also our eco-stewards who guard our natural resources for a sustainable present and future. Are they getting the benefits and compensation they so deserve? With them, the forest dwellers need to be recognized and duly rewarded for being stewards, taking care of our precious forests.

Our women, who work so hard to maintain and support households and societies are not at all duly compensated for their reproductive work. Women wake up each day preparing meals for the family, doing much unpaid household chores like laundry, house cleaning, and more.

Cooks are paid, laundry workers as well. Domestic work is paid and caregiving, babysitting, too. All these our women do daily BUT without any compensation at all. Time to justly reward them for these daily reproductive work long ignored and unrecognized as work by authorities, locally and globally.

We also salute and express appreciation to all our workers here at home and abroad.

The transport workers, the drivers and conductors allow us to commute to work each day. The street cleaners and garbage collectors help us maintain clean, healthy areas. The casual workers in private and government offices facilitate the processing of our documents and provide other services.

The firefighters, the ambulance drivers, the medical staff keep us safe and rush to serve us all, despite threats and risks to their own lives. They are among those who truly deserve better compensation and more benefits.

The seafarers, the airline pilots and attendants, like the bus and jeepney drivers, accompany us in our local and foreign travels. Those in media, especially those in the frontline of danger and conflict, who provide us with the latest news, deserve to be recognized and appreciated. Special mention and gratitude should be accorded to very independent and reliable media practitioners, especially the brave and courageous who report and expose the truth, regardless of threats or actual imprisonment.

Mabuhay to all the workers! May they soon receive their long-awaited just rewards and benefits!