As we approach the 2021 Labor Day, we face the labor situation with so much gloom and doom, very high unemployment rate, too many OFWs repatriated with no hope of returning to their jobs, too many pending cases remaining unresolved, and too many reckless decisions pushing companies to bankruptcy. The OWWA fund is almost depleted and the 14-day quarantine for returning OFWs compels the OWWA to pay millions to hotels where these migrant workers are housed upon their arrival. The people are hungry and the government is buried in debt.
As of April 2020, the unemployment reached a staggering rate of 17.7%, which means 7.7 million unemployed individuals. If there are five family members relying on the wage-earner, that means 38.5 million going hungry and relying on government ayuda, among others. Can you imagine how much pressure is put on the shoulders of the government, with its diminishing resources? As of today, our unemployment rate is already 20% and that means more than 45 million without means of livelihood. This is a very serious problem. When people are hungry, they will easily become angry and the leftist organizations can exploit the situation and propagate the doctrine of socialism, which shall ultimately install the dictatorship of the proletariat or the working class. The leftist sectors are taking advantage of the crisis and using it as a platform to promote their alien ideology. This is a very risky threat to the security of the state, and the military should not be faulted for being alert to resist this grave and imminent danger.
The phenomenon of the community pantry is a good expression of Filipino bayanihan but if this is infiltrated by communists and is made a front to rally the people against the government, then the military has the right to call it out, not the pantry but the infiltration. The people should not rush to blame the government if it exercises prudence and caution by calling out those who are riding on the popularity of the community pantry. The government cannot fold its hands when it has intelligence information that some people are riding high on the popularity of the community pantry. On Labor Day tomorrow, I know that the communists will again burn the effigy of President Duterte and other officials. But they have never contributed any positive action to help alleviate the miserable conditions of the Filipino workingmen. This is a time of crisis. This is not the time to divide the people or to sow intrigues and add more to the sufferings of the masses.
Another area that is exacerbating the economic dislocations of small businesses is the ceaseless inspections conducted by the DOLE inspectors and the unabated decisions issued by arbiters, NLRC commissioners, and DOLE regional directors that lead to the closures of medium and micro enterprises, thereby adding to the unemployment program. I have no complaint against Region 7 DOLE and NLRC. I refer to all other regions whose officials keep on issuing orders and decisions that practically kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The government should stop these nasty rulings that are unmindful of the employers’ capacity to pay. They should try their very best to conciliate and mediate, instead of rushing to arbitrate. These are very difficult times and we need to think outside the box. The law should be interpreted not by the letter that killeth, but by the spirit that giveth life.
Labor Day should not be a day of protest and demonstrations. It should be a day of a high-level tripartite conference, where the three social partners --labor employers and government-- should come together, talk, not legalistically, but with a sense of compassion, nationalism, and mutual understanding. We are all in the same boat. We either survive together, and once the boat sinks, we swim together or sink and drown together. Ponder on this and let me know what you think.