TODAY is a sad day for employers and employees who are leaving Boracay Island, headed to a state of depression. How would they cope in the next six months it would take for the government to “rehabilitate” the country’s top tourist destination?
With Labor Day (May1) only five days away, we would have been looking forward to “LaBoracay” – an annual event when the beach draws foreign and local tourists in a riot of dancing, music and free-flowing liquor.
But with President Rodrigo Duterte having declared Boracay a “cesspool” that has to be closed for clean-up, entrepreneurs and laborers struggle to survive the next six months, wondering whether they would still recover their livelihood henceforth.
Their fear of losing their rosy future stems from the President’s April 8 pledge to give Boracay to farmers after the island’s rehabilitation: “It’s going to be a land reform area for the Filipinos. Lilinisin ko lang naman tapos ibalik ko sa Pilipino ang lupa nila.”
You would call it nonsense. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
He harked back to the year 2006 when then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allegedly signed Proclamation No. 1064 classifying Boracay into forestland and agricultural land. But most of us, if not all, had not even heard Arroyo ruling against the massive construction of hotels in Boracay, thus allowing one of them to stretch out over the sea rocks.
No less than the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has admitted that only four hectares of Boracay could be considered “arable”; hence not profitable for farming.
The stakeholders’ fear that the total closure of the island would mean demolition of some buildings and construction of a $500-million casino owned by Macau-based Galaxy Entertainment and its Filipino partner, Leisure and Resorts World Corp (LRWC). Is that why the island is now heavily guarded by the police and the military?
Yesterday in Iloilo City, on the other hand, local radio stations were announcing the forthcoming mass lay-off of job hires effective May 1 – again ironically on Labor Day. The to-be-laid off workers had been appointed by the previous mayor, Jed Patrick Mabilog. Mayor Jose Espinosa III, who has also relieved job hires assigned to the constituency office of Rep. Jerry P. Treñas, is expected to replace them with his own appointees. The allusion to political motive behind is understandable because Espinosa and Treñas, though brothers-in-law whose wives are sisters, are expected to square off for the mayor’s seat in 2019.
On the national scene, the labor sector believes that President Rodrigo Duterte would renege on his promise to sign on Labor Day an executive order against the practice of “endo” or “end of contract” that disables workers from getting permanent employment. As practiced especially in the malls, workers sign a five-month contract, which may either be terminated after five months or renewed for another five months.
There was no “endo” in the good old days. As a boy of 10 in 1960, I went with my late dad to Luneta (now known as Rizal Park) on Labor Day to hear then President Carlos P. Garcia talk about his “Filipino First” policy that would prioritize industrialization to Filipino – rather than foreign – capitalists so that Filipino workers would likewise benefit from their profits. Unfortunately, the program has not succeeded as planned due to lack of productivity, forcing workers to seek greener pastures abroad; or engage in criminal activity.
Sustainable productivity is essential to the survival of Filipinos who now number 100 million-plus and counting. However, our economy has lagged behind our population growth. With 90 percent of the country’s wealth said to be in the hands of only 10 percent of the people, the poorest of the poor cannot afford three meals a day.
Instead of finding a solution to the poverty problem, sorry na lang, we find it worsening. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
