Aliping saguiguilid

It’s a crying shame that some of the biggest industries in the Philippines are also the most exploitative of Filipino labor, especially those family-run companies that rake in billions and billions of pesos each year from the retail shopping sector.

With vast fortunes that already ensure that they and their children’s children would live every single day of their pampered lives in luxury, you’d think the captains of these industries would develop some real, honest-to-goodness philanthropy in their hearts that goes beyond throwing crumbs to their favorite charities.

Sad but true that the list of the richest men and women in the Philippines can very well pass off as a list of the most stone-cold hearted people who force their workers to live a hand-to-mouth existence, without job security and while moving like rats from contract to contract every six months.

As we mark Labor Day, let it be said that the contractualization of the Philippine labor force is the worst thing that ever happened in our country; it is far worse than Marcos’ martial law or the five years of Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.

To see one’s youth wasted on temporary jobs bereft of the most basic medical and social security, and jobs that provide starvation pay is far more damaging to the psyche of Filipinos who see the new breed of Hispanic (the Ayalas, and the Zobels) and Chinese (the Sys, Gokongwei’s) illustrados as their slave masters.

Just over a hundred years removed from Jose Rizal, the majority of Filipinos wallowing in abject poverty continues to live as aliping saguiguilid. The only difference now is that the new slaves wear long-sleeves and spit-shined shoes for men and A-cut skirts and blouses and heels for women. -end-