Monday, April 3, 2006

Inside the August Halls of the Philippine Congress

Yesterday, a flock of CSEZ employees went to the Batasan to watch the proceedings on two major bill designed to keep the investors and locators of Clark. I was one of them.

It was the third time I went inside the Batasan, first is when I was job prospecting in 1990, wherein you ride on tricycle with a seating capacity of 10, second was in 2000 when a bill to restructure the PSE was to be deliverated, Yasay was still in PSE then. The surrounding had changed drastically. But not much inside the august hall. It is still a snake pit.

So, yesterday the bills were deliverated by Cong. Lapuz... A rollcall was made, a quorum was barely made and then, as expected a shot in dark and the balloon burst. One congressman said, "Base on my own counting there were only 114 present."

Really, I expect that. The same thing happens again and again. The quorum being questioned. We'll anyway, thats better than having someone filibustering in there.

Then.... Bang!!! In a flash I got into thinking. Will all the congressmen and women be there if for somehow, they know that employees from Clark will be there? How should this be done? Think quickly!!!

The answer is right on my hand. A paper that Pepot gave me. The Papers. How? Floyd it some how works like this. We buy a full page ad on some major newspaper like Bulletin, Inquirer, Philstar and Tik-tik and this is what I think it should contain (make it better, please).

AN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS

THE SURVIVAL OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES LIES ON YOUR HAND NOW. The decision of the Highest Court to quash the tax incentives of the locators and investors of Clark, John Hay, Poro Point and (what else?) will mean the virtual collapse of the economies in their respective area. In Clark alone, 37,000 workers who comes from all parts of our country may lose their jobs once the locators close their shops. Mt. Pinatubo's eruption andd the closing of Clark Air Base had made thousands of workers jobless, which slowly disentegrated the economic infrastructure and created a paralizing domino effect on the central luzon region and the country

HB4900 and HB4901 which were designed to rectify the flaws of R.A. 7227 are now the only hope of these workers. We deemed that it is imperative that these bills be prioritized by Congress. Mt. Pinatubo's eruption and the closing of the bases had already made us suffered. Please don't let your constituent suffer again.

On your next plenary session us workers of the various Economic Zone will be there. God Bless us all!!!

(add whatever you may in here or edit the whole piece, just make it better, ok?)


(signed)
Mr. X
HR- Yokohama tires

(signed)
Ms. Deed
HR-America Online

(signed)
Mrs. See Pi
HR- Lue and Thai

(signed)
Mr. Bond
HR- UPS

(signed)
Ms. Use
Tiger Airlines

(signed)
Ms. Pak
HR- Rolls Royce

(signed)
Oti
HR-San Diablo Ice


(we fill up as many as we can on the table above to represent all the workers of clark through their HR officer)

Now, the plan again is to put an add on the dailies for 3 days, preferably the last publication being a day before congress convene. Then on the day they do convene we do what we did yesterday again. Deft ears, blind eyes? Redo.

Sana ipasa na kaagad no?


writen on February 22, 2006

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