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July 30, 2009
6. Subic and Olongapo, Continued
On my final day in Zambales, I visited the Yokubari Foundation, Inc., a non-profit NGO based in Olongapo City which works closely with the KPD chapter in Subic. In speaking with its director and some community members involved in its programs, I was able to expand my understanding of the Subic Bay Freeport and its place within the greater Olongapo and Subic communities (and to take down some notes for a KPD writing project). Yokubari focuses on the development of urban poor, or slum, communities which are located adjacent to the Freeport. By “urban poor”, I mean people who: 1) Live in extreme poverty, by any standards (about $2 or $3 per day, per family); 2) Lack decent housing and usually live on public or private land in urban areas without any formal permission; 3) Lack access to basic social services and public utilities like water, electricity, sanitation, healthcare, and education; and 4) Usually depend on irregular “informal sector” work, such as street vending, tricycle or jeepney operation (I suggest you google those), carpentry, or day-labor construction. And as for what I mean by “community development”, well, I don’t really have a succinct definition for that. I suppose it mostly means, or should mean, empowerment – providing communities with the basic tools they need to help themselves deal with and fight the structural constraints depressing their well-being. Or something like that. Basically, this means a lot of education plus some assistance in accessing healthcare and basic education. The next paragraph should help you understand.
For Yokubari, community development begins with the basics – health. Its primary task is tackling malnutrition among children in urban poor communities through supplementary feeding programs. It has also secured free access to a private hospital for the communities with which it works. But Yokubari seems to do everything else, as well. It supports the schooling of dozens of kids through sponsorship programs, conducts education seminars for parents (covering anything from literacy to women’s rights to national political issues), conducts livelihood trainings for parents (e.g., haircutting and nail-care for extra family income), and guides the communities in organizing and demanding protection from local government against demolitions and environmental hazards (particularly the toxic waste left behind by the US Navy). The foundation “adopts” one or two communities at a time and commits itself for no more than three years, in order to assure the sustainability of their efforts with the communities.
Based on the feedback of community members I met, it was clear that the Yokubari Foundation is doing a whole lot of great and inspiring things. But I have to say, I was little more caught up with the significance of these urban poor slum communities in the context of the Freeport and economic development. Squeezed between the walls of the Freeport, a commercial town-center just outside the Freeport, and a dirty river which floods their homes every year, these communities – communities with the most room for socio-economic improvement – have seen no positive changes since the Freeport was opened. If anything, things have gotten worse. Most notably, many urban poor communities now face threats of demolition, and prostitution has swelled in response persistent poverty and the presence of foreign businessmen. And the one proclaimed benefit of the Freeport – job creation – has largely missed the urban poor communities and has only sucked other desperate Filipino workers into indecent, exploitative work which guarantees no brighter future for their families and communities.
The Subic Bay Freeport is one of the pillars of the national government’s plan to develop central Luzon into a “Global Gateway” that will boost the country’s “international competitiveness and integration into the global economy” (taken from a government brochure). But if the actual developments in Subic and Olongapo are any indicator of what greater “international competitiveness and integration in the global economy” mean, then it seems pretty clear that this isn’t the kind of development that the Philippine economy – or Philippine society, for that mater – needs.
I will give you some brief background on the crisis that is the Philippine economy at the end of the next post, where it will make more sense. It should also help to clarify why this foreign investment/special economic zone-led economic development is such as bad idea, assuming you are not a foreign capitalist or a Philippine government official. The next post will also magically appear on the internet within the next day or two, because I’m still at two weeks ago ahhh!!
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2009
5. Maybe My Last Blog Post Ever! Or Maybe Not!
Greetings, fellow people. After three weeks of bouncing around and a dehydrating, rainy, but well-attended protest during President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address yesterday, I am now finally able to sit down and write a blog post for your education and the improvement of my blog-writing skills. It has been approximately three weeks since my last post. Given that I only have three more weeks before wrapping up my time with KPD and ASSERT, there is a possibility that this will be my last series of posts. Anyway, wonder what I have been doing no longer! Here’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to, part one:
Olongapo and Subic, Zambales province
A Special Economic Zone: After a few final days of school visits with ASSERT, I swung around Manila Bay and headed northwest, to the province of Zambales! There I joined the KPD chapter in the municipality of Subic (according to a friend I just asked, a municipality is below certain income and population thresholds which much be surpassed in order to reach “city-status”). Subic and its Subic Bay neighbor, Olongapo City, were home to an enormous and troublesome U.S. naval base until 1992. As part of a national policy handling the fate of the former U.S. bases throughout the country, the Olongapo-Subic base was converted into an equally enormous and troublesome Freeport zone, i.e., a tax and duty-free area of land meant to attract foreign investments. Now host to dozens of foreign multinational corporations, the Freeport plays a central role in the Philippine government’s economic development plans; it is touted by the government as a symbol of the “great” economic “strides” the country has made during President Arroyo’s past nine years in office.
The foreign corporations are here not only because of the tax breaks, but also because of the guarantee of cheap and docile (i.e., exploitable) labor. To make the tax-free investment opportunities additionally attractive, the Philippine government relaxes labor standards in the Freeport and other special economic zones throughout the country. This means that workers face harassment (by management and sometimes the Philippine military) and termination if they try to organize in any way; there is an unwritten “NO union” policy. They receive six-month contracts (“contractualization”, meaning no job security), few to no benefits, and the provincial bare-minimum wage of about $6 a day. Furthermore, almost all workers are employees of subcontracted firms created by the parent corporations; it is quite clear that the function of subcontracting is to protect the corporations from liability in case of any legal trouble – of which there is usually a good amount.
Horrible, Horrible Hanjin: The KPD chapter in Subic focuses primarily on the various worker issues emerging from the Freeport and is particularly occupied with the largest operation in the zone – Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction, the 4th largest and probably most controversial shipbuilding facility in the world. Nearly all 17,000 workers at the Korean firm’s facility are actually employees of over fifty subcontracted companies created by Hanjin that each use Hanjin-owned machines and all have basically the same management (less than half are legally registered). And Hanjin certainly has reason to avoid any legal liability; in addition to the poor conditions faced by Freeport workers which I listed above, Hanjin workers face other mistreatment and hardship. First, working conditions at the shipyard simply aren’t safe: since operations commenced in 2006, there have been over 5000 accidents and 28 deaths at the site. Second, there are frequent cases of physical abuse by the management against the workers. And finally, the workers face forced overtime almost every day with 3-day suspension or termination as the alternative (amounting to 10-hour days, 14 days out of every 15), and occasional forced overnight/overday at only regular pay (two straight days on site at the minimum wage rate).
The KPD office in Subic serves as a walk-in support center for Freeport workers – and especially Hanjin workers– experiencing any job-related problems. It helps workers take legal action if they have experienced abuse or harassment, illegal termination, pay irregularities, or injury. It also serves as a headquarters for the unofficial Hanjin union which has over 3,000 signed members but is unrecognized by both Hanjin and the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment. KPD helps to organize the growing union and to seek its recognition as an official union so that management will be forced to finally listen. It helps that some of the KPD organizers in Subic are actually former Hanjin workers who were terminated after leading the efforts to form a union.
And what did I actually do in Olongapo and Subic?? First, I joined some of the KPD organizers in recruiting more members for the Hanjin union. Every morning and every evening, they go to the bus terminals where Hanjin workers are picked up and dropped off by the thousands. There we handed out flyers and spoke with workers to try to persuade them to join the union. After some time at the terminals, we headed to the worker “barracks”, or housing areas where there are high concentrations of Hanjin workers renting out tiny, dark, over-crowded living spaces. In the barracks, we spoke with workers to collect some information for KPD, and again, tried to recruit more union members. Despite the risks associated with joining the eventually-to-be-official union (i.e., losing your desperately needed job – remember, you are relatively quite lucky if you have a salaried job at all here), most workers who join are not so hesitant. They seem to understand that in organizing and unionizing lie their only chance of receiving more humane treatment, any worker benefits and protections, and more decent pay.
Nagtulong: I also took a quick trip to swing by Hanjin to see the place up close, as well as one of its neighboring fisherfolk communities, Nagtulong. This was my first introduction to the issue of demolition. Before the Hanjin facility was built, the location was home to a number of fisherfolk communities. Technically, these were squatter communities, in that the people were living on public land without government permission. So when the shipyard was built, they were forced off the land and their homes were bulldozed. This would have been legal under Philippine law if the government had assisted them in relocation – but this is the Philippines! So it didn’t. About 300 families were displaced and had to move further down the coast or up into the hills. Nagtulong is one of the displaced communities which is now facing renewed threats of demolition arising from Hanjin’s plans to expand its facilities. Half of the community’s population – about 50 families – has already moved further down the coast in anticipation of another forced removal. KPD and its fisherfolk wing have helped to organize these communities and assist them in protesting the demolitions. The people of Nagtulong, with KPD’s help, have actually filed a legal complaint and their case is currently pending.
This issue of demolition and displacement is not uncommon here in the Philippines. There are squatter communities of fisherfolk to be found in most coastal regions (which, in an archipelago, are all over) and of urban poor people to be found in most cities and municipalities. These communities are frequently threatened by commercial, industrial, and real-estate development, especially in more urban areas. I will write more about this later.
That is enough for this post. I’ll finish up with Olongapo and Subic and an organization called the Yokubari Foundation in the next, and then I’ll just have a week and a half left to cover!
Some of the people from Nagtulong who have already relocated.
Part of the new site where they have resettled.
Some of the men/boys fishing.
Others going out to collect crabs/shellfish/anything eatable.
The entrance to Hanjin. The place is a lot more massive than it looks. Huge cargo ships are being built and repaired beneath those orange things. Not the cones. The orange things in the distance. Their website actually has some pretty nice pictures: http://www.hhic-phil.com/
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 10:16 AM | Comments (3)
July 05, 2009
4. Highlights of the Week(s) II, part 2!!
Fearing that you would become too exhausted to finish reading if I just posted one really long entry, I decided it could be beneficial to split it up and post a second:
TWO OTHER MAJOR ACTIVITIES!
• TindigNation launch: The coalition against Charter Change and the convening of a Constituent Assembly (see post #2) held a launch event last weekend, i.e., a mini-carnival, speeches, and musical performances pronouncing its existence. Unsurprisingly, every Filipino was there except the President and the two thirds of Congress who support ChaCha and ConAss. Yeah, no kidding. Actually, it was a relatively small event (maybe a few hundred people) held in an indoor sports complex in Quezon City. In attendance were members from about 80 political and civil society organizations (very impressive!) which was a huge improvement from the twenty-some tally at the planning meeting I attended two weeks ago. Carnival activities included “stick the President’s mole in the right spot on her face, blindfolded” and “chip the golf ball into the President’s mole” (really hard).
Okay, so this wasn’t really “work”, but it still contributed to my understanding of how Filipino civil society organizations and various political interests work together to make things happen. Furthermore, it was a good reminder of the importance of media to civil society and politics. As with the anti-BNPP protest march, media coverage was crucial to the success of the event. It received a couple minutes on the Saturday night local news, as well as an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. If not for the news and press coverage, the launch would have been largely invisible.
Note: I think I got swept away in some light, premature pessimism during post #2. Right now, it actually looks like pro-ConAss efforts will not succeed because the Senate is just not having it: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/06/17/09/con-ass-dead-without-senate-law-professors. Also, I forgot to mention that the system of government here is American-style Presidential, with judicial and bicameral legislative branches, thanks to the splendid American colonial period (not splendid at all). There may be a lot less "checking and balancing" here because the three branches act in such remarkable unison, but their actions clearly demonstrate that Philippine government is also of the elite class.
• Days working on a forthcoming paper dealing with the impact of the global financial crisis on local Filipino workers (or, capitalist globalization has made everyone vulnerable, and reliance on exports and remittances only makes things worse, but people are tough): My current writing project for KPD. It has consumed most of my in-office time this past week. I will put up a link once it is complete.
I will be spending this coming with the KPD and ASSERT chapters in the Central Luzon region. The main items on the agenda are: 1) Visit the special economic zones and the workers there who are hoping to organize; 2) Work with a teachers’ association in Bataan; 3) Not get dengue fever. Next time I’ll try to post links more links to articles about the issues I’ve mentioned. And please excuse any type-os or nonsense – I have written in great haste and will proof read in the next few days.
Not me. So that's the lovely President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA). Kind of cute, huh?
Possibly a more accurate depiction of the President. That's GMA, her husband, and one of her sons. It's a throw-garlic-into-their-mouths game.
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 10:52 PM | Comments (1)
3. Highlights of the Week(s) II, part 1!!
This post will cover the highlights of the past two weeks at my internship. A few days were set aside for various cross-sector activities, and the next 10 days were devoted to ASSERT. No epic protest march this time, but still lots of walking through the hot, hot heat, albeit with lesser purpose.
WEEK AND A HALF WITH ASSERT! (The organization for teachers’ rights and education reform – see blog post #1.)
• Orientation: I had a preliminary discussion with one of the ASSERT national leaders about the state of Philippine education, the situation of public school teachers, and the relationship between the two. In a nutshell:
There are too many students, too few teachers, and too few classrooms. There is also too little funding. Average class size and teacher-pupil ratio for public schools are the worst in Southeast Asia. Officially, those numbers are 44 and 35:1, respectively. (Though after visiting a number of schools, I am questioning the reliability of those figures – see below.) ASSERT characterizes Philippine education as elitist, given public education’s low priority on the national budget and high dropout rates (because many kids – even during elementary years – have to choose work over school). Also troubling is the growing prevalence of private schools and the increasing inaccessibility of public universities due to relatively steep tuition fees. Even if all these problems aren't unique to the Philippines, the fact that the U.S. crafted the country's education system probably explains why much of this sounds like America's education troubles.
So as in the U.S., and probably many other countries, public school teachers here are overworked, underpaid, and among the worst-off government employees. Starting salaries are about 14,000 Philippine pesos per month ($290). Twenty-four years of teaching, or 8 salary steps, would only yield a 2,000 peso ($40) increase in monthly salary. The cost of living may be lower here than in many places, but $10 dollars a day is still just enough to survive and certainly not enough to support a family. It is pretty clear that if you want to be a teacher here, you must have an additional job, relatives working overseas, or a daughter working in a call center.
When teachers try to organize and demand higher wages, better benefits, shorter hours, or any other improvements, they are often threatened by school district officials, and sometimes even harassed by the military. What is frustrating – while also encouraging – is that Philippine laws do grant teachers with a range of rather generous rights and protections. The problems are: 1) The laws are badly abused by the government and Department of Education; 2) Most teachers are not familiar with them; 3) Those teachers who do know their rights are afraid to assert them for fear of harassment and losing their jobs. I have been tasked by ASSERT with writing a paper that summarizes this education mess in nice language before my time here is done. There should be some better data and analysis in there which I can share in a later post.
• Assembly and teacher training in Nueva Ecija province: A 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. marathon of educating local educators about new national legislation affecting their salaries, the GSIS, and their rights. The fifty-plus school teachers and principals in attendance were all members of the Gapan Public School Teachers Association – an association with which ASSERT had never yet met. As it was one of my first real activities with ASSERT, I was limited to observation and PowerPoint operation. I’ll admit that I had grown quite bored by hour three, but fortunately in Filipino culture you must feed your guests every two hours. It also helped that the most interesting part was saved for the final third of the training.
The three hour closing segment was devoted to a lesson on teachers’ rights, as guaranteed by a national law enacted in 1966 known as the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers. The ASSERT Secretary General and unofficial comic (who was suspended from teaching twenty years ago after leading a nationwide teachers strike) went through all 32 sections of the law. While I was captivated by his employment of a 33-letter pneumonic device (MAGNA CARTA FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS) as well as his ability to sustain his charisma, enthusiasm, and highly animated hand/arm gestures for three hours, I was, of course, struck by the significance of what was going on. Most of the teachers were learning of their rights for the first time. Upon hearing some of the sections, the whole room would erupt in muttered disbelief and our speaker would have to assure them that they understood correctly. It really was empowerment – or at least the foundation for empowerment – in action. So now I have a decent understanding of the “E” in “ASSERT” (Action and Solidarity for the Empowerment of Teachers), but I’m still trying to figure out the R and second S.
• School visits: To obtain an initial glimpse into the state of Philippine public education, one of the ASSERT national coordinators took me to visit a handful of public elementary and high schools. Things could be much worse, but they are still pretty bad. Only one of three elementary schools we visited had an average class size under 45 students, and that was because legislation had been passed in the district which limited class size to that number. Most of the high schools averaged between 60 and 70 students per class. Due to a limited number of classrooms, almost all schools are forced to run in two sessions – one batch of students has class in the morning (7 a.m. to noon) and another has class in the afternoon (1 p.m. to 6 p.m. or 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.). Air conditioning is only to be found in the principal’s office, if at all. Classrooms are hot, crowded, and generally terrible environments for any sort of learning. At one school I visited, a number of classes have to be held out on the basketball court due to a shortage of rooms. But again, things could probably be worse. Many schools receive funding to operate feeding programs for underweight and undernourished students and programs to reintegrate students who have previously dropped out.
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
