HOTSPOT
My sister’s first grandson Calix was supposed to visit Friday, his birthday, but a hopelessly-inept work manager texted his mother late Thursday to take back the approved leave because the company would be understaffed. Why that became our family problem that the work manager even went so far as to brazenly say that we should just celebrate Calix’s birthday on another day, I do not know.
Incidents, like this, are not good. Not only does it cover up ineptitude and the inability of a company to manage workplace matters, it tells kids like Calix that they are less important, compared to what is passed on as “people management.” Even at such a young age, their birthday is movable at the mere say-so of a workplace manager.
By the time you read this, Calix would most probably be already with us here in the city for a day-long celebration, an opportunity for him to see his lola, tita and baby cousin and fellow grandkid Stella Avery. We would most probably have cake, lots of his favorite “chimken,” and maybe go out and play.
Calix was born in a provincial hospital, got his shots from a barangay health center, and is enrolled at a public elementary school. Same with my parents, uncles and aunts, and same with my siblings and many cousins.
Avery, my sister’s granddaughter, meanwhile was born in a private hospital whose director blatantly discouraged my niece from having her baby immunized at the barangay health center. Good thing, my niece knew better and swiftly and religiously went to the barangay health center for the free “bakuna” shots for newborn babies. Only time will tell where she will go to school, but I sure hope its a public school, and later a science high school – just like lolo!
Thinking of what’s best for Calix and Avery, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, godchildren and other kids could be a good way to examine and evaluate the national budget as passed by Congress and as approved by the President. Or any or most national policies for that matter.
I believe that with such a point of view, many would rather have taxpayer money go directly to constructing and upgrading more public schools and public hospitals, and employing more public school teachers, and public nurses and doctors, and raising their salaries. It also matters a lot for upward mobility that we invest in public mass transportation, especially with more trains to and from the provinces, and in major islands.
Still on the budget, many pundits and even lawmakers have said it is quite certain that petitions for certiorari would be filed with the Supreme Court, assailing the legality and constitutionality of the many forms of “ayuda.” It would be interesting to find out how the different persuasions would explain their objections, and how they view aid and aid recipients.
The growing backlash over “ayuda” as defined in the budget, should not lead to the removal of all aid for the unemployed, in-between-jobs, seniors, persons with disabilities, and even small and medium-scale entrepreneurs. Both as citizens and taxpayers, they deserve such assistance, infinitely more than the big private companies that are unquestioningly given generous tax rebates, tax holidays, bailouts, capital loans, and state partnership investments.
We have seen such controversy happen with the Priority Development Assistance Fund and the Distribution Acceleration Program, both declared unconstitutional. It is not impossible that we would again succeed in unbundling parts of the budget for “ayuda” that is legitimately needed and deserved by our kababayans: unbundled from the control of politicians who treat it as patronage.
The long-term goals should be universal employment, decent jobs with adequate pay and job security, free public health care, affordable housing, public mass transportation, entrepreneurship, agrarian reform and modernization, industrialization, and humane retirement. (We must protect free public schools at all levels, and expand it to postgraduate levels.)
The absence of these today cause a lot of stress, headache, and heartache to millions of families, and sometimes the costs of which are passed on to children. We can and should stop the vicious cycle within our lifetime.
When Calix, Avery and other kids today grow up and have their own families, it would be nice for them to live in a vastly better country, and that they would look back to what their elders accomplished while they were still young.