This is a non-partisan open letter addressed to all Philippine Presidential candidates for 2016 election in reaction to how they answered and shared their thoughts during the televised presidential debates regarding major issues and concerns facing the country, and how they will deal with them once they won.
As ordinary but professional Filipinos who watched these debates, we would like to use this opportunity to express our opinion, and humbly present recommendations for the tackled issues based from our point of views. Hopefully, our analysis and supplementary recommendations provide some guiding lights for our next president, whoever this upcoming election will conclude and produce.
Issue #1. SEA DISPUTE AGAINST CHINA
Among all the concerns, this is the most delicate and should not be handled recklessly. The ongoing dispute is envisioned as a potential powder keg that may erupt a potential WW3 scenario. Some will say this is an exaggeration, but let us explain how and why. First, let us notice how arrogantly stubborn the Chinese leadership and military in steadfastly forcing their occupation and self-proclaimed authority and control over the disputed waters. Despite multiple legal orders from concerned international arbitrary courts for them to stop their illegal military activities over the disputed waters, they are blatantly ignoring everything while at the same time imposing what they please over the territory. This displayed behavior clearly shows their intention and that nothing will stop them, even sea and air patrols from other allied military forces are being bullied away and out from the area.
Second, it was already made publicly known that in the event that the involved countries will stand and fight against the Chinese forces, Russia will come to support China. And when that happens, we all should know that North Korea is just an earshot away to join in for their own military agenda. NoKor has nothing to do with the disputed waters but may use the conflict as an excuse to mobilize military forces.
Third, once one party made an error to pull a trigger or press a button resulting to an assault, whether intentional or accidental to the other, definitely the other side will retaliate, leading to another reaction from the opposing end, and vice-versa.
Fourth, once a military engagement occur in the disputed waters and become an international news, there is a strong possibility that insurgents in other countries will join in the bandwagon and escalate their own violence within their own respective countries and continents. Individually, these escalated violence and armed conflicts are isolated and have nothing to do with the other, but as violence becomes more aggressive and happening simultaneously, it will eventually wind up into a global catastrophe in the form of fragmented world wars.
RECOMMENDATION: From our humble point of view, the best way to handle this issue is to approach it from both ends: through diplomacy, and through military. We, the Philippines should continue the good fight the right way, and that is by employing the assistance of the concerned international courts who have the ultimate say and final decision over the matter, that regardless of what China will insist they are, and should be obligated to respect and comply to whatever final decision the concerned international court will impose. Same goes to the Philippines and other concerned countries.
But, at the same time, we also need to NOT JUST SIT BACK WAITING while watching the Chinese military do what they please. Because if we'll just sit down on this and do nothing while waiting, sooner or later it will be too late to recover and restore anything at all. Because what's already done is already done. So, for the military end, what we can do is to send our own coast guards, naval, and maritime forces out, NOT TO ENGAGE CHINA IN BATTLE, but rather to establish our own security blockade along but within our supposedly nautical territories. The government, the military, and the people based on our own constitution have the biggest obligation and responsibility to defend our country's territories against anything or anyone. We may not be big enough to fight head on, but we have the rights enough to defend on. No pulling of triggers, no pushing of buttons. The concerned waters is still under the status of being DISPUTED while the case is under deliberation of the international court/s, so the Chinese military has no finalized legal rights to bully our people, specially our own fishermen out, while we the Filipinos have the legal rights to stand and protect our own waters.
Let us wait for the result from the legal channels, but at the same time, let us protect our waters with our own forces. That is the most logical and strategic way. No conflict but no giving in. Now, if the concerned international courts finally made a decision in favored of the grieving small countries (including us) but the Chinese military will continue force their hold and will use military force to bully their way, THEN WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DEFEND BY FORCE EVEN IF WE DON'T WANT TO BECAUSE WE ARE THE VICTIMS AND THE BULLIED HERE.
Issue #2. SHAMEFUL PERPETUAL TRAFFIC PROBLEM OF THE COUNTRY.
During the debates, much of the ideas of solutions imparted by our candidates fall majorly in adding public transports and means as their major solution for this major problem of ours. Those words and promises sounds so appealing. More MRTs. More LRTs. More airports. More of this and more of that. BUT, ANALYTICALLY, IT IS NOT NOTHING BUT SHORT SIGHTED IDEAS. Why? Let us explain why by recognizing the TRUE CAUSE of everyday traffic in our major thorough ways.
Take time and try to study EDSA, for instance. At first glance, indeed the first thing you will notice is the volume of vehicles running to and fro along these stretches. And with this observation, one will jump into conclusion that the cause of traffic in EDSA is the heavy number of vehicles running on and in it every hour. BUT WAIT, TAKE A MUCH CLOSER LOOK. Didn't you noticed that in areas where there are traffic difficulties, a lot of vehicles are stuck on their trail because somewhere ahead public busses and jeepneys are stock-piling on certain areas where they are recklessly stopping and spends too much time parked to either pick up or drop off passengers illegally at the wrong places and at the wrong times, blocking the regular flow of the traffic behind. Also, notice vehicles who are racing against each other, mostly public transport vehicles. Notice vehicles who are rampantly counter-flowing. Vehicles that are recklessly cutting over other passing vehicles. Notice the vehicles who are illegally parked on the public streets itself causing a funnel effect and blockage of the regular traffic flow. Notice the vehicles who are beating red lights. Notice the number of street and road areas illegally used as personal parking slots, selling areas, business operations, etc. Notice the vehicles who are violating NO U-TURNS, NO LEFT/RIGHT TURNS, NO ENTRY, that as they do they cause blockage of the regular traffic flow.
In addition, please notice the number of unfinished and on-going public works which also contributes to the causes of traffic stoppage and congestion in certain but important traffic areas. Notice also the tons of vendors who have decided to use open public roads, streets, and walkways as store areas illegally. Also, notice pedestrians who are jaywalking across major roads, and bunch of people walking in the streets causing passing vehicles to swerve out causing another funnel effect to the regular flow of traffic. CAN YOU SEE ALL OF THESE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, ASIDE FROM SEEING THE NUMBER OF VEHICLES PASSING BY YOU?
POLITICIANS, ADDITIONAL ROAD AND TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURES ARE GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY. BUT IF YOUR INITIAL INTENTION IS TO SOLVE OUR TRAFFIC PROBLEM, IT WILL BE MORE EFFECTIVE TO START AT THE ROOT CAUSE.... AND THAT IS HAVING TOO MANY PEOPLE IN AND ON THE STREETS, WHETHER DRIVING, WALKING, AND WORKING WHO DISREGARDS THE LAW AND DO WHAT THEY PLEASE WITH OUR COUNTRY'S PUBLIC STREETS. THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM IS CAUSED PRIMARILY BY NOTHING ELSE THAN THE LACK OF DISCIPLINE IN OUR OWN PEOPLE USING THE STREETS. NO RULES. NO RESPECT.
RECOMMENDATION: To effectively solve traffic problems that has a longer lasting effect, is to approach it from both structural end, and the law enforcement end. For the structural: Make your public engineers actually work. Not just to work for the sake of getting kick-backs from project budgets, but to ACTUALLY WORK by bringing out their best ideas and concepts in surveying, mapping, planning and designing roadways that will cause traffic to flow if not faster, at least fluidly and continuously without interruption. Designate EDSA only for long travels like city to city and provincial routes. Designate and design detours that will lessen, if not possible to avoid crossing over other traffic flow. Limit streets and roads only to specific type of vehicles so that regularly stopping public transportation will never cause blockage to continuously travelling transports. Design more wide rotondas that will cause traffic to flow in circles without causing crossing over other traffic flow.
For the law enforcement: There is no need for an elaborate explanation. The bottom line is to create an effective traffic map, the LAW, RESPONSIBILITY, AND OBLIGATION FOR DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE ENFORCED, IMPLEMENTED, AND OBSERVED. No body is above the law, so ALL TRAFFIC AND STREET LAW VIOLATORS SHOULD BE APPREHENDED. All violating vehicles, specially illegally parked vehicles should be hauled away. Illegal street occupants carried away. Illegal structures on public streets demolished. Jaywalkers penalized and educated. ALL IN ALL, TO SOLVE TRAFFIC, START WITH THE BASIC... ENFORCE, AS IN ENFORCE BY FORCE THE DISCIPLINE ON AND IN THE STREETS.
Issue #3. ENDING THE ENDO OR CONTRACTUALIZATION... ILLOGICAL.
How appealing to hear presidential candidates promising to demolish contractualization in the country. I myself understand how it feels to always finding yourself looking for another employment when your previous employment contract expired. As the expression goes, "been there, done that."
HOWEVER, after everything I have experienced with my own share of multiple ENDOs, until finally I have experienced getting regularized that the last one I had to make a personal decision to resign to pursue an actual career related to my completed education, I can personally say that only a HYPOCRITE will promise that THEY WILL END THE ENDO. These promises from the candidates are nothing but false hopes. Because as business people, THEY KNOW that contractualization is integral to hiring process. How? Let me explain.
Contractualization is an employment status that varies depending on how and who hired the employee.
The first type of contractualization is in the form of JOB ORDER, or employment opportunities that are seasonal because certain companies have a regular yearly period when they need additional man power to accomplish certain operations or projects.
The second type is in the form of SEASONAL EMPLOYMENTS like summer jobs. These are employment opportunities given by some private and government agencies to gain training and actual work experience while earning. Training and experience that they can use as addition to their credentials for future potential employments.
Also, both JOB ORDERS AND SEASONAL EMPLOYMENTS are work opportunities available through third-parties or manpower agencies. In this case, the person's employer is the agency and not the company to which he is recommended to. If the employee has any grievance pertaining to his employment, it can only be filed against his agency, not to the company, because his contract is between him and the agency. While it is this agency that has a separate contract with the client company.
In my experience, in all these three channels, directly offered and indirectly offered through an agency job orders and seasonal employments, it will be explained to the applicant at the onset of his application the nature of his contract. If the contract does not appeal to the applicant, the person should turn down the opportunity at the onset rather than complain about the end of his contract after accepting its terms and conditions at the beginning.
In the case of ending the 5-month contract for direct employment with private companies, also based on experience I can confidently say that this is irremovable because this 5-month period is a vital part of a company's hiring process. It is called the PROBATIONARY PERIOD wherein and during which the applicant will be hired as a potential candidate for regularization after successfully performing and displaying skills development during the period. If after the probationary period the candidate has proven himself capable of performing based on the company's standards, he will be promoted for REGULARIZATION and become a forever part of the company's growth. BUT, LET US ALL BE HONEST, IF AFTER THE PROBATIONARY PERIOD AN APPLICANT FAILED TO PERFORM WHAT IS EXPECTED FROM HIM, WILL IT BE LOGICAL TO HIRE THE PERSON PERMANENTLY? LET US BE HONEST WITH THIS QUESTION AND NOT BE A HYPOCRITE.
RECOMMENDATION: To answer our people's problem about contractualization, it is better to identify the core problems: One is MISMATCHING EDUCATION AND JOB DESCRIPTION; and second, UNQUALIFIED EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND particularly for undergraduate applicants.
The solution for the first one (MISMATCHING) is for the government, both the national and the local GUs to attract and produce available industries and employment opportunities that our graduates and un-employed or under-employed professionals will be able to find a career where they can actually become an asset by performing the duties and responsibilities with skills that they have been trained and prepared for. Because the prevailing trend today and ever since in this country is that nurses and doctors are working as call center agents, IT professionals working as waiters and service crews, business course graduates working as factory workers, HRM graduates working as company drivers, accounting graduates working as messengers, and majority of our professionals working abroad working as care givers and other employments that has nothing to do with their education and training. These is the reason why even our professionals also usually find themselves facing contracts that ends despite their academic and professional qualifications.
The most difficult, but possible, to resolve is the non-employment concern of the majority of Filipinos who are undergraduates. Technically and honestly, it is apparently expected that regularization is hard for undergraduate employees. That is why we need a different approach to provide short and long term solution for this:
1. Even though under contractual status, undergraduate employees should take their temporary employment as an opportunity to get more training and enough working experience to add to their credentials for future more potential employment. If this is our status, we should exert personal effort to expand and enhance our skills to become a future potential asset if not for the current company, at least for the next potential employer. The problem with Filipinos is that we have the inborn attitude to relax as long as we have something at present, that we tend to become satisfied with what we have and what we can do at the moment. Instead, we should develop a hunger for personal growth and development. Because in order to find a better career, we need to become better ourselves. Lack of effort and goal for personal enhancement is the primary reason why many Filipinos could not find a stable earning. Never give up and continue growing and improving as you gain more experience, so that sooner or later you have gain enough impressive credentials, training and skills that will qualify you for regularization the next time around.
2. The government should expand the availability for TESDA training, recruitment, and job placement. Rather than expecting schools to get TESDA accreditation, the TESDA itself should be the one that will expand their available branches and multiple if possible to a number more than the number of private and public schools in the country. If TESDA can evolve itself into an expanding available institutions for everyone everywhere, there is a big chance that it will be the TESDA program that will produce employment opportunities and chances for the people by getting the right and enough professional training and skills that will get them somewhere related to their work, here and abroad, regardless of whether they are college graduates or undergraduates.
EXPAND AND MULTIPLY TESDA (AS IN THE ACTUAL TESDA SCHOOLS, NOT JUST TESDA ACCREDITED SCHOOLS).
Now, for the 5-month probationary employment status, with which failing performers end up ENDO while those who performed well get regularized, the best recommendation is to make a law that will require probationary employment extended to 6 months so that even when a candidate failed and end they will be qualified to receive the prescribed bonus/es.
FINAL RECOMMENDATION: Actually, for a country to achieve growth, enhancement, and development, the greater part of the responsibility falls not entirely on the shoulders of the national government, BUT INSTEAD on the hands of our LGU leaders. No matter who becomes our president, even if for some miracle we will get the perfect president, BUT we still have lousy performing, or worst, non-performing local officials, from the congressmen, governors and vice governors, mayors and vice mayors, down to barangay captains, our communities' potential improvement will remain bleak and improbable.
Remember that a country is composed of individually managed local states, towns, and communities. And who knows better about the concerns and needs of these units but the local officials. Who knows better that a communities' farmers need irrigation assistance than their local leaders. Who can address communities' concerns and needs immediately but the local officials. The LGU officials are the ones who have direct vantage points for surveying, supervising, and managing each and every part of our country. They know the problem because they are there, so they have the initial advantage to help the country by helping their own respective parcel of communities. If each part of this country is individually growing, improving, developing and advancing, COLLECTIVELY will result to the growth of the entire country as a whole.
SO FOR THE VOTERS, DON'T EXHAUST ALL YOUR ATTENTION AND ENERGY IN CHOOSING THE PERFECT PRESIDENT FOR THIS COUNTRY. BETTER, IF YOU WILL TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AS WELL TO WHO YOU WILL VOTE AS YOUR CONGRESSMEN, GOVERNORS AND VICE GOVERNORS, MAYORS AND VICE MAYORS, AND BARANGAY OFFICIALS. BECAUSE ONCE THE ELECTION IS DONE, AND EVERYONE VOTED TO POSITIONS HAVE TAKEN THEIR SEATS OF "RESPONSIBILITY," THE FIRST PEOPLE WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO COUNT ON DIRECTLY AND IMMEDIATELY ARE THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERS WHO ARE WITH US AND KNOWS MORE ABOUT OUR COMMUNITIES' CONCERNS AND NEEDS.
FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, WHOEVER WINS, IT IS BEST THAT ASIDE FROM ADDRESSING THE GENERAL ISSUES AND CONCERNS OF THE COUNTRY, NEVER EVER EVER EVVVVVEEER FORGET TO KEEP AN EYE OVER YOUR LGUs BELOW YOU. IF THESE LGU LEADERS ARE NOT WORKING AND DOING THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES TO THEIR IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS AND COMMUNITIES, ALL YOUR EFFORTS NATIONALLY WILL BE POINTLESS.
GOOD LUCK TO US FILIPINOS, AND GOD BLESS OUR BELOVED COUNTRY.
