With an Empty Wallet

With the deepening economic crisis far from reaching bottom, reduction in force is the order of business in the private sector especially in construction and tourist related businesses. The public sector has implemented reduction of work hours because it just doesn’t have the funds to keep paying its 4,000 plus employees.

Today, it faces the possibility of having to release about 400 employees in the Public School System because of the lack of funds to meet this specific payroll. Notice of termination has already been issued, the most troublesome letter for it means a reduction of a good portion of family pocketbooks.

As affected families ponder their future, legislators take the “mirror, mirror on the wall” debate to secure their share of funds for pet projects. It goes to show their confused sense of priority and obvious insensitivity of heading out for another picnic with public funds while 400 families face the dire reality of joblessness. But then, what else is new on the other side of the street. It seems business as usual.

We’ve learned that the reduction of manpower and work hours in both sectors have forced sole family providers to head to the Food Stamps Office in As Lito to seek assistance in providing food for their families. The number continues to balloon as more employees are released from their jobs or endure the derailing effects of reduction of work hours from 80 to 72.

It is no secret how we found ourselves in this financial mess first triggered by an economic regional contagion, fueled by federal policy instability and strangling domestic policies. We weren’t sure what to make of the deepening crisis though we found out the hard way that tourism is as fickle as the dry tañgantañgan branch in the forest. We thought too that we’ve found the single magical pill to resolve this matter in the much touted Free Trade Zone only to find out that if our detractors successfully remove duty free (tariff) provisions under Headnote 3(a) in the Covenant Agreement, it’ll knock out the wind underneath the wings of the FTZ.

Why are we in this mess? It’s all the result of a tunnel vision of worrying about several jobs neglecting the prospects of losing thousands more because we failed to do what is right. Think about it. It’s the livelihood of our people at stake. Si Yuus Maase`!