A day for workers

Before EDSA Tres and STOP Cha-cha, there was Labor Day. This is what we’re supposed to be celebrating today, together with other countries that mark the first of May as a special day for workers (in the United States and Canada, it’s in September).

Reminders to everyone on this day of rallies, as per that Supreme Court ruling:

• Government forces must observe maximum tolerance.

• Marchers need rally permits, unless they are staging their mass actions in areas designated as freedom parks.

There will surely be people on both sides of the political fence who will argue that the Supreme Court ruling on the administration’s silly, paranoid calibrated preemptive response or CPR has not yet become final. These people will be preparing for business as usual, meaning doing whatever they want, laws and SC rulings be damned.

That attitude has contributed to the enormous mess our country is in, which has driven away investments to our neighbors China, Thailand and, increasingly, even Vietnam.

Fewer investments mean fewer jobs, which is bad news for the workers whose day we are celebrating today.

* * *

On Labor Day, the focus should be on job generation and promotion of workers’ welfare. We should be asking ourselves how we could create more jobs.

More importantly, if we want to stop the growing exodus of professionals and skilled workers, we should ask ourselves how we can create jobs that pay a decent wage so our people, the nation’s most precious resource, need not leave their own land.

That exodus is creating crises in public health care, education, the local aviation industry and other sectors that require workers with specialized training.

The exodus of teachers has led to a progressive slide in Filipinos’ English proficiency, and investors are starting to notice. The decline in English proficiency has been a consistent complaint of investors in recent studies on Philippine competitiveness. One day those unhappy investors will simply pack up and relocate. That means more jobs lost for Filipinos.

Meanwhile, our neighbors are giving their people crash courses in conversational English and making the study of the language compulsory in their schools. They are even sending their people to the Philippines to study English.

Our English-speaking workforce should be cornering the call-center job market in Asia. Yet studies have shown that we cannot even find enough qualified people to fill thousands of vacancies in call centers. Taglish simply won’t do. There should be a study on how many call-center jobs we have lost to India, which has promoted genuine bilingualism and is developing a highly skilled workforce.

* * *

The administration likes to trot out rosy figures about the annual employment situation. Those figures, however, include even temporary jobs in the agricultural sector during harvest season.

The agriculture sector is in fact one of the best performers in our economy. But even the employment situation in that sector should raise alarm bells.

Our food security could soon become endangered as younger generations, discouraged by the poor returns from farming and marginal fishing, leave underdeveloped rural communities for urban centers.

Many portions of the rice terraces in Banawe, for example, have been left fallow. The centuries-old elevated paddies are being slowly destroyed by giant earthworms, as young locals relocate to cities for better-paying (and less back-breaking) work. We are losing not just one of our top tourist destinations, but also the source of one of our best varieties of rice.

Last week a friend brought me a two-cup pack of gourmet mountain rice produced in Thailand, blended with Thai spices. The product is naturally pricier than regular Thai rice. Why can’t we do that with our fragrant mountain rice in Banawe? With a little marketing support from the government, surely this is not impossible.

Unfortunately, our production and marketing strategies reflect the parochialism that characterizes Philippine politics. Our producers are unable to see bigger markets beyond the poblacion. If you tell them there could be a global market for their products, they will think you’re joking.

Meanwhile, our neighbors are going global with the most ordinary products. Who would have thought the Singaporeans could sell bread to Filipinos? Yet the Gardenia brand has become ubiquitous nationwide, and Bread Talk has just opened its newest branch in Manila, selling its top-selling meat floss buns at nearly P50 a pop.

Some industries will benefit from forming cooperatives to market their products overseas. In a land where selfishness rules, however, strength in unity can be a tough sell.

* * *

The brain drain, the deteriorating quality of the workforce that is left behind, bad marketing and lack of support are not the only problems that should concern us on Labor Day.

We should also get serious about addressing all the other factors raised by investors who have been warning in recent years that the Philippines is increasingly losing out to its neighbors in competitiveness.

We know the complaints: unpredictable economic policies, poor regulatory environment, weak judicial system, protective policies, political instability, corruption and cronyism, red tape, unfair competition posed by smuggling and violations of intellectual property rights.

These matters need immediate attention. They are aggravated by peace and order problems, but terrorism has become a global scourge, and as long as investors can see that we are doing something about security threats, they are likely to take risks.

Will we hear discussions about these problems today, a day for workers? Unlikely.

What we will see today is the latest episode in a long-running political circus that will ride on the coattails of the Filipino worker’s cause.

No one will talk about jobs, or about making the country more investment-friendly to create employment and keep our workers home.

Investors will see this and consider more business-friendly environments.

The world is moving at warp speed, and it won’t stop and wait for us to catch up. Today, Labor Day, our workers should be worried. Very worried.