No strikes allowed in vital installations

I was in Manila since Thursday and since I was too busy attending various meetings, I didn’t even have time to check the Internet and see what was happening in Cebu. When I got back last Sunday, first thing that caught my attention was the headline news from The FREEMAN last Saturday that the unionized workers of Salcon Power had threatened to conduct a strike.

This threat should not be taken lightly and should send alarm bells to our government leadership for two major reasons. Firstly, that a strike in these times of economic crisis is unwarranted and uncalled for because too many of our Filipinos have already lost their jobs. These people ought to thank the Lord that at least they still have their works, while others don’t even know where the money for their next meal would come from.

Secondly, we already know that the power situation in Cebu is at best precarious and a strike at a vital installation like power should never be allowed to push through. I understand that there are certain directives from Malacañang where employees from certain vital industries like utilities cannot be allowed to declare a strike and I would like to believe that Salcon Power and the other independent power companies’ fall into this category. If we allow their employees to strike, it would certainly cripple the economy. Call it economic sabotage, if you will, but they should never be allowed to shut down their operations!

But this is not to say that we should not look into the labor problems that Salcon Power is having. Perhaps we can ask the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to look into their case. But never should we allow these people to threaten us in Cebu at a time when our power situation is critical. We should never be held hostage by the demands of these mindless workers who only think of themselves and not of the greater good of the Cebuanos.

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Another issue that caught my attention when I read the local news of the week was a front-page item in CDN that reported that a boy have fallen into an open drainage canal in a suspended Mandaue City project. Let me point out that today, there are just too many road excavations going on in Metro Cebu and most of them do not even have any warning signs or lights to warn motorists or pedestrians of the impending danger ahead. Just pass by Gorordo Avenue and there’s a lot of these excavations that we found out were done by Manila-based contractors that do not even have an office in Cebu, not even a bodega for their supplies.

In the United States, when a motorist falls into these excavations, it is the city where the road digging belongs that gets sued for negligence. This is why in many Western countries, whenever there are people at work on the road, you will see the workers using very bright reflective vests to warn motorists of the presence of these workers, while the area they are working on has various warning lamps that flash day and night so that motorists cannot say that they did not see these excavations.

We Cebuanos have always pride ourselves to become better than Manila or even become the next Singapore. But if our political leadership tolerates this kind of behavior by road contractors, we’re not only exposing our citizenry to danger, we are becoming a laughing stock to foreign tourists who come and visit us. When it comes to road diggings, we are still in the “lampara” age because that’s what most contractors put in those diggings: A crude, home-made fire lamp. Please spare us from the embarassment!

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Is it three years already? How time flies indeed. This coming Friday will be the awarding ceremonies for the 4th Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) Triennial Awards for Exemplary Individual and Outstanding Institution in the Visayas and Mindanao and the awards night will be held at the Casino Español on March 6, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.. The Triennial Awards is conferred every three years and the people or institutions that get the award are those who have brought about change and improvement to the lives of their community, most especially the less privileged.

There are two types of awards in the Triennial Awards. They are the Don Ramon Aboitiz for Exemplary Individual and the Eduardo Aboitiz Award for Outstanding Institution. The Triennial Awards is something that many of us look forward to because we know that there are a lot of do-gooders out there who are making an impact to society in their own way. Mind you, these people don’t do what they do for awards; they do it because of their love for their fellowman and their love of God who taught us that if you do it to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.