Who is minding the country's workers?

We work in order to live. We do not live in order to work. Work is a means to a higher end. It is not the end by itself. The purpose of work is to make one's life meaningful and productive. It is not intended to enslave man and to make him suffer. In fact, God created man in order to make him God's co-creator, to sow the seeds and tend the gardens, to watch the vineyards and water the roots, so that all that he plants shall bear fruits. God also created man in order that he becomes God's co-redeemer, to redeem others from starvation by the fruits of his labors, the grains from his harvest and the crops from his farms. But the moment man becomes a slave of work and is compelled to exert efforts in order to make others richer, and become more powerful and oppressive, while himself the worker wallows in poverty, then work becomes a burden. By then, the Creator's original intent shall have been defeated.

We do not only bewail the many forms of social and economic injustice in today's world. We are not only saddened by the millions of workers who have no sufficient food to eat, no decent homes above their heads, and with no access to quality health care, education, and social services. We feel utmost outrage at the fact that the employers of these workers become wealthier each day by the sweats, by the tears, and even by the blood of the working class. Government seems unable to fully respond to the avalanche of the poor's many unsatisfied basic and urgent needs. The Church raises many relevant issues and denounces many of the social ills in today's human society. But apart from pontificating and ritualistic religiosity, the Church's faith without social action is dead. Civil society has not gone beyond the veneer of the scribes' and pharisees' pretentious posturing.

There are many pastors, ministers, and self-proclaimed prophets who claim to spread the good news of salvation to the people, especially the poor people. But how can they ever save the souls, if the bodies, which are the temples of the human spirit, are impoverished, malnourished, ill and disabled, diseased and dying? With all due respect to our religious leaders, are they ever done in their missions when they merely pray over the heads of the starving millions and not give them food to save them from starvation? Are our missionaries already fulfilled when they pray hundreds of rosaries to the homeless and do not give them decent housing? Who is minding the working class in our society today? Should it be the Church, the civil society, or the government?

The government seems to be overburdened by the need to investigate corruptions, the urgency to prosecute the rascals in high positions and the scalawags in the bureaucracy. The officials are rushing with construction of highways and bridges with the term of office of the President being about to end. The government is in a panic mood given the high cost of electricity and water exacerbated by their inadequacy and onslaught of drought and coming famine. It is not enough to distribute dole-outs termed as cash transfer which abets mendicancy and reward people who enjoy being the perennial beneficiaries of government goodies. It is not enough to conduct job fairs, ''ad nauseam,'' while refusing to address the population issue.

Who is minding the working class? The trade unions are mysteriously silent. Sectoral representatives who claim to represent labor are busy with political posturing and nothing more. The workers remain underemployed, and unemployed. They remain ignorant of their fundamental rights. They remain afraid to organize in the light of their perception that government and the employers' sector are, to their view, collaborating to ignore the working class and to resist unionism. They persist in their lack of  boldness and determination to fight against unfair labor practices and other forms of social injustice. The Church, despite its various social encyclicals on labor and social issues, has chosen to remain silent.

In the face of all these, work becomes an instrument of oppression and exploitation. It is not the liberating and redemptive process that God intended it to be. Work becomes a yoke in the shoulders of the working class. It has become a curse rather than a blessing that it should be. By the sweats of the workers' brows, workers could hope to eat. While their masters become richer and richer, the working class are paid the minimum and yet, expected to deliver maximum results. Work has become a thorn that workers have to swallow. This is not what it has always been meant to be. Sayang.