Job application

AS I watched my daughter excitedly write her job application letters the other day, I recalled the positions I applied for and those I had before I ended up in the newspaper industry–I mean, before I got “hooked” in the print medium.

Leia asked me how I applied for work before. Yes, my fresh graduate is itching to put her degree to use. So please don’t begrudge me for a little shout out to my friends and potential employers out there before I continue. Leia earned her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Technology degree at the University of Science and Technology in Southern Philippines. Now, I don’t know what a graduate of that course actually does for a living, ergo this short shout out.

Okay. Let’s go back to romancing the past.

Leia told me she felt insecure because, obviously, she has a short curriculum vitae. I assured her it’s quite “alright” because it is her first foray into the job market. Before, we did not have to write CVs to go with our application letter. We bought a pro forma bio data for one peso. So, imagine how embarrassing it was for me to leave out some of the items in the bio data because unlike my daughter, I was a college dropout. However, living in the Corrales household which was a dual-income family and being a college dropout, I started feeling like I was a freeloading loser–and I was. After two summers of just skulking around the house and playing video games with our Nintendo Family Computer, I figured I had to somehow start contributing to the “real world.”

I became an apprentice for a salesman of a merchandising company. We sold baby powder and bathroom tissue from Iligan City to Kapatagan. I remember being stranded in Kapatagan for two days because my bosses, the salesman and the driver, got into a binge drinking spree and were too drunk to travel, much less, make sales calls.

After a short stint with the drunken salesman, I applied and worked for a Grolier encyclopedia distribution company. Yes, I was a book salesman. Before the Internet, encyclopedias were king. I experienced a lot of my “firsts” in that job–“firsts” which I’d rather not go to details in this column.

I reached my sales quota and was awarded a whole set of encyclopedia. But after that, the caravans and the book conventions started to bore me. I had to go out. I was looking for something. What it was I still didn’t have a clue.

I got out of that job and applied for a more “physical job”–an assistant welder. I recall being good at it. I enjoyed getting my hands dirty and getting paid by the sweat of my brow, so to speak. We fabricated window grills and we had a variety of designs catalogued. I remember filling out a large order from a subdivision developer somewhere in Kauswagan. So if you live in a subdivision in Kauswagan, chances are we made your window grills.

However, my boss decided to work overseas and had to close shop. So I was officially unemployed again. From that time until I started to work for a local newspaper were a string of odd jobs. The oddest of which was being an “Internet coach.” Internet was something new that time and there was this German expat who posted a job ad in a local daily for somebody to teach him how to use the Internet.

After that, I worked as a personal assistant which I have come to understand is a euphemism for “yaya”; as insurance agent; as a folksinger; and as a community organizer for a non-government organization.

Leia asked me if I regretted having applied for all of those I mentioned. I did not because all the jobs shaped the kind of man that I am now. It shaped my biases and principles, and it made me a better journalist today. Whenever I write a news or feature story about something, I can write about it honestly because I lived it before.

I think the lesson my Leia and the others who are entering into the job market for the first time is not to be choosy and just explore. Of course, some of the wisecracks out there will reply: “I can be choosy because unlike you, I have a degree.”

The first job you will be applying and work for will just be to acquire practical knowledge outside the academic bubble. Believe you me, there will be lots of theories that will be debunked in the course of your careers.

But then again, what do I know, right?

Back to the grind

EVERYTHING is back to normal. The only one true god and savior is back in the hearts of the fanatics. The infallible and incorrigible is back to thriving in the country as he is encouraged and nourished by the very society which he abhors.

Every disciple of the regime is back to calling for blood in the name of their savior’s war on illegal drugs. Each fanatic is back to mocking priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. Human rights advocates are not safe again and, as declared by their one true god, it’s an open season against the press.

Yes, folks, Lent is over. The mass hypocrisy and delusion is over.

Last week, I conducted a social experiment on my Facebook wall. I posted outrageous, ridiculous, and for the believers, sacrilegious ideas on my wall. The posts were meant to draw out reactions from my friends and relatives.

As was expected, some friends parried my posts by posting on their own walls about respecting their beliefs and religion. I say it was an expected response because most religious people feel the need to defend their belief system especially when it is questioned during the most serious and religious week of the church calendar-year.

They say they respect the belief of others or the lack thereof. But the point is, I am not obliged in any way to respect something which I think is ridiculous.

A few others, those who really know me, just laughed off my posts and even offered their own brand of ridiculousness on the thread.

I will not, however, belabor on those kinds of reactions. My Lenten social media experiment was targeted at the insanely religious yet supports the wanton extrajudicial killings, the bashing of human rights advocates and civil libertarians.

At least five distant relatives and two acquaintances “unfriended” and “blocked” me from their Facebook accounts. Based on that kind of response, I believe my social experiment was spot on.

I find it funny and ridiculous that these people find my Lenten posts as “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful” (I used the quotation marks because these were the exact words sent to me via private messaging on Facebook) yet would willingly and consciously applaud and approve their one true god and savior every time he lambasts the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, makes the most misogynistic pronouncements, and promotes purging of “lesser” human beings under the pretext of his war on drugs.

Yesterday, this regime’s disciples were back to their old selves– “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful.”

However, we, sane and rational people, have respite from all of these tirades. We’ll always have Lent next year when these disciples will again wear their religious masks.

For now, it is back to new normal–back to the grind, as it were. Pfft.

Corrupting the minors

“Corruption is not a victimless crime.” – Malou Mangahas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

SURE, it may not be as dramatic and graphic as this administration’s bloodlust under the pretext of waging a war on illegal drugs but corruption is just as appalling, debase, and vile.

It is subtle. It is because what corruption kills is opportunity. For every peso stolen from the state coffers, it is an important medical check-up not pushed through or an academic path not trudged.

On the side of the corrupted, there is impunity and entitlement that they feel borne out of a weak or even broken moral compass.

When I heard about the “ghost pupils” at our public elementary school here in Consolacion, I was enraged. The fact that a government assistance program–a program which supposedly encourages impoverished families to send their children to school–has been corrupted is cunningly vile.

That was only half of it. The other half of that ball of anger is on the seemingly default response of government of covering it up to the point of pinning the blame on the school principal.

By the way, I believe education is a right and not a privilege. It is a state obligation.

We discovered this debase scheme about a fortnight ago. Since then, the welfare department has since “corrected” the erroneous list of pupil-beneficiaries. However, an investigation on the breadth and depth of the civil workers involved has yet to be launched.

The school principal discovered the 107 “ghost pupils” listed as beneficiaries in the course of verifying the welfare department’s list of pupil-beneficiaries for the months of February and March which is set to be released next month.

The welfare department regional field office’s default response was that the school principal made a mistake in verifying the list. Its program’s focal person said the principal checked their list without the presence of the “pupils” teachers. Well, who would know better who is enrolled in a school or not than the school principal?

The list was crafty. It had surnames that are cunningly familiar to anybody who has lived in Consolacion in the last 15 years. However, the first names were unfamiliar.

I made my own calculations. It seems that I have been making calculations lately. It doesn’t even help the fact that I hate math, but back to the point I was making… Had the erroneous list been “verified” without the school principal’s transparency and honesty, the taxpayers would have given away to a lucky ring of government ulcers with P171,200 next month. The amount is derived from the educational grant of P300 and health allowance of P500 each pupil-beneficiary gets for the months of February and March then multiply that to the number of “ghost pupils” at Consolacion Elementary School.

That is only for one public elementary school. In the course of our discovery, we found out that this same scheme is being done in other public schools in the city as well. So if you have a neighbor who ostensibly works at the welfare department who suddenly has brand new appliances, chances are, those are katas ng pantawid. I have seen such neighbor, mind you. Suddenly, they were able to buy flat screen TVs, washing machines, and even a taxi.

Lately, this administration has been espousing a no-nonsense war against corruption–this administration is so into “wars”–by booting out supposedly corrupt officials. The “purge” has started with the interior secretary.

I say this administration should, nay must, also include its career bureaucrats in the regions. That is if it is serious in rooting out this equally reprehensible behavior.

Until then, the colorful words of this administration will remain as such–mere words. Pfft.

Postponing democracy

“IF barangay elections were not held, the power of the people to elect their own leaders and not allow their leaders to just be appointed will be removed away from them. That is a terrible diminution of the power of our people granted to them under a democratic rule.” -former Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., father of the Local Government Code

THIS administration will be wasting a lot of resources should its minions at Batasan Hill decide to postpone again the barangay and SK elections this October.

Elections Commissioner Luie Guia posted on his Facebook wall that existing laws need to be amendment before the elections could be declared postponed.

“Comelec is aware of what seems to be the declared preference of the political leadership to have the polls reset (or) canceled. It is best however that the decision on the matter be formalized via amendatory legislation the soonest.

“All that the poll body can do now is to slow down a bit in its preparation, but this can only hold temporarily. At a certain point and without the amendatory legislation coming out, it would already be constrained to go full blast,” Guia’s post reads in part.

Guia, however, predicates this statement by reminding citizens that “organizing elections is not a simple task. It is an enormous logistical operation that requires adequate preparation time and commitment of substantial resources.”

As a father to one of Comelec’s election workers in the city, I am appalled by the amount of money this administration will be wasting if it did decide to postpone the elections. As Guia jokingly told me over the weekend: “Comelec father ka nga pala.”

I made my own calculations and came up with P1,406,052. That amount only accounts for the paid man-hours of the election workers manning the satellite registrations in the city alone. It does not include the overtime pays (when they work on Saturdays and Sundays). It does not include the electricity that powers the computers, biometric equipment, the reams of paper and other logistical resources needed in every satellite registration. It does not include the physical hazards these election workers face in the hinterland barangays.

I arrived at that amount by multiplying the number of days (277 to be exact since City Comelec started its satellite registrations since July last year) to the daily average wage of a casual election worker (P423 from the P11,000 monthly salary of a casual worker). Then I multiplied that number to the number of election workers manning each satellite registration (12 election workers).

Guia said via private message that if Congress amends the election law within the next month or two, there won’t be much wastage.

So, timing is key. I just hope that we still have enough thinking legislators in both houses of Congress.

Meanwhile, we, the electorate, wait.

I have seen how the City Comelec has labored and the commitment it has in making sure those voters will be able to choose who will lead them in the most basic unit of political body in the Republic.

As the father of the Local Government Code puts it: “Getting the barangay officials elected by the people of the barangay concerned makes them beholden to their voters. Appointing them, on the other hand, makes them feel they owe a debt of gratitude to the appointing power that they have somehow to repay.”

Postponing the barangay and SK elections is a very dangerous precedent. The next thing you know, you’ll just realize in horror that you have willingly surrendered your liberties to a dictator who has scared you on the pretext that we have been a narco-state in the last “six or seven years.” Pfft.