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Photo Credit: Joshua Sales
Opinion: The Hostage Situation is a Worker's Frustration
Photo Credit: Joshua Sales
We live in a country where someone has to commit a crime to be heard by the government.
On March 2, 2020, a hostage situation occurred in the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan. The hostage-taker, a former security guard of the establishment named Alchie Paray, took hold of roughly 30 hostages. At first glance, this may seem like a terrorist incident where the taker asks for compensation in exchange for the hostages. But looking at the story in-depth will show that this is not a terrorist issue, but rather, a workers' rights issue.
The hostage incident lasted for 9 hours with the police negotiating with Paray to release the hostages. An amount of 1 million pesos was even offered as hush money by the agency who hired him, but Paray refused, insisting that he talk to his fellow guards, that the company fire his bosses, and let his message be heard.
After the negotiations, he finally released the hostages and a 20-minute press conference was held where Paray was free to explain his side. At the conference, he told the media about the corruption that he had witnessed during his work. His bosses were bribed with ₱5,000 by a tenant to have him “reassigned” after he refused entry to the tenant because of a “no ID, no entry” policy before the mall opened. But he later explained that this “reassignment” of duty was just a way to forcefully make him quit his job and thus resulting in him committing the unlawful act.
He also said that the incident he caused is a warning and reminder for all businesses that workers are also important and bosses should not be looking down on people who work for them.
Just as what we have heard from Paray himself, it becomes apparent that there is gross mishandling of workers' rights in our country.
Paray's case was a result of abuse of authority and corruption. There are a lot of people who experience this but are too afraid to voice out their dissatisfactions because they risk losing their income sources, or sometimes, their lives.
The Philippines is listed among the worst countries for workers according to the 2019 Global Rights Index of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). They have a rating system from 1 to 5, with 1 being the best and 5 being the worst.Our country was given a rating of 5 , which is described: “While the legislation may spell out certain rights, workers have effectively no access to these rights and are therefore exposed to autocratic regimes and unfair labor practice.”
The minimum wage ranges from P8,717.94 to P14,731.10 per month depending on which area or region the worker is employed. This value is far from the P42,000/month that the National Economic and Development Authority has computed for a family of five to live comfortably. People who earn the minimum wage income are only considered surviving, not living.
As if the above fact is not enough to prove how our workers are maltreated by our current system, there is also no way for them to express their thoughts on any of these issues.Workers like Paray have the right to join certain organizations like labor unions to negotiate for more favorable working conditions and other benefits through collective bargaining. The problem is that in the Philippines, labor union members are killed. According to the 2019 Global Rights Index, “shrinking democratic space was witnessed” in the Philippines as freedom for speech and assembly are “denied or constrained”.
There were 14 people—mostly farmers—who were killed by police and military forces in Canlaon City and towns of Manjuyod and Sta. Catalina in Negros Oriental on the March of 2018. The authorities stated that the people who were killed “fought back” but the families of the slain said that they were only elderly people and they could not afford to buy any weapons.
The following was stated in the index as well: “Workers and trade unionists in the Philippines faced violent attacks and intimidation. Protests were brutally repressed by police forces in an attempt by government forces to suppress political dissent."
Labor unions are the voice of the workers, and if the right to participate in them is taken away, events such as the San Juan hostage incident might happen again.
The government should not stop labor unions from protesting because this is how workers let the government know about their problems. Their complaints can be used by the government to identify what problems need to be resolved in their work environment.
What Paray did wasn’t right, but the message he was trying to send is something that needs to be addressed. This hostage incident has opened the eyes of every Filipino to how bad the situation of workers are in the Philippines but the cost of this is the well-being of the people he hostaged and also the future of him and his family . If only the government doesn’t suppress people in labor unions and listens to their pleas instead, then Paray could have joined one and delivered his message without harming others
This is only one example of a mistreated worker. Surely, there are many more workers like him in the Philippines who experience unfair treatment. The current system makes no room for change and the workers feel hopeless and because of that, they are forced to resort to crime.The government must address these issues to lessen the probability of another Alchie Paray incident happening again. //by Simon Delfinado
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