The new President and CEO of Clark Development Corporation (CDC) has officially assumed office, with her election at the CDC Board as such last Friday. She was also formally introduced to the employees in a flag raising ceremony two days after.
P/CEO Agnes Devanadera deserves respect and courtesy due her. A lot of it.
She also deserves some “honeymoon” period (if that ever applies in GOCCs like CDC). That period may well be spent dealing with two major issues that she has to face. First, incentives for locators where investors are growing weary if not impatient. Two, the compensation package for CDC employees. As one very influential local personality described this two-pronged headache: a bibinka (rice cake) where cooking requires burning coal on top and bottom.
Both of these groups can make or break her stint in Clark. Locators are the lifeline of the Freeport with their combined multi-billion dollar investments that make Clark a vital economic center in the Philippines.
On the other hand, CDC employees are the pillars underneath. Just like a house, CDC needs them hold against waves of challenges. But if the pillars have gone weak, it may come tumbling down.
For the first one, I have had the chance to sit down with some of the CILA officers just last month. Over cup of coffee with visiting friend New York Consul General Elmer Cato, they raised quite a lot of concerns. More particularly how the CREATE Law Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) had gone awry and that the circumlocution (or circumvention) no longer represent the true spirit of the law. The general feeling among locators is that it is no longer changing the rules in the middle but stopping the game is what is developing.
Devanadera is a top caliber lawyer by profession and she had held positions in government that are not easily given to just any lawyer. Her previous posts as Solicitor General and Secretary of Justice alone can help restore investors confidence. I am pretty sure she possesses the brilliance that may help solve the infirmities of the IRR that is being rammed down the throats of poor locators
For the second one, CDC employees are on the edge. They have patiently (read: painstakingly) waited for 10 years for the new compensation package, to no avail. Being employed in CDC used to be a subject of envy by many office workers. Now it has become a pittance compared to their counterparts in many national government agencies or even just the low class municipalities whose salaries have gone up due to Salary Standardization Law.
How I remember people wanting to get a job in CDC in the late 1990s up to 2012. To many, working in CDC was like finding a gold mine. Now, it gives a demoralizing state.
Hindi na gumalaw ang sweldo sa loob ng sampung taon! Versus an actual backdrop of oil price increase almost every week and skyrocketing prime commodities, you can now imagine how employees try to make both ends meet.
Their salaries did not only stagnate for 10 years but had gone further down. Grave injustice was done to 92 percent of 867 total employees who are to have with less take home pay under the new compensation package. That measly amount can even go lesser if those affected would be forced to migrate from SSS to GSIS.
Devanadera is assuming CDC presidency with looming workers’ strike. This is not of her own making though. This is what she is inheriting from immediate past CDC management and that is not fair for her administration.
In order for the strike to be averted and for employees to be calm again, she would need to come up quick with an alternative and a doable, practicable program or offer to employees on top of her sincerity and determination.
Union officers are easy to talk to but they can no longer be taken for a ride. They can no longer be told “status quo” while they feel and discover that Management is doing something behind their backs (like in the June 17, 2022 dialogue where Management said that but on the one hand it sent a letter of intent to GSIS about migration).
Devanadera has not only the experience and leadership. With her previous stints in various agencies of the government (and even as a former mayor), she would have the guts and true grit to be licking these problems away.