What is happening to our country? While millions of families can hardly make both ends meet, the many members of the House of Representathieves are still on their merry ways. MAHIYA NAMAN KAYO. Imagine they get bonuses everytime they go on breaks, like Christmas break, Lenten season break, etc. This is on top of their monthly salary of more than three hundred thousand pesos per month. Yung SOP pa. May sahod na, May kita pa. The disclosure came from their own ranks. From Congressmen Ronnie Puno, Kiko Barzaga and Leandro Leviste. Hindi nila masikmura ang katakawan ng mga kasama nila. ( Ano ba President BBM? Bakit wala pang naka-kulong na big fishes?)
Meanwhile, what’s the story of a common Pinoy worker? How much is the employee’s minimum wage? It’s something like seven hundred pesos. It’s no match on the multi-millions take of many politicians. Life today is survival for many. It’s unlike in the early years. When I was still in shorts and was in the primary school, I was given on school days five centavos as my baon. Ten centavos were for the kids of well-off families. If ten centavos was given to me, that I can consider luxurious spending like having a special halo halo and a mamon to go along. And that five centavos was fair enough, I can already have one boiled sweet potato and a hopiang mungo and a clean drink from the water pump in the school garden.
The daily wage was four pesos for ordinary workers. And with that four pesos, basic needs of a family of five or sometimes seven or eighth can be met. Only rich families owned televisions. And only them can afford cars and motorbikes. Only them can travel abroad. And traveling abroad in those years was big deal. Ordinary folks go to pintakasi on Sundays and the kids will be happy going to a movie even only once a month. Others only ‘once in a blue moon’.
The orchestra ticket for kids on movie houses in Angeles City was fifteen centavos and twenty five for adults. I never bothered in my youth how much the balcony ticket was priced. In the San Nicolas public market in Angeles, you can have a plateful of pancit luglog for ten centavos. Halo halo the same amount. There was a centimeter height limit for kids and were not collected fares on buses. The Angeles-Manila round trip ticket was eighty five centavos. There were no air conditioning among buses then.
Two of the popular bus lines were La Mallorca Pambusco of the Enriquez family of Macabebe and San Fernando. Its main competitor on the road was the Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines of the Paras and Buan families of Tarlac. Fare was a lot cheaper when taking the government owned Philippine National Railway train that run from Damortis, La Union to Tutuban in Divisoria in Manila. It makes stops in Angeles, San Fernando and Malolos in Bulacan.
I paid one hundred five pesos as matriculation fee for one whole semester when I entered first year at College of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Sto. Tomas. My friend Bert Guiao who took up a commerce degree paid seven seven pesos for first semester. At forty pesos a month there was already board and lodging on a well appointed apartment around the so-called university belt in Manila. Me and five other friends stayed on what they called bed space room which was priced at fifty pesos per month. And the six of us shared less than ten pesos for the rent.
‘What can you buy at the present salary? You can only buy noodles, sardines. Even dried fish has become expensive. Many are only on survival mode. But government, particularly majority of those in the House of Representatives are showing inflexibility in enacting a law for higher wages. The workers in each region are fed up with the wage board decisions which in most cases can’t satisfy the hue and cry of the workforce. The continuing high prices of basic commodities continue to rise but government is exhibiting an attitude that it can still absorb criticisms. And came the insult from the Trade Secretary Cristina Roque that with P500 a family of four can enjoy a noche buena last Christmas. WTF!