decongesting unemployment

let us first treat the words as separate concepts.

decongestion (errr…not checking the dic again and giving my own..whahaha) is giving a lee-way to a very tight situation.  look at my newly uploaded pic where my nose was decongested with our regular almost 4-inch cotton buds (it was eye poppingly painful!whaaaaaaaaaa).  and imagine that the doctor enticed me that it feels like nothing (what a heck!).  when he prepared the 18-inch flexible laryngoscopy camera i was saying to myself are you sure what your going into rj (this is just a simple cough rj right?)?

slowly the snakelike thing entered the insides of my nose and made a “u” turn to enter my mouth (i was tearing with pain at that moment).  when he further pushed thru my throat to see my larynx (i shouted and coughed..coughing while that “thing” was inside my oral self!whahahaha).

let’s define the other word..unemployment.  it is a very far reaching topic than what most of us in the educated metro thinks.  its not only seeing our college classmates not being employed (yet still subsidized by their parents) and not only usual UP folks jumping in and out a job wishing a deserving job!  in a more graphic manner, it is the unavailability of the local government and local industries to support a living for the regular barrio folk.

and even if decongesting my nose to reach the larynx was such a painful and hard experience, this “unemployment” is in the same way a more painful and hard experience for our society.  for me, it erases the respectability of the “honorable-prefix” of our politicians because we are ineffective as a society if we become great while leaving a lot of people in the countryside on the “unemployment quick sand”.

i really feel disheartened hearing that what unemployed people want is only a 300 peso/week job to support their families yet no one can give it to them on a more stable frequency.  it is largely dependent on the seasonal variations of our economy.  they go from people to people just to ask for “jobs” or “food” (and not even money!).  from planting rice, to tilling the soil, to harvesting palay, to being a helper in a construction, to odd jobs here and there, to being a sex-provider of the town-plazas at night (receiving a 20-peso “janitorial fee” from the town gays or fish traders), to being an ingenious theif (most nang popular “illonggo group” are from nearby towns)!

i can not simply blame them..in fact, if i’m in that predicament with my wife crying seeing our son squeeze sa “gutom”, i might do any of the things above.  people can not simply say, magtrabaho ka!  kasi they are!  i can not really imagine how 300 pesos per week is budgeted by the lucky ones who get a 2-month milling job in the rice mills (and it just crushes me thinking of the unlucky ones who don’t).  parang hindi na ako pwede kumain nang steak sa pancake house when i want to kasi i just imagine that it’s a week of substinence to a family of 4 and isang kain ko lang!

kaya when someone from the metro goes to a town and start asking questions relating to minimum wage provided by the local employers and how is it different with their “city standards”, people emphatize the local employers.  puro naman “dada” yung intellectuals na yan at wala naman maitulong sa local unemployment scene as they say.  and the minimum wage earners of the city can never have a larger “disposable income” than the underpayed countryside employees (considering travel expense and/or billeting expense).

i feel really blessed, feeling the true concern of my people when i get a little sick (a simple cough for this matter).  parang i feel the sincerity and the concern (pinapagalitan na nila ako dahil hindi matigas yung ulo na hindi magpagamot!).  maybe because in my own little way i decongested “life” to them (offering at times twice, thrice or even four times the regular town rate with regularity).  with these, i will still continue employing the rejects of corporate philippines and help them dream of things not thought by most “highly graded morons”.  parang even if i don’t earn much, the fulfillment that this gives makes me see life in a brand new light!

continually use me dear lord to show your love to people in the countryside.  i challenge people, stop talking and start helping people in the countryside with employment (and not just 1 time give-aways) for a better philippines!