Weird logic
Weird logic
Updated 01:56am (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
ONE TV station had a curious commentary about the transport strike last week. A TV personality was interviewing a government official who seemed perfectly reasonable. The official's tone was pleading. She understood that jeepney and bus drivers had every right to strike, she said, but she wished they would refrain from coercion and violence. They had every right to stop plying their routes and ask other drivers to join them, but they had no right to stop buses and jeepneys on the streets and force the drivers to join them.
She showed a picture of a bus that had been turned on its side and lamented it. Ultimately, she said, coercion and violence were counterproductive. It merely turned the public, who might otherwise sympathize with the drivers, against them. She blamed the militants who had joined the strike for that lapse into anarchy. She dearly wished, she said, the legitimate strikers would not allow themselves to be swayed by outside elements.
The interviewer seized on the last thought. Yes, he said, the hand of outside elements seemed patent in the strike. It was to be seen in its very demands. He produced a leaflet the drivers had been handing out and then went through the strikers' list of demands. These included higher fare rates, increases in workers' pay generally, rollback of oil prices, rollback of power rates, the prosecution of corrupt government officials.
The call for higher fare rates and the rollback of oil prices, the interviewer said, seemed well within the province of the strike. But such things as power rates and corruption were not. Maybe they could be the subject of another strike, but not this one. Clearly, he said, this was the handiwork of outside elements, the same outside elements that fomented the violence at Hacienda Luisita.
Well, first off, the part about violence and coercion. I agree entirely, they are counterproductive. I said the same thing some 15 years ago when striking bus and jeepney drivers, who were calling for a rollback of oil prices, burned buses in the provinces. I called the people who burned the buses goons. And I had a heated exchange with the late Popoy Lagman as a result of it.
The strike, which started out being hugely popular, suddenly turned sour, and Lagman blamed the media for it. Media, he said, diverted attention away from the real issue, which was the unreasonableness of the oil price increases, by dwelling inordinately on the bus-burning. I said that was not media's fault. The situation, I said, was not unlike people watching a basketball game when somebody streaks naked on the court. Imagine yourself in the audience: Who will you look at, the players or the streaker? The bus-burning was someone streaking naked on the court. You burn buses or overturn them, that is all people will see, not your cause. And unlike streakers, who at least draw laughter from the audience, you will draw only curses from them.
As to the "outside elements," what of them? Of course, it's the government line on Luisita, which is idiotic. The blame for the deaths of the farmers in Luisita, as for those in Mendiola 17 years ago, lies squarely with those who ordered the cops and soldiers to fire, not with those who goaded them to strike.
Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would think it is the easiest thing in the world to persuade people to strike. Which underlies the idea of "outside elements goading workers to strike" like the snake tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. It is a very patronizing view of workers, who are presumed to have the IQ of sheep. Anyone who has been remotely involved in a strike will tell you it is the hardest thing in the world to do. Only a compelling reason, one that has to do with life and death, will drive people to strike. Ideology is not a compelling reason. The true leader of a strike is the reason people mounted it. You take that reason away, you stop the strike.
Why should striking drivers hew only to fuel and fare issues? Why may they not take a broader view of the economy, or national affairs generally, and make demands about them? We do not complain when investors pry into every pore of national concerns, from peace and order to the indigenous people, and even meddle in them. We do not complain when businessmen demand political and social reform, threatening to pull out their businesses if these are not met. We assume all these things have to do with their investments and businesses, which give them the right to busy themselves with them. Well, these things affect labor, too, including the kind plied by drivers.
I remember many years ago Menardo Roda, head of Piston, dramatizing that point by saying the long-term solution to the jeepney drivers' woes was genuine land reform. He wasn't entirely joking, he said, as his audience laughed at his proposition. It was so, he said, because of this: If you had genuine land reform, tenants would have land to cultivate. If they had land to cultivate, they would not go to Metro Manila to look for jobs. If they did not go to Metro Manila, Metro Manila would not be overpopulated. If Metro Manila was not overpopulated, there would be no teeming slums, hordes of unemployed and uneducated, and worsening traffic. If there weren't these, there would be no excess of jeepney (and tricycle) drivers, tong-collecting cops, and high fuel consumption. If there weren't these, there would be no oil price increases and falling incomes for drivers. So the solution to the drivers' woes was genuine land reform.
The militants put an idea like this into Roda's head? Then by all means let us have militants putting more ideas into more Rodas' heads!
Updated 01:56am (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
ONE TV station had a curious commentary about the transport strike last week. A TV personality was interviewing a government official who seemed perfectly reasonable. The official's tone was pleading. She understood that jeepney and bus drivers had every right to strike, she said, but she wished they would refrain from coercion and violence. They had every right to stop plying their routes and ask other drivers to join them, but they had no right to stop buses and jeepneys on the streets and force the drivers to join them.
She showed a picture of a bus that had been turned on its side and lamented it. Ultimately, she said, coercion and violence were counterproductive. It merely turned the public, who might otherwise sympathize with the drivers, against them. She blamed the militants who had joined the strike for that lapse into anarchy. She dearly wished, she said, the legitimate strikers would not allow themselves to be swayed by outside elements.
The interviewer seized on the last thought. Yes, he said, the hand of outside elements seemed patent in the strike. It was to be seen in its very demands. He produced a leaflet the drivers had been handing out and then went through the strikers' list of demands. These included higher fare rates, increases in workers' pay generally, rollback of oil prices, rollback of power rates, the prosecution of corrupt government officials.
The call for higher fare rates and the rollback of oil prices, the interviewer said, seemed well within the province of the strike. But such things as power rates and corruption were not. Maybe they could be the subject of another strike, but not this one. Clearly, he said, this was the handiwork of outside elements, the same outside elements that fomented the violence at Hacienda Luisita.
Well, first off, the part about violence and coercion. I agree entirely, they are counterproductive. I said the same thing some 15 years ago when striking bus and jeepney drivers, who were calling for a rollback of oil prices, burned buses in the provinces. I called the people who burned the buses goons. And I had a heated exchange with the late Popoy Lagman as a result of it.
The strike, which started out being hugely popular, suddenly turned sour, and Lagman blamed the media for it. Media, he said, diverted attention away from the real issue, which was the unreasonableness of the oil price increases, by dwelling inordinately on the bus-burning. I said that was not media's fault. The situation, I said, was not unlike people watching a basketball game when somebody streaks naked on the court. Imagine yourself in the audience: Who will you look at, the players or the streaker? The bus-burning was someone streaking naked on the court. You burn buses or overturn them, that is all people will see, not your cause. And unlike streakers, who at least draw laughter from the audience, you will draw only curses from them.
As to the "outside elements," what of them? Of course, it's the government line on Luisita, which is idiotic. The blame for the deaths of the farmers in Luisita, as for those in Mendiola 17 years ago, lies squarely with those who ordered the cops and soldiers to fire, not with those who goaded them to strike.
Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would think it is the easiest thing in the world to persuade people to strike. Which underlies the idea of "outside elements goading workers to strike" like the snake tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. It is a very patronizing view of workers, who are presumed to have the IQ of sheep. Anyone who has been remotely involved in a strike will tell you it is the hardest thing in the world to do. Only a compelling reason, one that has to do with life and death, will drive people to strike. Ideology is not a compelling reason. The true leader of a strike is the reason people mounted it. You take that reason away, you stop the strike.
Why should striking drivers hew only to fuel and fare issues? Why may they not take a broader view of the economy, or national affairs generally, and make demands about them? We do not complain when investors pry into every pore of national concerns, from peace and order to the indigenous people, and even meddle in them. We do not complain when businessmen demand political and social reform, threatening to pull out their businesses if these are not met. We assume all these things have to do with their investments and businesses, which give them the right to busy themselves with them. Well, these things affect labor, too, including the kind plied by drivers.
I remember many years ago Menardo Roda, head of Piston, dramatizing that point by saying the long-term solution to the jeepney drivers' woes was genuine land reform. He wasn't entirely joking, he said, as his audience laughed at his proposition. It was so, he said, because of this: If you had genuine land reform, tenants would have land to cultivate. If they had land to cultivate, they would not go to Metro Manila to look for jobs. If they did not go to Metro Manila, Metro Manila would not be overpopulated. If Metro Manila was not overpopulated, there would be no teeming slums, hordes of unemployed and uneducated, and worsening traffic. If there weren't these, there would be no excess of jeepney (and tricycle) drivers, tong-collecting cops, and high fuel consumption. If there weren't these, there would be no oil price increases and falling incomes for drivers. So the solution to the drivers' woes was genuine land reform.
The militants put an idea like this into Roda's head? Then by all means let us have militants putting more ideas into more Rodas' heads!
posted by Dante at 4:37 PM
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