Note: The following article was written by Jeannette Niña Nuguid Claveria, a senior political science student at the University of the Philippines - Manila. She worked as an intern at the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER), one of the active organizations calling for justice over the Eton construction tragedy.
Many Filipinos looked up to 2011 as the year that will bring hope and new opportunities for them to live their lives even just a little better than how it is. Benbon Cristobal’s family was one of those people – but that light of hope of theirs was shot down in the very first month of this year.
January 27, 2011 became a tormenting date that brought a painful memory for the families of Benbon Cristobal and nine other construction workers, for this was the day that Benbon, JoelAvecilla, William Bañez, Jeffrey Diocado, JaykieLegada, Kevin Mabunga, Celso Mabuting, Tisoy Perez, Edward Piñion and Michael Tatlonghari lost their lives when the gondola they were riding plunged from the 32nd floor of the Eton Residences, the venue of their construction work in Makati.
This tragedy along with the negligence of the companies accountable namely Lucio Tan’s Eton Properties, Inc., Jose Aliling Construction Management, Inc. (JACMI), CE Construction, Arlo Aluminum Co., Inc. and Eduardo Piñon have taken breadwinners, sons, husbands and fathers from families and productive workers from the Philippine labor force. The only good that this misfortune brought was that it revealed awful working conditions of construction workers, highlighted relentless violation of labor rights and fueled the rage of the concerned to fight for the injustice done to the victims.
After almost three months since the incident, we, together with the Ecumenical Institute of Labor Education and Research (EILER) were lucky enough to conduct an interview with Benbon’s parents on April 18 in Antipolo, Rizal. This very important interview exposed background information regarding the significant situations of said construction workers, details which are unknown to the public and continually ignored by mass media.
Benbon Cristobal’s life represents the typical condition of a construction worker. This breadwinner (since his father’s disability to work due to a construction accident) and eldest son among ten siblings came from an underprivileged family. He is also Lorraine’s husband and four-year-old Nognog’s father. He was only able to get elementary education until he stopped to join construction projects with his father at the age of seventeen. He worked for ETON Properties for four years which provided the income he needed to support his families. These four years included much maltreatment and violation of his labor rights which he tolerated for the sake of his loved ones and to counter the threat of unemployment.
His wage is P 280.00/day which is definitely below the mandated minimum wage of P 404.00 as stated by Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) National Wages and Productivity Commission. He is not even able to spend his P 280 fully as he allots the P100 on fare and some amount for his food to eat for the day.Like his fellow workers, he is not paid his 13th month pay, holiday pay, overtime pay and additional pay (which one would obtain for riding the gondola). They are also not provided with pay slips or payrolls. They will just sign beside their names which are written on a sheet of paper then their earnings will be given to them. Benbon’s parents also shared that when one takes an absence without leave, that worker will be suspended for two weeks and that comes along with a no work, no pay situation.
Besides the underpayment of workers, safety conditions in their work environment are deliberately disregarded. Safety equipments and rules are unobserved by authorities and this has led to tragic incidents like the most notorious one that recently happened.
Construction workers are clearly discriminated as these risk-taking workers are seen as uneducated lowlives and mga patapon ang buhay (insignificant people) by their employers, a description uttered by Eduardo Piñon himself.
This maltreatment continued even after the ETON tragedy. During the wakes of the victims, representatives from these companies abused their weak situation to force the parents to sign a paper (leaving no copy of it) and take the so-called “financial assistance” of P 150,000. But now during the National Labor Relations Commission’s (NLRC) hearings of this case filed by the parents against the contractors, they refer to it as the due payment of their balance to the victims. At present, families and supporters continue to fight for social justice they deserve from the respondents.
Of course, this reality acquires a disapproving reaction from me. Being a Political Science student, this uncovers Philippine government inefficiency to appropriately respond, intervene and resolve this kind of labor conflict. It exposes its weak mechanism to defend the labor rights which it advocates and supervise company employment relations. Being also a child, I sympathize with the victims’ families for their losses. I cannot imagine one day randomly waiting for my parent to come home from work only to find that he/she had passed away because of his/her employer’s negligence to do the proper job of assuring a safe working environment for workers as it legally should be. Being a soon-to-be part of the labor force, I am disappointed in the situation of how Philippine labor workers are actually treated and how violations of their human rights are tolerated.
And being a Filipino citizen, I am awakened to the labor reality constructed here in the Philippines that there’s actually a part of our society that allows this kind of cruel degradation of fellow citizens who contribute so much to the significant economic progress and development of this nation. We have our construction workers to thank for the convenient infrastructures that stabilize and institutionalize our society. I would not be surprised if that day will come where the demand of these workers abroad will increase and be responded to, leaving our country in dire need of them.
The exposure of the reality of construction workers had enlightened me very much and I hope the same for the Filipino public. It stroked such an impact on me. If you cared to know much about it as few have had, you too, would never look at the construction sites here the same, ever again. If this kind of labor situation is permitted, we can just imagine how worse it could get if no appropriate action is done to resolve it.
