Think about it for a minute: The only reason why Edsa from Shaw Boulevard to the Mall of Asia will be closed to all traffic for up to 30 minutes during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit is because one country’s delegation (yes, only one) will be billeted at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel.
It’s bad enough that the government is basically locking down Metro Manila for the duration of the summit this month. But when it makes life difficult for everyone because it can’t even keep all the visiting delegations close to each other in Manila’s reclaimed area, you wonder if the host government is not just having another monumentally incompetent moment for all the world to see.
Former President Fidel Ramos, host of the 1996 Apec summit in Subic, is right. If the Aquino administration had only agreed with his proposal to hold this year’s leaders’ meeting in some other place like Clark Field in Pampanga, it would not have to go to such crazy lengths to host this year’s shindig.
But Ramos is mistaken to suggest Clark as a venue to this administration. That’s because the government would have to build something in the former US base, which houses a world-class runway and not much else —and building infrastructure, especially in the province of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is simply not a priority.
(It’s ironic, of course, that the summit’s plenary meetings will be held at the Philippine International Convention Center, which was built by that other President hated by the current government, the Marcos administration. But then again, I guess holding a summit in a Marcos-built building is preferable, to the present rulers, than actually putting up new facilities like those Ramos built 19 years ago in Subic Bay.)
Of course, locking down an entire metropolis for Apec is nothing new. The Chinese did the same thing in Beijing last year—but the Chinese Communist Party is no stranger to taking such measures, which the citizens have no choice but to comply with.
In Beijing, the Party closed all schools, government offices and even factories for a month for Apec. Half of the city’s cars were banned from the streets, as well, something that, together with the factory closures, ensured that the skies were blue and the usually toxic Beijing air was vastly improved for the duration of the summit.
City residents were “encouraged” to leave town and given travel discounts to do so—just like the Department of Social Welfare and Development is doing with Metro Manila’s homeless population. Couples seeking to marry or divorce were even told to postpone these events until after all the gweilo dignitaries had left.
The Russians, who had hosted the summit the year before the Chinese, were more in tune with Ramos. Moscow decided to hold the Apec meeting on a secure island off the city of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Russia —but of course, the Russians, much like FVR, did not shirk from the task of building something that will remain after the summit.
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It is also worth mentioning that the Aquino administration, bless the cavity where it should have its heart, has one-upped the authoritarian Chinese by declaring the two days of the leaders’ summit “no work, no pay” holidays in Metro Manila. This means that, if you’re a daily-wage earner in Valenzuela, far, far away from the Apec leaders, you still can’t go to work and you most certainly will not get paid.
The Chinese, in contrast, called for a weeklong holiday in Beijing last year, as well. But they had the good sense to order that the workers got paid while they didn’t work.
Now, I don’t think the Philippine government should demand that employers take the two-day hit because they had really nothing to do with the hosting of the summit. But if the Aquino administration thinks hosting Apec is so important, perhaps it should have subsidized the pay of the workers they are forcing to go on unpaid leave for two days.
Only a haciendero like Aquino, who never worked a day in his charmed life, could approve of such an injustice—especially since so many workers in Metro Manila are contractual employees who don’t get paid if they don’t show up for work. I’m at such a loss for words here that I must borrow from Rep. Neri Colmenares:
“It is so easy for the Aquino government—that has displayed extraordinary callousness and apathy towards the common people—to say that workers will not be receiving pay for two days or more during the Apec meeting,” Colmenares said. “The unfeeling government fails to see how the daily wage earners are already struggling to make ends meet with today’s wages and high cost of public goods and services.”
The Filipino people were never asked if they wanted to host the Apec summit, after all—even if they’re footing the P7.9-billion bill for it already. But if the government feels it’s really important to do hosting chores, you’d think it would try to cushion the blow for its citizens, right?
I don’t know about you. But I really can’t wait until the end of June next year, when this most insensitive, hypocritical and incompetent government steps down.