Misery, disaster loves company

Manuel L. Quezon III, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network

Was there any significance to Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman's announcing the President's imposition of a total log ban? On the surface, it seemed happenstance. After all, in times of emergency and disaster, the front-line Cabinet officers are the heads of the social welfare and defense departments. But it is significant that the Cabinet official foremost in the line of fire has been conspicuous in his silence.

In other countries, in the wake of the disasters-such as that which have befallen Quezon and Aurora and other provinces-anyone holding the equivalent of our Environment and Natural Resources portfolio would have instantly resigned.

Environment Secretary Michael Defensor will not resign-not just because the New People's Army is involved in illegal logging. Despite lacking the environmental credentials, Defensor is safe because his usefulness in his department is not just political (to pave the way for a Senate bid), but also economic: He is the point man in the big push of the government to revive the moribund mining industry. His role is to lessen the environmental impact of new mining operations, while ensuring that the industry becomes increasingly attractive to investors, and thus, profitable.

It would make sense to divide his department into two-one for the environment; and a separate one for natural resources. But it would run contrary to the gamble taken by the government with respect to the exploitation of our mineral resources.

It may be argued that the DENR is in a better position to minimize the environmental impact of a new mining boom, which anyway can be undertaken in ways different from the wantonly destructive strip-mining methods of the past.

With a country so poor and with increasingly limited options, there is actually the question of whether or not a pact with the devil, so to speak, has to be made. That pact involves looting our mineral resources today to ensure prosperity in the morrow.

The problem is that the watchdog assigned to ensure this gamble pays off is itself guilty of the kind of wanton looting of the land, which has resulted in repeated massive flooding and destruction because of illegal logging. It's hard to understand the Left's opposition to mining when it is as much to blame for the destruction of our forests.

A veteran labor leader of moderate political inclination once told me that one of his more famous leftist colleagues likes to collect television sets. True or not, it indicates a particular weakness of the Left: It's still an integral part of the existing system and everything that's wrong with that system.

Going back to the fetish of the leftist for collecting TV sets, it is nothing compared to the problem facing the radical labor movement: It has yet to go beyond being a protection racket and shakedown syndicate and become a genuine movement for the protection of workers' rights. Labor unions are geniuses at shutting down companies but far from effective when it comes to actually protecting jobs, though moderately more successful in obtaining legislation that sounds good on paper.

At the turn of the last century, 30 percent of London's workers lived below the poverty line. And yet, the period witnessed the rise of the labor movement in Britain, including unions and the Labor Party. There were riots, strikes and protests, too, but the labor movement succeeded because it had a tremendous reservoir of workers whose aspirations it represented and worked for against the conservative instincts of capital.

In our country, not only does a vast majority live below the poverty line, an enormous number of people don't have jobs, period. It is difficult to agitate against the exploitative schemes of employment-such as contractualization-when, for every person holding down any kind of employment, so many are lined up to take his place.

Because it is fixated on industrialization with socialist characteristics, the Left has failed to make inroads in sectors generating new job opportunities in the country, while forcing business owners to close shop through strikes and agitation.

Henry Ford in his time offered the best wages because he realized two things: First, the boredom imposed by routine work on an assembly line kept making people quit their jobs, which affected efficiency since new workers have to be trained; second, well-paid workers not only stayed put, but could then afford to buy the products of his company.

Otto von Bismarck created the welfare state as a means of defusing labor unrest while allowing the massive growth of German industry. Britain undertook similar changes, slowly before World War II, and in a big rush when Labor came to power after Hitler's fall.

In all these countries, labor began to enjoy a higher standard of living only after a generation or two had been condemned to grinding poverty and misery-enabling the creation of industries and enough wealth to spread around; not to mention the formation of a critical mass of workers large enough for their grievances to become something in the economic interest of capitalists to address.