The curtain rises today

Despite the sustained advisories of countries like New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom against travel to the Philippines these days, the show that is the 12th Summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Countries is going on, and the curtain will rise today at the magnificent, though "patakbuhan (rush-rush)" structure that is the Cebu International Convention Center. Local organizers are already gloating that all the country heads of state are coming, that nobody will be no-show.

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Of course nobody ever mentions that the summit will no longer be considered an annual affair after this, because the 2006 edition did not come out. The ongoing one is being held in 2007 already, so they cannot hold another 2007 summit this year. That is probably why the promoters just refer to it as the XII ASEAN Summit, not the 2006 one. They say that this was the very first time in its history that the ASEAN has ever been postponed. Well, that means the Philippines will go down in history for that reason.

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According to the news, however, the weather is still not cooperating, it was still wet and soggy yesterday. Well, let us hope the eggs start working today, the poor governor has already sent so many to the Carmelite nuns. The weather is just being unpredictable, since we are supposed to be sweltering under El Niño conditions now. Another aspect of the summit that is bothering those in charge is the preparation for the spouses of the leaders, with the country's first spouse, Mike Arroyo, in charge. All set are programs, tours, a ballet event, a picnic, the works. So far, however, only four spouses have come, the others have not confirmed. Well the four will surely get pampered with the wining and dining, and even the inevitable souvenirs. Anyway, it should be very interesting watching the events in Cebu this weekend, and listening to the glowing reports about the success of the affair sure to come later.

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While our attention had been concentrated on the alleged "rape" of a woman from Zamboanga who got much more than the good time she hoped to have when she went on an expense-paid trip to Subic with some American soldiers, other reprehensible things have also been happening to Filipino women right here in our city that probably deserve our concern more. I'm sure our readers had noticed a news item in the STAR recently about two women who have complained of physical injuries and slander allegedly inflicted by their employer, a department store executive.

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Aside from the two women, two men, also Filipinos, working for the same employer, also complained that they, too, had been physically abused by their "Filipino-Chinese" boss. I was told, however, that members of the Chinese community here are indignant about this because they do not believe that the person involved is "Filipino-Chinese". Indeed, I, for one, have never heard of any Filipino-Chinese employer being physical with their workers. If anything, I have often commented that employees of Filipino-Chinese businessmen do not stand on ceremony with their bosses, and are treated like equals.

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Some of my Tsinoy friends said they went to know if this employer is really Filipino-Chinese. Shouldn't the Bureau of Immigration check its records and find out? It would be abominable if somebody who is an alien, could just come to town, run a business and physically abuse our workers. And if not a Filipino citizen, how come this person is running a department store here? In whose name are the documents?

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We have too many horror stories about the way our overseas foreign workers, especially the women who are in domestic jobs, are treated by their employers. Some of them go crazy, others leap out of windows, others find their situation so unbearable that they retaliate, and end up in jail. That is bad enough, but we have no control, and can't do much for them since they are in other countries. But let us not abandon or ignore what is being done to our poor workers right here, in our country and in our city, too!*

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