Get Real
Questions raised on Ilocos Sur’s adopted son
By Solita Collas-Monsod
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:48:00 07/05/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Neal Cruz’s column Friday (“How about workers abused by their employers?”) was fortuitous, because I had just received by surface mail—how quaint—material from one Elpidio Que of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, which illustrates, among other things, some of the issues Cruz was talking about.
What Que sent me was a copy of a letter he wrote to the provincial board of Ilocos Sur protesting in no uncertain terms that body’s resolution adopting the tobacco tycoon Lucio Tan as a son of the province last May 28. In a subsequent email to me, Que said that adoption was “a betrayal of the tobacco farmers and oppressed and cheated workers in Tan’s interests in our province.”
Que had entered my radar screen about three years ago, when he sent me materials against Lucio Tan, but I disregarded these at the time because he had just been dismissed from a Tan company (as Asia Brewery Inc.’s regional sales manager of Northern Luzon); and although his materials were pretty damaging, I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t been dismissed for cause, and that he was just getting back at Tan any way he knew how.
It turns out, from the materials he sent, that he won his case of illegal dismissal against the Tan company last year—at least at the arbiter’s level with the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC). It is now under review by Commissioner Raul Aquino of the NLRC, and will be appealable all the way to the Supreme Court, as Cruz pointed out. And many people are aware of Tan’s very impressive string of legal and other victories at every level of the justice system. One remembers his successes against the pilots and ground crew of the Philippine Airlines, not to mention the stories about how Supreme Court Justice Teodoro Padilla was shocked and angered when what he thought was a majority decision he had written against Tan became the dissenting opinion at the last minute.
It turns out also that Que served, for a short period of time during President Cory Aquino’s administration, as an appointed member of the Ilocos Sur provincial board. I am reprinting excerpts from his letter and leave it to the reader to judge its merits:
“I am registering my vehement objection to the resolution approved by this honorable body last May 28, 2008, adopting Mr. Lucio Tan, a super rich but looked upon by most … to be a businessman of ill-repute, far worse than Stonehill who was deported in the 1950s because of economic crimes… May I call your attention to the following events….”
On tobacco farmer exploitation: “We all know that the tobacco farmers in the province of Ilocos Sur, and elsewhere in the North, are victims of the greed of the person whom you want to adopt as a son of our beloved province .… Last November, a very influential government official of our province personally related to us in a group that you, as Provincial Board, were investigating the practices of this man congruent to the tobacco industry, and found out that in Yunnan Province, China, said to be a sister province of our province, the per kilogram price of Virginia tobacco leaves equal to our product here was as high as the equivalent of P200, while he was buying it only at a high of P40 here. No amount of tripartite agreement had remedied the exploitative price because he used his monopolistic grip over the poor farmers in our province. He had no qualms … robbing them of their back-breaking legitimate income.…”
On labor exploitation: “… employees in his infamous Northern Tobacco Redrying Company, Incorporated (NTRCI) and Asia Brewery, Incorporated (ABI), just two of many others, have been victimized by his anti-labor practices. Many have chosen to accept whatever fate they have because of fear that if they were to seek justice and redress, the power of his wealth would blow their complaints to nowhere, leaving them in prolonged pain or, as what happened to ABI branch manager Ronnie Robles, to die in humiliation, heartbreak and anger. As an individual complainant, only a few of his cheated and oppressed workers stood up against his and his ilk’s power.
“My case is a typical example …
“... 52 of the band of laborer-complainants, all our province mates, of NTRCI have recently won their cases at the NLRC against their oppressive employer. Nevertheless, they are pressed even more against the wall. Victory for justice and restitution due them are still hanging in the air.… Because Tan has the money, he will keep filing an appeal up to the Supreme Court knowing that the poor victims and their families will go hungry and many, if not all, will accept his onerous condition. The strategy is clear: prolong the labor dispute until the poor will either bow down before him in defeat or simply not be able to do anything until the case is decided in his favor.
“And recently also, an illegally dismissed driver of ABI’s dummy company, Wellform Trading Corporation, Laoag Sales Office … won his case at the NLRC San Fernando City, La Union. And again, just like the other anti-labor cases filed by Tan’s workers in his other business interests like PAL [Philippine Airlines], UE [University of the East], etc., that won at the NLRC level, the same strategy is used—the moneyed oppressor appealing the lost case step by step because he has the money to sustain while the victim only has few coins and money to use.
“Not only is this ill-repute billionaire victimizing the people—the workers and farmers—but even the government (sic). The City of Vigan is being grossly shortchanged of taxes due her.”
(To be continued)
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