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The Independent Republic of SBMA?
First Published: Reflections - The Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 29th April 1994 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC As duty free shoppers, envelopmental journalists tourists and politicians flock to the SBMA looking for a bargain or a freebie this summer may they bring with them the common sense to realize that the SBMA is far from the worker's paradise, land of opportunity and boom town that it's media spin artists make it out to be. There is much glowing publicity about the SBMA, much of it self-generated, that I am sure they will welcome these reflections to balance the record. Chairman Richard Gordon makes no secret that he rules with a domineering and autocratic style but is making the SBMA like an Independent Republic, a state-within-a-state perhaps, a good idea? It does seem to be like a kingdom above the law when the SBMA officials thwarted the authority of the Bureau of Immigration or ignored the law on minimum wage. The SBMA has a law of it's own. There was a time when the chairman, then mayor Gordon campaigned for an antonymous greater Olongapo. It looks like he has got his way. Chairman Richard Gordon claims to be a stickler for tough iron fisted discipline. You will get a hefty fine at the SBMA for the slightest infringement of a traffic rule or littering . Enforcers are trained with a single minded simplicity : they are always right and you are always wrong. If such zeal for the law were applied to human and labor rights and respect for the sovereignty of the National Government over those aliens who cross it's frontiers then the SBMA would have greater credibility and less criticism from the thinking public. It's somewhat of a contradiction for the SBMA to be defending foreign workers and investors when there is less concern for the rights of Filipinos in the factories in the SBMA who are getting less than the minimum wage. Beside we were all led to believe that the SBMA was set up to provide employment with just wages for Filipinos and not for so many foreign workers with greater privileges. The fact that the SBMA has admitted that it is they who are issuing the working permits it seems unfair for them to be giving the jobs to Malaysians while expecting the poor Filipinos to give unpaid labor as volunteers. A certificate of volunteerism is not required for a Malaysian to work at the SBMA as it is for many an applicant from Olongapo City. This is particularly odious and painful when Filipinos in Malaysia are been arrested and deported wholesale at this very time and not a patriotic word from the SBMA in their support - rather a stonewall defense for the Malaysians here who allegedly have expired working permits. How about justice for our own people? Wiser people in Government are only too aware of the political ambitions of chairman Gordon to be president of the Philippines. Achieving that goal may well depend upon projecting the SBMA as a monumental success relying on the tax-payers money for the public relations effort. In reality the volume of investments in manufacturing in the SBMA is tiny in comparison to that in Laguna or in the export processing zones of Baguio or Mactan. Their administrators have no similar publicity campaign, their results speak for themselves. The unabashed adulation of the SBMA and some Olongapo city officials for the no-nonsense iron-fisted one-party state of Singapore is an ominous portent of things to come. Olongapo and SBMA rule has been harsher over the years . Forgive me if I appear to be over-critical. I may be prejudiced by my experience of being banned with my co-workers from entering the SBMA or harassed by some city officials as they tried to close our child care center, filed false charges, subjected this writer to stoning and ridicule by a mob for defending personal views and tried to have me arrested and deported. Perhaps I am also biased by 25 years of observing Olongapo daily from the streets and the slums . Perhaps trying to help drug addicts, abused women and children and other victims of abuse for a lot of those years has given me a one-side view. Perhaps I am blinded by the tears and cannot see the great achievements wrought by the last 20 years of the commercial sex industry. In Singapore they cane offenders - in Olongapo a shot to the head in public by a bodyguard like Juanito Susi or a disappeared journalist, or a machine gun burst at fishermen in the SBMA is enough. Enough to sow the adequate amount of fear to keep everybody's mouth shut except for the required praise. It's enough too to keep a compliant gaggle of devotees on hand to applaud the dear leader. Sounds a bit more like North Korea when you come to think of it.
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