Joblessness is indeed a big problem in the Philippines. It is Third World labour supply on steroids — an exceedingly pathetic situation that sees the economic value of Filipino labour utterly flattened under the sheer weight of the vast numbers of warm bodies out on the streets in jeepney- and bus-loads looking for jobs. The fact that we have university-educated Filipinos working as bank clerks and and sales ladies in department stores is testament to the sad negative premium paid to Filipino labour by the country’s meagre job market.
Where there is desperation, we will always find Big Religion. And true enough, the Philippine Roman Catholic Church has seized this spring of desperation that is the Philippine Labour Market to expand its market for its goods and services…
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Some people go to a priest to have their new house or car blessed. Others are happy enough if a priest blesses their rosaries.
But Msgr. Jose Clemente Ignacio has found a new breed of supplicants—people desperate for jobs who ask him to bless their resumés.
Ignacio finds nothing wrong with such requests, especially in a country where, according to the National Statistics Office, there are almost 3 million people without jobs as of last January, with 7.1 million others underemployed.
Jobs are the rock stars of the Philippines
We can see here now the strategic shrewdness underpinning the Church’s stand against any form of artificial contraception and, consequently, the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill that seeks to make these more widely available to Filipinos. Without the excess abundance of warm human bodies that runaway Third World reproduction creates, there would be no demand and no market for the nebulous “services” of our venerable men-in-robes.
Such is the power of “services” whose value proposition to humanity revolves around promises of everything in death and nothing in life. So it escapes me how a very worldly aspiration like a decent livelihood (a term directly derived from the word life) can be one that a religious service such as “blessings” symbolised by sprinkling H20 on the blessee can see itself as possessing any authority over. But then leave it up to “theology” to come up with a convenient route to sidestep that hairy question…
But Ignacio also reminded those who sought God’s blessings that way that while prayers were bound to be answered, it would depend “on God how He would fulfill your prayers.”
“Sometimes there’s a better plan for us,” he said.
Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon, head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ Episcopal Commission on Youth also adds in his two cents on the matter…
“There’s no problem with such kind of an attitude,” Baylon said. “But there must also be perseverance on the part of the person because answers to prayers are not automatic.”
Baylon also said that God’s help could come in many forms.
“The help of the Lord is not limited to these material things,” he said.
With such small print caveating every little prayer received by the High Heavens, the poor sods in “this world” are probably better off investing their puny pesos on a lottery ticket instead of tossing it into the Church collection pan. Indeed, it’s a great thing being The Lord, isn’t it? You get a before-the-fact blanket excuse clause for every non-delivery of your “promises”.
* * *
Come to Father Benign0 instead, guys and take some advice from me:
Junk Tagalog (not to mention your moronic jejemon-speak) and learn how to speak English the way Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth speak it. Even better, learn to speak it the way Jon Ramon Aboitiz, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, and Edu Manzano do. You’ve got a better shot at learning to do that than making it into the handful of exclusive schools that most employers worth their salt limit their job candidate searches to.
Learn how to write using right grammar and spelling. Employers don’t look for Holy Water stains on a cover letter and resumé. They look at these documents and see a preview of what you might be worth to them. Bad grammar, bad spelling, and bad sentence construction spell only one thing: L-O-S-E-R.
Ask yourself this simple question: How serious am I about pursuing my dream job? If your answer is Very serious! then ask yourself these follow-up questions:
(a) What am I doing spending my leisure time watching shows like Willing Willie and these teleseryes and telenovelas?
(b) How different am I from the ten thousand-odd other schmoes out there I am competing with for this job?
(c) Why would the guy conducting the next interview I am going to hire me?
If the questions itemised in points (a), (b), and (c) are all new to you, dude, that’s a sign that you haven’t really been serious at all about getting yourself that dream job. You need to get off your arse (or your knees, as the case may be) and engage in some real market-value-adding stuff. Get out there and take charge of your life.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
God helps those who help themselves. (Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa)
AMEN, Fr. Benign0! =)
spread father benign0’s word!
My brother-in-law graduated from high school today and immediately headed for the couch to watch afternoon TV. What part of ambition, aspiration, achievement did he neglect to pick up on during his 12 years of school? How do you light a fire in people hereabouts? Instill them with drive and discipline and dedication?
Maybe those letters of the alphabet, a and d, were handled whilst he was cutting class to play basketball.
“God helps those who help themselves”, this was the proverb my father had inculcated in my mind…Religion, prayers, etc…can help you spiritually. However, to use it as a panacea to everything, is just absurd…You will never win the Battle of Life….if you are not equipped and prepared for the eventualities. Opportunities come only once, in a lifetime…when you are parepared, you can have them…Our Priests and religious people are teaching the application of faith and religion, in a very wrong way…
I totally agree. Learning the English language won’t hurt but of course tagalog is still part of me. I may speak a foreign language but I don’t want to forget who I am. My identity is still important, but that’s just me.
Learning the English grammar is still very much important of course. Magsusulat ka na nga lang sa presidente ala nga namang “Jejemon” language ipabasa mo baka itapon pa sa harap mo yan.
Yes, tama. Take hold of your destiny. Eh di kung all else has failed di magtinda ng isda sa palengke at least kumita ka pa kesa nakatambay ka sa bahay nanonood ng drama whole day.
Madi-disappoint ka pa sa paulit ulit na telenovela na pinapalabas doon. Sana nagtanim ka na lang ng kamote sa likod ng bahay, natuto ka pa ng farming.
Amen, my friend; I’m a Tagalog speaker, but what’s the point of teaching it if all it does is to promote ethnic-cultural disunity, lalo na sa kaso ng mga bansang katulad ng Pilipinas?
Oo nga e, ganun talaga yung Pinoy, pero sa totoo lang, yan din yung sabi ko sa parents ko. What’s the point of following their orders if against naman sa principles mo di ba?
Then I realize, I’m acting like a rebellious kid. What made my parents weak also made them strong in a sense. The lesson I have to learn there is no matter who my parents are, good or bad, accept them for who they are. That’s real love.
Ganun din sa Pinoy, whatever attitude made us weak also made us strong, in other things I guess. Example, our language na Tagalog. What’s the point di ba if it does not benefit us?
I guess the point here is regardless if it gives us unity or not, still, it’s part of who you are. Proud or not, still it’s your identity.
And as the father of history, Herodotus once said “If you do not look at your past, you cannot have a future,” and part of my past is my language. Knowing that, I can clearly see what my future holds, no matter if it’s good or bad. Having a future is better than none at all ika nga sa mga wise men of the past.
‘a) What am I doing spending my leisure time watching shows like Willing Willie and these teleseryes and telenovelas?’
… leads me to think that if I were a bum watching CNN or tuning in to National Geographic, you’d think better of me despite me being a bum – because of course at least I’m not watching Willie do his thing. Right?
OK then — delude yourself.
Imperial Manila, the K.W.F., and the Tangalogista Flipfags are very glad linguiciding your less-common native Philippine languages and less-common forieng languages.