GOING home late Tuesday evening after attending the opening of the Dutch-Filipino Film Festival at the Shang Cineplex in Shangri-La Mall, I chanced upon a group of security guards at the Shaw Boulevard Metro Rail Transit station all looking tired after a long day at work.
A lot of them were looking at their mobile phones, probably checking the messages they received during the day from friends and loved ones, or maybe just playing games to distress themselves.
A few of them are having animated conservations with their colleagues, while some are probably just staring into nothing while waiting for the next train to arrive.
Welcome to our world—the world of the working class. It is here where we work tirelessly for an entire day for what probably amount only to as pittance in terms of compensation.
At some point, we will all need some validation in the work that we do. There will come a time when we begin to ask ourselves if what we do on a day-to-day basis is all worth the effort, time and energy we have invested into it.
Guys, be honest with me. Is there now a sense of fulfillment in your career? Are you happy with how your life is progressing? Have you ever paused and questioned some of the decisions you have made? Are you looking for better opportunities elsewhere?
A lot of us work our butts off for more than nine hours a day, with the hope of providing for our families a better life. I know it is selling the drama over and over again, but we have been overburdened, patient and tolerant for so long.
For a lot of us working in Metro Manila, we constantly brave the traffic on weekdays; cram ourselves into mass-transport systems that has been neglected by the government for so long; arrive all sweaty in an unhealthy office environment; buy overpriced food for lunch; do more work; face the traffic again; and arrive home late, with the kids already all asleep.
In your bed before you sleep, you see your whole life flash before you as you play out the image of your children asleep and thinking to yourself that they are growing up fast, with you having spent very little time with them.
It is a process that keeps on repeating itself over and over again, while we receive our less-than-ideal salaries twice a month. And then during Friday evenings over bottles of beer, we retell to our friends the same old ordeals we have faced at work and at home.
The stories are as predictable as they come for everyone that evening, with only the names and places being different. And, at the end of it all, you find out that you have spent more than what you intended just to drown the blues away.
Yes, a lot of us are one-day millionaires trying to forget about our struggles even for a brief moment. You then ask yourself if there is a better life waiting for you somewhere.
With minimum daily wage of P491, who could blame a Juan de la Cruz in looking for better opportunities elsewhere, especially when you factor in the fact that as of April this year, the government has stated that there is an 18.60-percent underemployment rate in the country.
How does the government define underemployment? The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said you are underemployed if you are currently employed, but express the desire to have additional hours of work in your present job.You are also underemployed if you want to have an additional job or want to have a new job with longer working hours.
At P491 and with all the deductibles, who could blame anyone in looking for greener pastures? For most Filipinos, that so-called greener pasture is not just moving from one company to another, but it is actually jumping from the Philippines to another country.
Who cares if that country will treat you like a slave? Who cares if you have a four-year college degree, but work as a house help? Who cares if the country you are going to consider car bombs as a regular occurrence? Who cares if you are working in loneliness in the middle of the ocean?
What we really all care about are our families and their future. Maybe by going overseas, there are a few thousand pesos more that could be earned for our families, as opposed to just working in the country.
What is this talk again about the Philippines and its surging economy? A lot of Filipinos have never felt even its slightest impact, yet.
According to the PSA, as of April this year, there are now 2.48 million overseas Filipino workers deployed worldwide, and have remitted back to the country $28.48 billion last year.
That total number of Filipinos working abroad is close to the total population of countries like Qatar, Jamaica, Lithuania, Namibia and Botswana.
Some of them toil for years, and yet fail to lift their families from destitution while they themselves barely survive in a foreign land where they had hoped to find salvation.
Some have been lucky enough to save to build homes for their families back in the country and have their children enrolled in school. They might have been also wise enough to start a small business.
And then there are some who are now calling the country they are working in as their new home. They have brought their families and are now living there permanently.
After watching the Morgan Knibbe-directed movie Those Who Feel The Fire Burning, I had to nod my head in approval to what Kingdom of the Netherlands Ambassador Marion Derckx told me about their movie industry.
She said their country is very good at doing documentaries, and the movies they produce make those who watch them think while showing different sides to every issue.
Derckx said what they have are not full on commercial movies, and do not even closely resemble a Hollywood blockbuster movie. They are more of the indie variety, and flourish because every town in their country has arthouses, where these movies can be screened.
A movie like Those Who Feel The Fire Burning will never get the long lines at the box office but, for those who are open-minded enough to watch it, will have a better appreciation on how it feels to be alive.
The movie-documentary tells of the plight of illegal immigrants risking life and limb just to get to Europe, which, they believe, is where they will find their paradise.
Instead, they are welcomed by the harsh reality of life where they have to eat from hand to mouth and turn to drugs, while all the while making empty promises to their loved ones back in their native country.
Those Who Feel The Fire Burning was even brave enough to show a side of Europe that you do not see in postcards. What you see in the movie-documentary is a city in decay.
Still, to me, the lasting image of the movie-documentary was the cockroach crawling on the wall. That is our struggle in a nutshell. Once a nuclear attack annihilates us all, those insects will still survive and continue to roam the earth.