When-Just-Getting-By-These-Days-is-Already-Such-a-Pain Rambling
(or what was left of my whining)
Ni Dolor Labrador

LAST THURSDAY, I just had to heave a sigh of relief when I finally saw my meager salary staring back at me on the ATM’s monitor–intact and without cuts.

I had been holding back my breath there for the worst case scenario–either it’s too small due to my absences, or they failed to put it in time (which is sometimes the case). I almost fainted there. I have a long list of credit that needed settling the soonest possible time, and even a single centavo-cut would be extremely disastrous to me. In fact, all that was in my pocket was a measly four pesos for my jeepney fare. And that too was on-loan from a friend. For weeks, I have scrimped and scraped my way just to keep myself afloat ‘til the next pay-day, but I still ended up with this long credit list that won’t exactly get any shorter anytime soon. No amount of saving-up can get me out of this rut either. I’m completely doomed. After paying my friends off, I had to borrow from them again. It’s endless, absolutely endless.

So notice my consternation when the President so boastfully declared that the price of galunggong or the so-called poor man’s fish is only P60/kilo, unlike in Erap’s time which was at P80/kilo. And yet not everyone was impressed, least of all, myself.

If this is her definition of a “strong republic,” I don’t know what a weak republic is anymore. Even as she claimed during her second State of the Nation Address last week that the Philippine economy had the strongest growth record in Southeast Asia, she also admitted shortly after that the budget deficit has risen to P119.72 billion during the first six months–already 91% of the P130-billion deficit target for the year.

Despite her claims of creating one million jobs, the truth is, almost 355 workers are laid off everyday, offsetting the 111,000 jobs created in the agriculture sector, and the 34,000 in the manufacturing sector.

What other reason is there to believe then that the economy is even remotely improving if the people’s lives are not getting any better?

I’d be surviving again for the next two weeks from borrowed money. If friends find me too burdensome already, I just might resort to Intsik’s five-six caper that most underpaid workers from this country’s biggest TV network turn to.

Hay, life… nothing is what it seems anymore.

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