THE AGING SACADAS – the underpaid sugarcane plantation workers – in Negros Occidental have never known how it feels to be rich until now when their children are venturing for a better future abroad. Believe it or not, some of these young men now work in South Korea and earn at least a million and as much as two million won a month.

When Eufemia Pedregosa, a former News Express reporter, told me this story, I would not believe until she clarified that a million Korean won is only U.S. $1,000 or P40,000. That’s not bad and their less fortunate parents have never seen that kind of money.

I am not surprised that Fems, now Iloilo branch manager of YWA Human Resources Corporation, has a soft spot for employable children of the poor sacadas, prioritizing them for jobs abroad. She herself was born poor and first worked as linen girl of a local hotel.

Knowing that most children of sacadas have not gone beyond high school, I asked her how they had pushed their luck in South Korea.

“I saw them doing jobs as welders, carpenters, heavy equipment operators and machinists in Bacolod last year,” she answered. “I asked them if they would like to do the same jobs in a foreign country for better pay. They all shouted yes.”

To cut the long story short, Fems convinced them to enroll in the Training-for-Work Scholarship Program (TWSP) of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) so they could earn a national certificate of competency. And so they are now gainfully employed in South Korea.

Incidentally, on the day I saw Femia at a local mall, she was with Gilbert Siscar of Oton, who is on vacation from his work as pipe fitter in South Korea.

“I finished BS-Biology in college,” Gilbert told us. “My initial plan was to proceed to Medicine. But the high cost of tuition scared me. Anyway, with my present job that pays 1.2 million won per month, my two children will surely be better educated.”

***

It’s some kind of zarzuela – this so-called “crusade” by President Gloria Arroyo to prosecute rice hoarders. Her personal appearances in raids of bodegas of suspected rice hoarders only remind us of similar raids of shabu laboratories that never run out.

The hungry Filipinos are not interested in seeing these raids; they are interested in seeing prices of rice come down. The government’s inaction over nationally synchronized rice overpricing is tacit collaboration with the abusive commercial rice traders.

Ironically, Pres. GMA appears to have conspired with the oil cartel, the medicine cartel, and now the rice cartel in impoverishing helpless consumers. Does she benefit from them?

I also find it unbelievable that a GMA cabinet official, Trade Secretary Peter Avila, is unsympathetic to the plight of the poor who line up for hours to buy a kilo of NFA rice at P18.25 because they could not afford a kilo of commercial rice at P28 or more. Once, I saw him on TV saying, “Tayong mga Pilipino ay sanay na sa sakripisyo.”

Oh no! What is the function of the Department of Trade and Industry if it cannot even be the country’s price watchdog? Mr. Favila, go home and plant camote!

The rice overprice cannot be covered by an alibi pointing to “world market.” What is sold for P28 to P30 is not imported. This variety is old local stock that could be profitably pegged at P22 to P24.

Incidentally, the other day, two foreign TV networks – BBC of London and NHK of Tokyo – showed the same scene of thousands of poor Metro Manilans queuing for NFA rice. I could not understand the Japanese commentator, but the Englishman of BBC clearly compared the Philippine situation to that of Bangladesh and was on its way to becoming another Haiti, where penniless natives are already looting rice stores.

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While misinformed local environmentalists continue their opposition to the proposed first coal-fired power plant in Iloilo, Germany is looking forward to operating the world’s first carbon dioxide-free coal-fired power plant within this year. No less than German Chancellor Angela Merkel inaugurated the plant made by energy giant Vattenfall along the border of Brandenburg and Saxony.

For Vattenfall, which has invested 50 million euros for the new technology, the plant will be a door to a future that is increasingly under threat from global warming, which is thought to be caused by emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The process by which clean energy is produced from coal is called Oxyfuel. The coal is burned in a steam chamber with pure oxygen. The resulting smoke is cleaned, separated from the carbon dioxide and liquefied.

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