Just days after workers went to show their greivances on the streets by holding rallies on labor day, politicians are mum on their perennial promises in support of the welfare of the working class. It took just a day for polticians cum policymakers to get into other concerns, chiefly those that will give them media milleage. Truly, the issues affecting workers would not give them personal gain, especially for their next election. This is the reality that workers had lived with all their lives. They simply have no choice but to continue working for the survival of their family. The realuzation of promises to alleviate their economic condition is a long ordeal that they have to accept.
The unfortunate situation is lamentable in the proverbial story of the ditch-digger. Under the scorching heat of the sun and the fithy mud, the ditch-digger has a poignant answer when asked why he keeps digging ditches. His answer, “i dig the ditch to buy me food to give me strength to dig the ditch” is a sordid reality true to the life of the poor who have to choice but bear the pain of exploitation.
That happened to the sugarcane workers in negros. With meager wages inadequate to feed the family, they are forced to borrow money at usurious interest from their capitalist landlords, thinking that the borrowed money could make both ends meet, but actualy could still not. Buried in huge debts that keep on growing with the high interests, they have to helplessly watch their children die of malnurishment that turns to hunger and eventually, death with an emptied breadbasket.
The situation is not only true the the sugarcare plantations. It too is prevalent among farmworkers in the ricefields. The workers sweat under the heat of the sun to earn a daily wage that is not enough to feed the family for a day. It too is the condition among factory workers.
Media workers who bring the news to inform the public of the social injustice that they themselves are victims of exploitation. They earn much less than the value of their toil and resort to borrowings just to buy food that will give them strength to be able to work, akin to the ditch digger.
In all the situations, the working class remain buried in debts while their rich, powerful and influencial employers continue getting richer, powerful and influential from the sweat and blood of workers who are exploited by capitalist employers who are exploiters.
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