By ALDWIN QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.— Gustavo Gutierrez

The people of the world will again face the coming of a new year. Euphoria will fill the athmosphere. New Year explossions will jolt the air. Here in the Philippines, scents and smokes of firecrackers will fill the wind. New Year Parties will be every corner.

For many believe that every new year, there will be new life for each one.
For the poor especially the lowly workers, only the number of the year changed. Their sorry situation did not. From the start of the year to the last month, it will be the same for them: poverty is in the air.

As usual, job scarcity, retrenchment, massive lay-off, underemployment, non-payment of SSS and Pag-ibig premiums, union busting here and there, anti-worker government policies being legislated setting aside the demand for a true wage hike, tagging of labor leaders as well as organizers as enemies of the state followed by enforced disappearances and Extra-Judicial Killings will occupy the whole year round.

So what else will be new?, only on that this year falls another national elections if ever there will be such. And if there will be none, the same much-hated President again will add to the missery of the Filipino workers as well as the rest of the Filipino people. Same misery, same life.

But thanks as it is free to hope that soon there will be a change. And for the workers together with the people who love a meaningful change, they know there will soon be genuine social change. Time will not tell, the people of the world will tell.

There will come a time that every time a year will pass, the quality of life will grow better. That, one can tell, New Year, new life. Imagine the life of a worker, every New Year, he will have a new perspective in the production. Another plan to improve the production to serve the people will sprout forth the experience of the past.# nordis.net