Last night, while baking my wonderful flourless chocolate cake, i caught bits and pieces of a che-che lazaro feature on the Legenda case.
Legenda is the biggest hotel and casino chain in Subic Bay. It is owned and operated by a malaysian company and managed by this bald and very ma-amo looking non-Filipino (not sure if malaysian or singaporean or korean but definitely not filipino and definitely reminds me a little of pat morita - sumalangit nawa.)
Anyway, last april i think it was, PAGCOR closed them down because of non-payment of taxes since 2001. That's 5 years of operating a business in my country without giving my government what is due them. Thats 5 years of duping us under the pretense of being "lugi" when your bacharrat and poker tables were never empty even on stormy tuesday nights. Thats 5 years that I've been working my fat ass off so i can give my fair share to better this country and you did not.
Mali ka don Legenda. Maling-mali.
Pero teka muna.
Around 500 employees displaced? 500 employees with families depending on them?
BAH --- 500 is a small number compared to what their back taxes can do to our economy. They're casualties of war I thought. We cant win big if we're not willing to lose a little. Right? right.
But damn this che-che with her fair and balanced reporting. She introduces us to two of these 500. Both are women who were dealers at Legenda. Both the breadwinner of their families. Both have mouths to feed and children to send to school. Both now jobless, pesoless and getting more and more hopeless each day the casino stays closed.
In an ideal world, Legenda, who of course claims to be completely innocent of any wrong doing and who is in fact asserting the benefit of their existence by promoting local tourism and economy in Subic Bay, would pay PAGCOR and the government what they should and all these 500 peeps will go back to work and their children back to school.
But it's not an ideal world.
Either Legenda stand their ground and wins and the Philippines will be 300 million pesos poorer for it. Or they stay closed and we have to add 500 to the unemployed millions who are desperating looking for non-exixtent jobs in a struggling economy.
Itim pa rin eh. Pero parang umaabo na rin.
****
Sabi ni house md (who rocks by the way),
"WE ARE WHO PEOPLE THINK WE ARE. REALITY IS IRRELEVANT."
To his employees, this pat morita-ish manager is fighting for their right to survive. He meets with them every night, knows them by name, and reassures them that he will not give up the casino so they can keep on living. He is a hero.
To the rest of us Filipinos, he is an opportunistic foreigner who exploits our resources and does not have the decency to pay for it. He lies and manipulates to get the better end of the deal. He is a thief.
I'm sure he is somewhere in the middle. A combination of everyone's idea of who he is. A hero, a thief, and a pat morita clone. But like house said, reality is irrelevant. Everything is really just perception.
******
Okay, since i was baking while listening to cheche, im not sure sa figures.
******
Flourless chocolate cake available at compulsive eaters for only 380.00. order na.
No comments:
Post a Comment