I find this funny, this interchangeable use of terminology that mean completely two different things.
The government refuses to call it ransom money. Instead they invent the term, board and lodging fee to reiterate that no, they don’t pay ransom.
Now, the captors of Ces Drilon minus the released assistant camera man are asking P15 million for her release on Tuesday. ABS CBN reiterates no-ransom policy. The military says that Drilon’s family is willing to pay the ransom. The Drilon family says that ABS shouldn’t be vilified for saying they are not going to pay ransom.
Again, I hope that this will have an ending where the captives are released, unharmed. But what to do about the bandits? They have been doing this for the longest time and the government has been powerless to stop them. Can’t they be dealt with once and for all, as the president promised?
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In other migrant news, I was waylaid by this article about migration in Europe. Pertinent portions:
WARSAW/EDINBURGH – Four years after Polish graphic designer Chris Rychter headed to Britain to find work and study as a citizen of the European Union, he and his wife have returned home.
Part of a swelling tide of migration back east, they are having a house built in a suburb of the Polish capital.
“It took me just three days to find a job back in Warsaw,” Rychter, 27, told Reuters. “We never saw Britain as home… We went for the adventure and to get some professional experience.”
Their move highlights strong economic growth in the new EU member states and an accelerating slowdown in Britain — but also how quickly a pragmatic younger European generation has adapted to working in the 21st-century globalized economy.
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Stay or go
But cultural and personal factors also weigh. In Edinburgh, Tomek, a night-club bouncer who declined to give his surname to protect his reputation when he returns, said he plans to go back soon: “I will always be an alien here (in Britain). I like my world. It is poorer but it is mine.
“I can’t say it is bad here, but I can have the same standard of living in Poland.”
Like other east Europeans, Poles complain of having to do menial jobs in the West far below their abilities or education.
“I will never regret my year in London… but (from a career point of view) it was a waste of time,” said Miroslava Mozolova, 25, a Slovak who toiled in sandwich chain Pret-a-Manger but is now a quality coordinator at a budget airline in Bratislava.
Despite such complaints and the shifting economic balances, plenty of other east Europeans in Britain plan to stay put, at least for now. Many have married local people, bought property and have good jobs they don’t want to give up.
Joanna Majkrzak runs a pub in Edinburgh, near to four Polish shops, with her Irish partner.
“I think those who came here strictly for the money are now gone,” she said. “They left their families in Poland and now they have been reunited. But many Poles stay and get promoted. They become pub managers or managers of cleaning businesses.”
Dembinski of the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce said certain groups such as entrepreneurs and doctors were especially unlikely to return: “It is still much easier to set up a business in Britain than in Poland, where red tape is still very bad. It is also easier to pay tax, to hire and fire.”
Highly skilled professionals such as doctors can still earn around six times more in Britain than in Poland, he added.
We can relate to this, right? But again, we’re still waiting for our happy economic ending when we return back home. Some OFWs return to the Philippines to find out that their money has gone up in smoke. But if this inquirer news report (Sans the outright plugging of BPI. Couldn’t the reporter have interviewed one or two other banks just to balance out the article? I’m sure their corp comm departments would have been glad to offer a quote or two.) is to be believed, then OFW families are now saving up for their future, which should be the case.
Where is our happy ending as Pinoys? Isn’t it about time that we have our happy ending where our politics, economics and national stability is concerned? Sigh.
4 Comments
June 16, 2008 at 9:28 pm
P15? Parang kulang yata yan.
You just gave me a great short story idea, though.
As far as happy endings go, I think we need to look beyond economic prosperity as the benchmark. It’s an ever-moving target and, as they say, money can’t buy happiness.
June 16, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Hey Dom.
Thanks for pointing out my oversight. Would you believe that ANC’s ticker tape also stated P15 sans million earlier? Hehe.
Yup, money can’t buy happiness but it sure can buy food. But yes, money is not the benchmark of happiness definitely. I can say that I’m most happiest not when I’m earning a whole lot of money but when my personal relationships with family and friends are a-ok.
June 19, 2008 at 2:35 pm
board and lodging fee?
you gotta be f*** kidding me. somebody gotta slap around the bitch who said that. somebody told me it was the mayor, i truly hope this is false.
i hate it when people in the position of attention attempt to make an audience feel stupid and as gullible as they are. bwiset.
im sorry for ranting in your blog Amee. it’s just that it stopped being funny when comments like this come from people of public confidence.
thanks.
June 19, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Hi fxj.
Sorry I had to bleep out the cuss word.
No problem regarding the ranting.