We Must Go

By: Faith Justice Sanchez

General Secretary, Kalipunan ng Kristiyanong Kabataan sa Pilipinas (KKKP);
Former ADC-CYF President

As I headed to Bulacan, my tummy began to grumble and I remembered I had not eaten
breakfast. I had to rush as soon as I woke up that I had to skip my meal, all the while pinning the
blame on the awful traffic last night for not being able to wake up early. I was woozy, as if I was
losing energy with every second. I told my fellow youth to accompany me to get food but he
replied, “Faith, we’re in mission work.” As he said that, realizations barged into my mind.

True enough, the missed breakfast paled to the situation of NutriAsia workers in Marilao, Bulacan
that had greeted us as soon as we arrived at the picket line. Under the heat of the sun, outside the
barricades, they held a resistance; they have been asking for justice. Here, they have been for
days amid hunger, deprivation, oppression — choosing the difficulties of the picket over the
difficulties of surrender. For years, they had worked more than eight hours a day to afford even just
two meals, and then one day their contracts abruptly ended! What was my right to complain then?

Yes and yes. I encountered difficulties, but these were far too inferior compared to the difficulties
endured by the workers of NutriAsia — people fighting for the rights to decent jobs and decent pay
so they could provide for the daily needs of their families, in the same way most people around the
world make every effort to afford even just one decent meal a day.

My heart bled to the sight of the suffering of our brothers and sisters. Where could life be in such
dire circumstances? What do their lives mean then to those who are supposed to justly give them
their salaries? If employers cannot provide a good pay and necessary benefits to their workers, it
demeans not only the workers’ lives but that of their whole families as well. If measly wages force
workers to skip a meal, imagine the many more mouths that have to skip meals with them too.

Days before our visit to Marilao, I had read in the news that the NutriAsia workers were actually
from B-Mirk Enterprises Corporation, a toll packing company packaging and labeling NutriAsia’s
products. One of the workers spoke at the picket line before the mission composed of Church
people, and elaborated that the workers formed a union because they have been working without
regularization, with inadequate to no benefits, and unpaid overtime labor – all for 10 years. They
paid for things like uniforms through salary deduction, if they fail to pay in cash. Presently, they are
adversely affected by the TRAIN Law. The company got wind of the union and several workers
were forced to sign a new contract. And from then on, they have faced harassments, dispersals,
and other injustice.

The story of the NutriAsia workers is just another of the many cases of unjust treatments to Filipino
workers, providing an insight into the long history of complex and unresolved problem of
contractualization in the Philippines. It may only have been one worker who voiced out their dire
working conditions, but passion resonates to the masses when it has basis. That collective
experience birthed the union: a collective voice, a collective effort to uplift a workforce. They
resisted being toyed around and progressively, their wake-up call has gone beyond the employees
and employer, tugging at the heartstrings of many – humbling the breakfast I missed, turning the
hunger into an unintended act of solidarity.

Such a moving reality must tell us that silence is never an option in times when injustice and greed
trample on people’s dignity and lives. Just like the Kalipunan ng Kristiyanong Kabataan sa
Pilipinas, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, and many other faith-based
organizations, the resistance at the picket line was a manifestation of unity geared towards a
rightful cause. More lives need to be moved by these struggling workers. More people need to be
touched by this coming together.

Visits like these go back to Jesus’ ministry on earth. He was not always inside temples. In fact, He
spent most of his time among the people in the communities — with God’s people. He walked,
worked, ate, slept among the people, with the people. In his immersive work, He learned of life on
earth. He lived the day-to-day experiences of the common people. He saw from the side of the
oppressed how principalities were being deaf and blind to their pleas. It was there where He
helped in so many ways. It is in His example, I believe, that the Church people must continue
Christ’s mission, and there is no other way to do it but to follow on His footsteps when He walked
the earth.

We must engage with the Scriptures and live by it. We have been reading and studying it, but the
most challenging part is to walk the Word. And it will always go back to Christ’s example, for
sharing the Gospel requires living it out, helping those who are in need. Serving God’s people with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. As I’ve heard
in Church sermons: “the power of the Church emanates when it allows all of God’s children to find
a home where each is nourished, challenged, encouraged, and comforted.”

Thus, as long as the hungry, the thirsty, the victims of injustice, those convicted without due
process, those whose dignity are abused are among us, and as long as peace that is based on
justice is not established here and now, we should be with the vulnerable, the disadvantaged, the
NutriAsia workers. We should be in solidarity with them, feeling their pain, understanding their
struggle. We should not wait for televisions and radios or the internet to tell us what is happening.
Right here. Right now. We must go.

(Reflection from my exposure last June 22, 2018 at Marilao, Bulacan, Piquet line of NutriAsia
Workers with NCCP, representing Kalipunan ng Kristiyanong Kabataan sa Pilipinas and National
Christian Youth Fellowship.)

In solidarity. (Left) The author and (right) Rev. Elaine Grace Salen, Conference Minister of West Central Luzon
Conference, delivered their messages of solidarity in behalf of KKKP and CYF, and the UCCP, respectively.
One with the Oppressed. The workers of NutriAsia who worked for years without benefits and security of
tenure, and members of NCCP member-churches during the ecumenical worship.