CASTILLEJOS, Zambales—When South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co.-Philippines (HHIC-Phil) turned over a low-cost housing project to worker-beneficiaries in April 2013, there was much cause for jubilation here, a stark contrast to the heavy pall of gloom that has hung over the area since last year, when the job dismissals began.
Just over five years ago, Hanjin Village was virtually a haven to the workers who must toil under very tough conditions at the shipyard. The houses, arranged in neat rows and painted cream, looked decent enough for a low-cost project and it was here where they began to build dreams while building ships at work.
Hanjin Village was envisioned to be a model community. The Korean company built a concrete road to the 33-hectare housing site at the outskirts of Castillejos town proper. Also, an elementary school at the housing complex so that workers’ children won’t have to study elsewhere. There was a multipurpose hall for social activities, terminals for free-shuttle buses, even an extension office for the barangay.
Most of all, the units were affordable. Then-Vice President Jejomar Binay, who was there at the turnover ceremony as chairman of both Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the Pag-IBIG Fund, impressed upon the workers that they can avail themselves of the housing units through Pag-IBIG Fund’s housing loan designed specifically for the HHIC-Phil project.
Binay added that Hanjin employees will not be required to pay down payment or equity, and that Hanjin has already donated the land for the project site.
Meanwhile, then-HHIC-Phil President Jin Kyu Ahn extolled the Hanjin Village project as “part of our mission to promote the welfare of workers by providing them with a dream house within their reach.”
Hyped hopes
It was exactly what workers dreamt about: a house of their own that their family would call home, from a job that paid well. And this was what brought Allan Maloon, a native of Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao, to the Hanjin Village some 10 years ago.
Allan was then earning P428 a day as a repair technician, but with paid overtime hours he gets an average of P600 daily—enough to be emboldened to apply for a housing loan. With a housing unit at Hanjin Village, he was able to bring in his family and life seemed complete.
This was also the case for Jun Gardoce of Tarlac, who worked as crane maintenance man; the same circumstances that lured Abel Abelong of Olongapo City, who worked as a pipefitter; Diogreth Mendigorin of Santa Cruz, Zambales, a crane signalman; and Max Atrero, a welder from Candelaria, Zambales.
“Balewala ang arawang sahod namin; doon kami kumikita sa overtime [Our daily wages did not really matter; we earned much of our keep from overtime work],” said Abelong.
Abelong said his average daily pay then was P650 with overtime, compared to his basic pay of P426. On the other hand, Mendigorin received P600 daily with overtime, compared to P419 without. Atrero, who used to be paid P380 for daily labor, often made a killing with the P1,500 payment for what he called “overnight/overday” work, which entailed work for two straight days.
Because of this, Gardoce said the shipyard workers were complacent that the good life would go on. Moreover, he said, they were made to believe that Hanjin would stay on in Subic for the 50 years that the company leased the shipyard site from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.
“Isinandal namin ang buhay namin sa Hanjin [We built our lives around Hanjin],” Gardoce now reflected. These days, as the company’s financial situation teetered, the workers also face financial collapse, he said.
Dashed dreams
Gardoce, who also brought his family from Tarlac to Hanjin Village, now works as a tricycle driver to make ends meet. On the day the BusinessMirror visited the village, Gardoce was at the terminal near the village gates on the tricycle he had bought last year, waiting for customers that seldom arrived during non-rush hours.
“Hindi na rin magtatagal ito [This job won’t last long anymore],” he said matter-of-factly. “Wala na ring masyadong tao dito [There are not so many residents left],” he added.
Gardoce said that since Hanjin began laying off workers last year, about 30 percent of the residents had left, and a lot are moving out still.
He himself was among the second batch of workers dismissed in May 2018.
“Ginigipit na nila kami noon—hindi nila kami binigyan ng overtime nang isang taon [The Hanjin management were already easing us out then; we were not given overtime work for one year],” Gardoce recalled.
He said that this was because the Hanjin management thought that if they could get rid of the pioneer workers, they could easily get the recent hires out.
“Maganda sana ang Hanjin kung hindi napasok ng mga kuratong [Hanjin would have been a good employer, were it not ruined by corrupt managers],” he observed.
Losing their homes
As expected, the recent dismissals at the Hanjin shipyard did not only hurt the workers financially; they also threatened to disturb family life as they knew it.
In the past few months, Allan Maloon said, a lot of villagers experienced role reversals in terms of earning money for the family.
“Maraming mga misis ngayon ang siyang nagtatrabaho, at ang mga mister ang bakante [A lot of women are now working on jobs, while the menfolk are idle],” observed Maloon. His wife, he said, has found work in Dubai, while some others were employed at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone as factory workers.
But with the menfolk out of job, there was not enough money to go around, Gardoce said.
The villagers also said that their dismissal from work had led them to defaulting on their installment payments for their housing units. And if they skipped payment for three months, they were threatened with eviction.
They added that there were already cases when defaulting families were forcibly thrown out of their homes. After which their houses were marked with “Buyback,” which meant that the units were repossessed by the developer and were now to be resold to buyers.
Annaliza Escalon, a native of Agusan del Sur, had another kind of sob story to tell. She said that since her husband resigned from Hanjin, they had offered to continue with their installment payments for their P499,000 housing loan. But these were reportedly refused by Pag-IBIG Fund.
“Pinagpasa-pasahan ako ng Pag-IBIG, Fiesta Communities at ng Hanjin. Sabi nila hintayin ko raw na maayos ang usapan sa ganito, pero walang nangyari [I was given the runaround by Pag-IBIG, Fiesta Communities (the developer) and Hanjin. They told me to wait for an agreement among them, but nothing happened],” Escalon said.
Last November, Escalon added, she received a summons to vacate her house within 30 days, but she stood her ground.
Escalon said they are willing to vacate their houses, but only if they would be cleared of their loan records at Pag-IBIG. As it happened, she found out that they have been blacklisted by the government funding agency.
Gathering gloom
Gardoce said the dismissed workers now face a bleak future at the Hanjin Village, considering that they do not have prospects for alternative jobs.
“Hindi na rin kami magtatagal dito kung ganito [We won’t last much longer in this condition],” he said. “Oo nga, makakahanap kami ng ibang trabaho siguro, pero paano na ang buhay kung mawala na ang bahay namin [Sure, we might be able to find another job, but how would life be if we lose our homes]?” Gardoce wondered aloud.
Maloon, while thinking of bringing back his family to Cagayan de Oro, is hesitant to do so.
“Ang sabi namin noon sa pamilya namin, okay na kami dito. Pagkatapos ganito ang mangyayari. Paano kami uuwi [We assured our families back home that we were all okay here, and then this is what happened. So how could we ever go home?]” Maloon said.
Image credits: Henry Empeño