My Monday the 9th of May

Today I was up and out of the house by 6:50 to get to work before 8 for a flag raising ceremony. In the rush I got on the train going in the opposite direction (towards the shopping mall!) and was the stupid white person who rode 1 stop before changing to get on the traing going in the right direction. After a very brisk walk from the train station to the office, I changed shirts before joining my workmates in the conference room for the ceremony. I had little idea of what this ceremony was all about, but it seemed to be an internal get togehter of staff. Apparently they are held at the beginning of each month.

The meeting started with saying a prayer (I think - it ended in an amen), sang the Philippines national anthem while facing the Philippino flag, then pledged an allegence to the Philippines and then to the Government as public service employees. One of the staff gave a presentation on a legislative bill being introduced into Congress which aims to regulate and introduce working conditions for domestic workers (who of course are mainly women). They then gave out little presents to those who are celebrating their birthdays in May, as well as a present to the one person who has been on time to work every day since early April and the introduction of the 4 day working week. This is no mean feat as staff are expected to work from 7:30 to 6:30, 4 days a week (and often more than that on their days off and until late in the evening). Then I was formally introduced and was asked to say a few words. Ahhh! I think I babbled something about being happy to be here, thanking everyone for their warm welcome, hoping to get to know everyone better and hoping that i will be able to add to the work of NCRFW during my time here. We then sang another song to the Philippines and had orange juice (which was really a powdered orange flavour mix) and some 'buko' - sticky rice cake - which tasted ok, but was very heavy.

Work consisted of doing some reading on a bill being introduced into Congress called the 'Local Sector Representation Bill' (LSR) in preparation for a meeting in the afternoon at the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) - the central planning agency in the Philippines. After lunch 'I' (the officer primarily responsible for the LSR - Irene) and I drove over to NEDA for an interagency meeting to consider and prioritise legislative priorities to achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). These would be submitted to the legislative 'Multi-Sectoral Committee on International Human Development Committments' to be fed into Congress. The meeting was interesting in learning about how Philippinos operate: limitations of doing core business in English, the importance of gaining consensus, the reluctance to make committed statements or agreements on an individual level and the very long and descriptive input of participants made for a long (4 hours) and fairly unproductive meeting. If the meeting had taken place in Australia, it would have frustrated all involved! However, reflecting on inter-agency meetings in Australia, I shouldn't be so critical of the Philippines Government Agencies - Australian ones can also be extremely frustrating!!

As the meeting was in Ortigas (quite far away from the office) we were able to go straight home at about 5. I took me to a gourmet deli which was selling a bunch of celery for P345 (about $8.50) - ridiculously expensive even for Australian standards! We then caught the MRT back through Cubao where I-Irene was able to meet Neil, who arrived at about the same time. All the girls think (and I-Irene confirmed) that he looks like Bill Murray!

posted by batik billy @ 5:51 pm