That’s what they call themselves, the thousands of parents who invested a lifetime of savings in pre-need education plans just so their children can enjoy a good college education. A ‘future-oriented’ lot, not your ‘bahala na’ (come what may) ones. They scrimp on life’s material pleasures for a decade or more in exchange for an assurance that their children will get a chance at a better future because their college education has been secured. They were all articulate and could be said to be representative of this country’s middle-classes, a small section of the population but nonetheless important–professionals, skilled employees, owners of small and medium businesses. They did not look poor to me, as I watched and listened to them in a talk show last night, but they were not rich enough either to be able to send their children to a university in Europe or the States: They were paying for ‘a hope of a better future’ on installment basis!
But these parents have been told by the pre-need company they invested in that it cannot meet its obligations to pay for the children’s tuition fees. The company can only provide ‘tuition support’ in 2005; the next cheque can only be paid out in 2010.
A father, in a plea to Ambassador Yuchengco, owner of Pacific Plans, said, “my daughter is entering college this year…. But what happens next year and the years after that? Are you telling me that she will stop going to school and wait until 2010 to resume her education?”
A male youth, in near tears, asked the same Yuchengco to look at him hard, a young man whose hope for a bright future is now lost because the money for his college education is gone.
The outrageous thing is, the show’s panelists could not give these parents fair answers. Among the panelists were the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commision (which is supposed to supervise and regulate these pre-need companies), former Department of Trade and Industry secretary Mister now Senator Palengke Mar Roxas, and Jose Cuisia Jr., board chair of another pre-need company, Philam Plans. It is to the credit of Dong Puno, the talk show host, that he kept insisting for answers to the question: What can be done by government and the insurance industry to indemnify the victims? Some of the panelists tended to dwell on this and that company’s weaknesses, bad business decisions, and so on, instead of providing straightforward answers to parents’ questions about what happens now–to their investments, to their children who are turned away by schools because the company cheques are bouncing and are not being honoured?
As I watched the panelists, the picture reminded of a scene in the film “As Good As It Gets”. I think it was the character Jack Nicholson played that blurted out: “I’m drowning here and there you are describing the water”.
The talk show host was somehow successful in drawing out answers from some of the panelists.
Senator Palengke: better legislation. According to him, he has been advocating for stricter supervision of the industry and has been filing a bill that would reflect this.
SEC chair: There’s still a chance for planholders to prepare a strong case before the court hears it in May. According to her, the problem is that Pacific Plans has brought the issue to court, which now has jurisdiction over the case.
Cuisia’s answer seemed the more practical and commonsensical. The specific question posed to him was: What can the industry do to help the victims? His reply: The companies that are able to make good on their promises (read: e.g., his own) should not be penalised for the failures of other companies. The stockholders of the latter, who made money in the past when business was good, should be the ones to pay. They have a ‘fiduciary responsibility’ to planholders and they should fulfill it.
To me, the most penetrating insight and the fair solution came from the parents themselves.
Reacting to the SEC chair’s response, a female parent expressed their dilemma: We are working people, working our ass off to make sure our children get a better education. Unlike big corporations like the Yuchengco’s which have their own fleet of lawyers that can take care of their legal cases, we don’t have that luxury. We don’t have the money to pay for lawyers. What the SEC chair is in effect saying is that we should find time to meet, prepare our defence, and so on and so forth, precious time we must spend to earn in order to pay for our children’s tuition fees.
I thought she was still pretty polite in her reaction. But I hope the SEC chair and all the panelists and television viewers who are in government got the point: What are they doing to protect their citizens from irresponsible corporations? The SEC chair’s response merely emphasised a point already widely known: government’s helplessness to protect its citizens. Just as parents cannot rely on the state to provide good quality education to its citizens, they also cannot depend on it to serve justice, or even just a mere hint of help to its citizens who seek it.
But it was another female parent’s reaction that drove home the fundamental point–the acute lack of fairness and justice in this system we live in: Why when we, ordinary citizens, fail to repay our loans to banks, our houses, our land and assets are foreclosed and seized? Why can’t government do the same to the Yuchengco’s? Why can’t it seize their buildings, their properties and their assets so that they can pay us back?
It was no surprise that the panelists from government and the multi-billion dollar insurance industry could not give her an answer. And to me, their very silence simply yet clearly echoed an old writing on the wall: If this system is the answer, then it must have been a stupid question.
