Tambays and the parable of the workers

In Matthew 20: 1-16, the Evangelist narrated the famous Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. Matthew said, “for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

He told them, ‘you also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.

About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around.

He asked them, ‘why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

He said to them, ‘you also go to work in my vineyard.’”

The 4.1 million unemployed Filipinos, when asked “why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?”, can in unison reply, “because no one has hired us.” Or perhaps they could be more emphatic with their answer and say, “because our contracts have ended, and this contractualization scheme has continually deprived us of regular work and just wages, and so we spend time by just hanging around doing nothing.”

Today, the poor and the unemployed are fervently hoping to hear the promise of a good master who would tell them, “you also go to work in my vineyard.”

Days after President Duterte gave orders to arrest nighttime dwellers or tambays, more than 7,000 have been reportedly apprehended by the police.

The said individuals were arrested for supposed violations of curfew ordinances, drinking in public places, smoking in public, and being half-naked in the streets.

The said crackdown has alarmed rights groups, church people, and a number of senators as this is yet another form of attack against the most vulnerable of our society, the poor.

The drive to arrest tambays is certainly not aimed against petty bourgeoisies hanging out late at night in either Starbucks or Bo’s.

And the operation is definitely not directed against bureaucrats and tycoons who spend the night in casinos.

The operation targets poor loiterers, those who because of economic deprivations are standing by idly in streets and other public places, be it daytime or nighttime.

The President is wrong to accuse the tambays of being the cause of crimes in the streets.

From a sociological perspective, unemployment figures have a strong and significant impact on crime rates.

This is proven by an empirical research made by Hooghe, Vanhoutte, Hardyns, and Bircan.

If the President is sincere in addressing crimes, he should be more serious in providing better job opportunities, and in finally making true his promise of ending contractual working schemes in the country.

This will be possible if the President resumes the talks with the National Democratic Front, in order to finally agree and implement the Comprehensive Agreement for Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER).

Here, agrarian reform and rural development, and national industrialization and economic development, will gradually be realized, spurring job opportunities in both rural and urban areas.

Idlers will steadily vanish in this progressive socio-economic set-up.

There is wisdom as to why the good landowner hired the idlers to his vineyard.

And there is certainly more wisdom in providing employment to tambays than to arbitrarily arrest them and force them inside the already crowded jails.