30 companies take part in Marikina City jobs fair

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3

OVER 30 companies par - ticipated in the Independence Day job fair spearheaded by the Marikina City government, SM Shopping Malls, and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

“Today as we celebrate the Philippines’ 125th Independence Day, we are simultaneously holding this job fair for everybody so we could be liberated from poverty through jobs,” Marikina City Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said during the opening of the job fair at SM

City Marikina on Monday. SM Marikina Manager Francis Brian Cruz, and DOLE Supervising Labor and Employment Officer, Engr. Roberto Chavez Jr., were also present during the event.

The local chief executive thanked the management of SM Marikina and the labor department for being Marikina’s partners in its commitment of providing employment opportunities to its citizens.

Some of the companies that took part in the job fair were Business Process Outsourcing firms or BPOs, banks, hotels, transportation companies, food chains, supermarket chains, clothing companies, telecommunications companies, shoe manufacturers, and many more.

For his part, Cruz thanked the Marikina City government and its Public Employment and Services Office (PESO), headed by Gil Munar, for gathering a diverse group of companies and organizations that are offering various job vacancies across different industries.

“As we all know, Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected our economy and the livelihoods of many Filipinos, but through this job fair, we hope to provide a glim - mer of hope for jobseekers and help them find meaningful employment opportunities,” he said. tiative has tried to create Integrity Nation, a nation where transparency and integrity rule, and where corruption is no longer part of everybody’s life. Have we succeeded? Not yet. One day we claim: Corruption is Dead! And then we realize: Long live Corruption!

Cruz said that SM, PESO, and the local government of Marikina share the belief that jobs are not just a source of income, but also a means to build a better future one’s self, one’s family, and the community.

“We hope that this job fair will be a step towards a brighter future for all of us,” Cruz said. A DOLE official said that they are targeting to accommodate over 2,300 jobseekers that are mostly fresh graduates and working students.

Given the fact that business allegedly does not like corruption, but unfortunately—at the same time—is not willing to financially support anti-corruption, it may be useful to highlight once again how corruption hurts and convince society at large or better—every individual—to fight corruption and make a choice to only deal with companies that evidently are involved in anti-corruption and have been verified or even certified that they adhere to transparency in business and implemented anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies.

Let’s be very clear that corruption impacts all of us in many ways.

The pain, corruption creates can be divided into four categories: political, economic, social and environmental. Politically, corruption is a major obstacle to democracy and the rule of law. In a democratic system, offices and institutions should lose their legitimacy when they are misusing their influence for personal advantage. As we see on a daily basis, it is extremely challenging to develop accountable behavior in a corrupt environment.

Economically, corruption depletes national wealth (that belongs to the people). Corrupt officials invest scarce public resources in projects that will line their pockets rather than benefit communities. In 60 LGUs, the

Socially, corruption is exploitive. Inequality breeds corruption by: n Leading ordinary citizens to see a system as stacked against them; creating a sense of dependency among ordinary citizens and a sense of pessimism for the future, which in turn undermines the moral dictates of treating everybody honestly; and n Distorting the key institutions of fairness in society, the courts, which ordinary citizens see as their protectors against evildoers, especially those with more influence than they have.

Corruption aggravates inequality: the well-off can afford bribes, but the poor often do without basic services. Inequality, trust and corruption form a vicious circle that is very difficult to break.

There is one institutional factor that has a big impact on corruption: the fairness of the legal system. This is an institutional measure of inequality: whether courts and the police treat people of different backgrounds and incomes as equals before the law. This is the reason why the Integrity Initiative is supporting the Judicial Reform Initiative started by FINEX.

Let me conclude by saying, that working against corruption is everybody’s mandate. As we at the Integrity Initiative say: Integrity starts with I. Every person must make the decision: I am part of the solution! I will contribute to positive change! Because, if I don’t do it, I am part of the problem!!

If you agree with this, you must join the Integrity Initiative. Contact me at Schumacher@eitsc.com and I will provide you the details for joining.