The Breakfast Table

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Tuesday, November 5, 1996

By ADRIAN CRISTOBAL

PAL STRIKE. It was a cheap shot from the military intelligence (if it is the real source) to try to link Palea officers with local communists. People who would go on strike for a P5,000 monthly increase retroactive to 1991 and a Christmas bonus of 150 percent (among other demands) cannot possibly be inspired by a desire to overthrow the existing order, although, conceivably, it could bring Lucio Tan's PAL to the ground. As Crane Brinton observed in his "Anatomy of Revolution," people do not make revolution over a standard of living.

However, it's just as well that PAL operations are going back to normal today, after a deal between management and labor. Whatever the merits of Palea's demands (which incidentally revealed the comparatively higher income of members), their strike didn't get much sympathy from the public.

In this regard, Labor Secretary Quisumbing merits two cheers for having returned home in time to work out an agreement between PAL and the ground crews. In the apparent "aloofness" of the President towards the labor-management controversy, he gave Quisumbing a chance to prove himself in his first baptism of fire.

The question is how long the truce, if it's not industrial peace, will last in a public utility vital to the national economy.