At Large : The ISM dispute
Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
BY TODAY, we should know if the scheduled auction of the International School of Manila (ISM) has transpired and who the buyers, if any, are. The auction was ordered by the Department of Labor and Employment in fulfillment of a "Writ of Execution" in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court granting the demand of Filipino teachers in the school for payment of back wages and retirement pay adjustments in the wake of a judgment that Filipino or Philippine-based teachers were entitled to "parity" in wages as their colleagues who were hired abroad.
I'd written on this issue some months ago, and before I write anything else about the dispute between the teachers' union and the school administration, I'd like to address, however belatedly, an allegation raised in the wake of that column.
Shortly after the column came out, the ISM Board of Trustees published an open letter, in the form of a full-page advertisement in this paper, responding to and contradicting some of the contents of the columns of this writer and of former Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz. I won't go into the alleged "mish-mash of half-truths and false assertions" that my esteemed colleague and I are supposed to have peddled. Let me go directly instead to a statement at the end of that "open letter" that I feel needs some response, even if months late.
In the last paragraph of that "open letter," the ISM Board of Trustees accused the ISAE, the teachers' union, of "waging a media storm, with the help -- paid or unpaid -- of its contacts and connections."
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I WAS abroad at the time the ad came out, and though friends told me that I had been mentioned, no one saw fit to show me the ad itself (to be fair, I wasn't all that curious, either) or to point out the sly insinuation at the end. In fact, upon my return to the country, when I agreed to meet with ISM superintendent David Toze and the ISM board president, lawyer Chuck Medel, in the home of a mutual friend, who's an ISM parent, no one among them sought to clarify whether I was "paid or unpaid" by the ISAE teachers, even after I told them that while I'd heard about the ad, I hadn't seen it yet.
Well, for the record, let me state here that ISAE president Raquel David Ching, who's no relation, as well as the ISAE did not and have not paid me for meeting with them or writing about their case against ISM. For the record, let me state here that all the "payment" I got was an excellent dinner at the Embassy Restaurant and then again just last week at Le Soufflé, both at the Fort. Oh, and I might add that ISAE member Neni Sta. Romana Cruz also threw in a free copy of her new book on Filipino names.
You might say this accounting proves I'm either an honest journalist or a very cheap buy, but I assure you, I don't need to even be fed to write about issues I really care about. Messrs. Toze and Medel would know that to be true, since they didn't have to pay me either, or even spring for the cake that my friend served the afternoon we met.
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A TWO-PART series in the business section on the planned auction of ISM had for the headline of the second installment that the school "only had itself to blame."
I'm inclined to agree with this assessment. After all, if the ISM board had only obeyed the ruling of the Supreme Court in June 2000 granting equal pay to Philippines-hired teachers and resolving the 1995 CBA deadlock they would not now be facing an enormous cash obligation.
While Filipino and other locally hired teachers indeed began to enjoy "pay parity" with the foreign hires, the ISM persisted in questioning the ISAE's position that the decision was retroactive to 1995, when the case was filed.
Indeed, in my talk with Toze and Medel and in their full-page open letter, the ISM authorities persisted in painting the teachers' actions as selfish and greedy, to a point that they would even endanger the existence of the school.
Ching poo-poohs the cries of distress of ISM, cries that the foreign business chambers have apparently swallowed hook, line and press release. "They need to prove that they are in financial distress first," Ching says of the school's protestations that it could not possibly meet its obligations to the teachers' union without putting their continued existence at risk.
In a position paper, Ching asserts that "with an average annual enrollment of 1,800 students at $10,000 per child, the School generates an average annual revenue of about $18 million. The School will not find difficulty in complying with the award which it has successfully stalled for the past five years."
Indeed, the "auction" of the school grounds and property were ordered by labor department only after years of failed negotiations and ISM's staunch position that the Supreme Court's ruling on retroactivity was "wrong."
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AT THE TIME we talked, Ching said they were in talks with the ISM board, with labor department representatives as mediators. Saying they are perfectly willing to negotiate the terms of payment, she stressed though that "we cannot negotiate something without honor ... The School must respect the Department of Labor and Employment's Writ of Execution."
While they might be willing to negotiate a schedule of payments and installments, "it has to be within a reasonable time frame," Ching adds.
