Labor group opposes holiday for Miss U

Photo by  Alecs Ongcal/Rappler

The labor group Partido Manggagawa expressed opposition to the call by a solon that the pageant day for Miss Universe be declared a holiday. The group also welcomed a response by Malacanang that there are no plans to declare January 30 a non-working holiday.

“We hope that President Duterte does not change his mind. A non-working holiday translates to foregone income for millions of wage earners who are paid daily. For workers, an honest day’s work is more productive than watching a grand, commercialized show of women’s bodies,” stated Judy Ann Miranda, PM secretary-general.

The group pointed that there are 12 million wage and salary workers in the private sector as of 2016 and the vast majority of them are paid on a daily basis and will thus suffer lost wages for a non-working holiday.

“Besides daily paid workers, also negatively affected by a non-working holiday are poor Filipinos needing vital social services such as sick mothers and children seeking help in health centers, and unemployed transacting in PESO’s, the NBI etc.,” Miranda elaborated.

She added “Beyond all that, the Miss Universe contest glorifies a version of femininity anchored on physical beauty. A woman is not reducible to her vital statistics.”

“It is easy to understand the excitement of many Filipinos in beauty pageants as an arena to reclaim national pride. But the naked truth is that much of the world, couldn’t care less about Miss U. While there is Miss U mania in the Philippines, millions of women around the globe were marching against the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump,” Miranda averred.

She ended “Trump, by the way, owned the Miss U franchise for several years during which time she called a title holder ‘Miss Piggy’ for putting on weight and ‘Miss Housekeeping’ for being a Latina, exposing the sexism and racism that underpins such beauty pageants,” Miranda averred.

27 January 2017