SM Ladies

Being a shoe mart girl is never easy for an aware being. As a former salesman of different malls, I witnessed Henry Sy’s unfolded story of slavery behind the respectable reputation of SM malls all over the Philippines. I want to quote that what I saw and known does not only happen in SM malls but also in other establishments and companies. With these, Marx told us about his social theory that the orientation on the existence of human individuals on surviving one’s environment is a necessity. In order to survive, one must be aware of the things happening surrounding us. According to him, we must be in control of our lives. Being aware of the things that are happening gives us the opportunity to be in control of our lives. However, my critique towards the system may somewhat exaggerated in the sense that what the SM ladies experienced are only standard operating procedures. For example, inspecting the employees does not necessarily mean that they are believed to steal. It is only because the company itself wants to be assured that their employees would not be tempted to do such things because they have their fear of getting caught and terminated. The company, as capitalist, wants to feel security that their capital – the establishment or company – is properly compensated or given value of. Just like every worker’s interest, the SM ladies also want to be properly compensated for what she had worked for.

This works shows that being a worker and a capitalist has their own pros and cons. Being a worker foes not necessarily mean that you do not have the right to be a capitalist in your way. One just has to maximize his resources in order to have a valuable property of his own. Analogous to this, being a capitalist does not always mean that one is powerful over the other. Being a capitalist also has its pros and cons and one of them is to be criticized by many. Many would not understand standard operating procedures unless they have out their feet in the capitalist’s shoes. Social conflicts will always be present because it is inherent to all human history.