A Filipino store manager describes why and how he continued working throughout the pandemic

English transcript | نسخة عربية

Nationality: Filipino
Occupation: Operations Manager
Date of interview: 4 September 2020
Language of interview: English

As C’jay prepared for his annual leave to the Philippines, the Corona virus hit the world. Countries and airports shut down, and C’jay found himself stuck in Kuwait. His two youngest children were graduating from middle school, waiting for him to join their celebrations. Instead, he found himself working, without pay, to try to save the small café where he is an operations manager. In the first month of lockdown, there were no salaries for any of the staff. His colleagues found themselves without food and relying on donations to survive. C'jay did not know his salary would stop until the day his paycheck failed to arrive. No warning. No discussion with the owner. For five whole months.

To keep his job, C'jay continued to work hard, alongside the café owner, without pay. He had to find a way to continue supporting his family — six children, his wife, his parents and a brother-- despite having no income. A small business owner in the Philippines, C'jay was forced to sell all of his investments, except his plot of family land, which his wife refused to sell. Once he had sold everything, he continued to send his family money from his savings in Kuwait, and he himself got food from local charities so that he was able to continue to eat while providing support. His father had just been hospitalized and C'jay had to make sure that the family could procure the expensive daily tanks of oxygen he required. He didn’t want his children to stop their studies - his college age son is studying engineering, a degree that he also completed four years of himself, but was unable to finish because of a family situation. Throughout this time when his own family had little to spare, C'jay’s wife prepared food daily for frontline workers in the Philippines.

C'jay’s employer worked beside him, just as hard as he did to save the café. But during this time, the employer never inquired about how C'jay was managing to eat, pay rent or support his family, and never discussed the lack of payment. C'jay couldn’t bring himself to ask about his salary - he feels that he should be grateful for the resources he had saved to help him get through this time, and grateful for his and his family’s good health. Yet he worried about his colleagues--if he and the owner couldn’t save the business, how would the other employees survive when there was no way to go home, and no work opportunities? He and the owner made sure after the first month that the other workers had a monthly stipend for food until the café could start operating normally.

For the first time, C'jay started to meet his Filipino neighbors who were concerned about him and each other. Those who were bakers would bring extra bread home for him to eat and would check on him regularly. The Filipino community in his building became closer. As part of the Filipino association to which he belongs, C'jay volunteered to distribute food to those in need when he wasn’t working. He felt better when he was able to help those in his community. He found himself calling his parents and family on a daily basis and finding comfort in these calls--in the past, his family had leaned on him but now these calls felt critical to his well-being, shifting his family dynamic. C'jay was losing friends to COVID, missing his family, working hard for no income. He exercised regularly and never missed his calls home and relied on his faith, as someone who was not deeply religious normally. The first thing he did when lockdown ended was wait three hours outside church to say mass and give thanks for all of his blessings.

In the clip above, C-jay explains why he decided to work without pay to support his employer

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