Saturday, July 01, 2006

Security Guards

Security in the Philippines is no joke. Security guards must be one of the most prevalent jobs here. What a shock it was when I first arrived to go into the bank and see 10-13 armed guards, some with shotguns and automatic weapons, it gets your attention. Yet guarding is just one of their jobs. They become doorman or paper shufflers in many establishments. At the entry of the malls they usually have a couple of guards posted. A male guard for the males and a female for the ladies. For the ladies, a cursory search inside their purse is what is called for. For the men, we get frisked at our belt-line, front and back. I sure didn't like it when I first got here, but after a while it becomes so second nature to raise your hands and let them feel your belly and back that I don't think about it much anymore. I didn't even notice when I walked in one mall, the guard was a lady, and as I walked in with my arms up, she did the quick frisk and I kept on walking. My wife had noticed this and stopped to ask, "Why is it that the men are forbidden to frisk the ladies, but the ladies can frisk the men?" My wife had made an excellent point that revealed the double standard. The female guard stumbled for an answer, but could produce nothing convincing.

In some stores, you get checked going in and coming out and if you are an employee, you get the full body frisk, from the ankles on up.

The pay of the guards runs about 5000 pesos a month in a good establishment and less elsewhere. That runs about $100 US Dollars, usually that is a twelve hour day and maybe a day or two off a month!

So if you don't like being a Digger O'Dell maybe you would like to be a guard???

1 comment:

Hannatu said...

Wow! We are used to seeing soldiers, riot police, and police everywhere, but we don't get frisked! I did get frisked once in Nigeria in the airport. They didn't have any electronic equipment so they were frisking everyone. As the line moved forward everyone in front of me happened to be male so they were all being frisked by a male guard right in front of everyone. I thought, I'm going to put up a fuss if he tries to frisk me. When it was my turn, I got sent in a room and was frisked by a female policemen. Still unpleasant, but at least I could deal with it!