Security guard and union spokesperson Jhony Azusana’s 27 years of service in UP Diliman was cut short when last Sunday, he found that the new security agency, Grand Meritus Security Agency Inc., did not absorb him and over 40 other Cluster 1 security guards.
Though the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Guardia (SNG) ng UP Diliman (UPD) and the All UP Academic Employees Union have successfully appealed for most security guards to be reinstated over the past few days, five remain jobless. Azusana and two other union members are among them.
“Expect ko naman na [tatanggapin ako dahil] wala akong violations at may recommendation naman mula sa dekano ng aming building. Siguro dahil … ako’y isang namuno sa samahan,” Azusana told the Collegian in a phone interview.
As SNG public relations officer and spokesperson, Azusana has been among the most vocal about the campus security guards’ labor issues.
SNG was formed in 2022 to protest the abusive labor practices of the security agency at the time. The organization remained vocal against the next agency, Star Special Corporate Security Agency Management Inc., for its delays in issuing guards’ salaries.
In fact, it was through the union’s own efforts to send complaint letters to the Public Safety and Security Office, Bids and Awards Committee, which handles the university’s procurements, and the Office of the Chancellor that these agencies were prohibited from bidding again the following year.
Security agencies usually change annually, depending on the lowest bidder. But the procurement office can still disallow certain agencies from bidding if a report against them has been filed and deemed valid.
“Wala namang masama sa aming ginawa kasi ang amin namang nilalabanan ay yung mga ahensyang mapagsamantala,” Azusana said. “Karapatan ko naman magsalita tungkol doon sa masamang ginagawa ng [dating] agency. [Pero yung Grand Meritus], wala namang naging problema noon.”
Grand Meritus served as a security agency for UPD from 2021 to 2022, during which the security guards saw no issue with the agency’s management and salary distribution, according to SNG President Domingo Padua.
But the agency’s vague explanation as to why Azusana and the other remaining guards have not yet been rehired has sullied its once favorable image in the eyes of the security guard union. Grand Meritus’s human resource department could only reason out that it reserves the right to choose which guards to absorb, said Padua.
Though the agency did in fact offer to hire Azusana again, it was on the condition that he be stationed elsewhere—no longer in UP Diliman.
But Azusana refused. He has not only been employed at the university for the better part of three decades, he also resides here with his children, one of whom was just recently hospitalized.
“May mga pamilya kami. Sana i-consider nila yung tagal namin sa UP at yung pagsisilbi namin sa mga iskolar ng bayan, sa faculty, at staff,” said Azusana.
For the five security guards yet to be hired, every day that passes is another unpaid bill, as their employment stipulates a no-work-no-pay scheme. So it has been SNG’s priority, with the help of other UP unions, that this issue be coursed through the UP administration and resolved as soon as possible.
The union already sent a letter to the chancellor and held a few meetings with the administration’s security office. In past instances like this, after all, it was the UP administration that could sway agencies into heeding workers’ demands, explained Padua.
“Sana pakinggan naman ng [UP admin] yung mga hinaing ng mga guwardiya para naman maging maayos yung kalakaran ng buhay ng mga guwardiya. Parte naman yung mga guwardiya ng UP,” he said. ●
