But before I go start off with my rant, I just want to clarify that I have nothing against the editor-in-chief who had done her part of the bargain of getting me published. She was nice and very helpful and she has done a great job. With that I am very grateful to her and she has nothing to do with this. Just to be clear.
So, on with my rant and reason why I will never again write for ABS-CBN...
Two months ago, I was asked by a friend to write a piece for her magazine. She gave me two weeks to do so and I have fulfilled all her requests with a couple of days to spare. I think about a week or so later, I got confirmation that she was indeed using my piece for the magazine. So, with the knowledge that I will get published in the next issue, I just waited patiently until it went out. Once it was out, I asked my friend again on how I will get my pay for the piece. At first she said that I can just email her an authorization letter with a scanned copy of my ID. That was a tempting offer but I didn't want to bother her to fall in line on my behalf so I just said that I'll get it myself. I just need to know how to get it. She gave me the number of her assistant named Tinee and I was corresponding with her.
At first, this Tinee person gave me a landline number which, when I tried calling just kept on ringing. I tried calling that number for a week but to no avail. No one was answering that number. So, I decided to just keep on coordinating with Tinee via text so that I can actually get my pay for the piece I made. It was around mid-June when she told me that she already gave my name to Finance and that my pay will be ready by end of the month.
Then came yesterday, July 4, 2012.
End of June came and went so I had assumed that my pay was ready. I did text Tinee one more time to confirm but this time, she didn't answer me. Thinking that she was busy to answer my text, I headed for ELJ Tower anyway and told myself to just ask the front desk on how to get my pay. I live in Las Piñas, and the ABS-CBN's ELJ Building is located in Quezon Avenue. It was more or less a two hour commute from my place with the rain coming and going because of the bad weather.
Going there wasn't the problem. But I got there around 12nn and upon arriving there, they said that check releasing would not resume until 1:30pm. I had an hour and a half to kill and with nothing better to do, I just waited it out.
When 1:30pm came, I fell in line with the rest of them who was getting checks. But when I got to the window and gave my ID, the nice lady at the cashier said that my name wasn't there. She said to just clear it with ABS-CBN Publishing.
This really annoyed me.
I again texted Tinee that my name isn't with the cashier and that I still didn't get my pay. But until this very moment, Tinee has not answered me. I tried calling again the land line that she gave me before but still to no avail...the phone kept on ringing.
I don't really want to bother my friend who was kind enough to invite me to write for her...so I just opted to write this piece.
So yes, until today I am still a bit annoyed. This has never happened to me before. I had experience working for other publishing companies and they have never made me wait for my pay. When I was writing for DC Kids magazine, all I needed to do was wait for the magazines to get published and the editor will email the lot of us to meet him in SM Megamall for our pay and complimentary copies of the magazine where we wrote. With Essays.ph all I needed to do was write for them, hope I don't get any revisions, wait for the others in my group to finish their assignment and the pay will automatically be deposited in our back accounts.
I do not see the reason why I have to pass through the eye of a needle to get a measly 500bucks for an article that has been out for almost a month already and I don't even get a complimentary copy. (For an article that's 800words long, I'm pegging that my pay for that piece would be at least around 500bucks...hoping more but I highly doubt.) Now for 500bucks, some people would just laugh at me and wonder why I'm making such a big deal out of this. Let's just say it's the principle of the thing. I have done a job and it was good enough so I expect to get compensated for it. I do deserve it for crying out loud! I'm trying to make a decent living here and them not giving me what's rightfully mine is really infuriating. What irks me is not the long commute that I had done that day but the money I had spent just to go there and come out empty handed! I mean, if you tell someone it will be ready by end of the month it should be there already!
Is ABS-CBN hard on money right now that the pay of freelance writers like me takes a back seat? Or does other writers have the same experience as me and they just decide not to get the money that they deserve thinking that it's only 500bucks? Either way, it's really bad form for ABS-CBN Publishing. How hard is it to flip through the pages of their magazine to see the name of the people who wrote there so that they can write a check for the job that was done?
Now, I'm just thinking of counting it as a loss on my part. Since this Tinee person has already ignored my texts, I will be assuming that she's ignoring me permanently. And the phone number that she gave me still keeps on ringing with no one answering. So I'll just stop now and just peg it as a loss. I don't want to give myself the headache of not getting my pay even if I really need the money right now. I do not want to go through the motion of going all the way to that office again and come up empty handed once more.
I just have to remember that this will be the first and last time I will write for ABS-CBN Publishing and any future articles that my friend would want to request for me to do, I'll just politely decline.
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