“I’m sorry, Team Leader. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“How about hanging in there just a little longer?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“I know it’s hard right now, but if you endure a little longer, you’ll be promoted soon. Everyone’s quitting, so we’re short on people.”
“Promotion or whatever, I’m going to die. I think I’ll die from overwork before I get promoted. When I woke up this morning, blood was pouring from my nose.”
“······”
“Thank you for everything.”
“No, don’t do that. I’m telling you, let’s just hold out a little longer. Then things will get better soon, and everything will return to normal.”
“I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.”
Brian couldn’t stop the employee as he turned and walked away.
He had always been a responsible guy.
The kind of guy who did his best until the very end with any task he was given.
And that guy had said he couldn’t do it anymore and left the office.
This month alone, he was already the third to resign.
Even to Brian, the head of the management team, the recent workload wasn’t something that could be brushed off as merely “excessive.”
It was, quite literally, murderous.
Employees who couldn’t endure it were beginning to leave.
He understood.
He thought it was only natural.
The real problem was that no new employees were coming to fill the seats they left behind.
Recruitment notices were being posted continuously, but people weren’t applying.
To be precise, some had come to work, but fled after half a day.
After working for half a day, they must have decided this wasn’t right, because they ran off without even eating lunch.
Word had spread through the industry.
Rumors had spread everywhere that Del Rosario Insurance was brutal because there was too much work.
Even the existing employees couldn’t hold out and were all escaping.
There were too many complaints, and the stress was severe.
Perhaps because of that, applicants were now virtually nonexistent.
The irresponsible attitude of management also played a part.
Brian had thought management would make an effort to resolve the situation quickly, but they didn’t.
If anything, they liked it.
Because labor costs were going down.
Because fixed costs were decreasing, improving their financial soundness instead.
If they couldn’t hire employees, they should have raised salaries or adjusted other conditions to bring people in, but management had no such thoughts at all.
They were executives who were pleased that employees were quitting; there was no way such executives would raise salaries to hire new staff.
To them, the working conditions of employees were not much of a consideration.
Employees were nothing more and nothing less than consumables that could be swapped out at any time.
The prevailing attitude was that as long as things somehow kept running, it was fine.
Thanks to that, the work that ten people used to do was now being done by nine, then eight, then seven.
And no one knew how many more would be gone in the future.
People hurried to resign so they wouldn’t be the last ones left.
It wasn’t as if the existing employees were receiving any compensation, either.
They simply received their monthly salary.
They weren’t even properly paid for overtime.
The work had increased, and their pay remained the same.
Employees who couldn’t endure it continued to resign one after another.
There was one peculiar thing about this: only the employees in charge of actual operations were resigning.
Only the working-level staff were leaving, while the managers remained exactly where they were.
.
.
.
“I signed up for Del Rosario Insurance this time, and honestly, I feel wronged. They clearly said they would pay the insurance benefit, but there’s still no news. It’s already been over a month, and they still haven’t deposited the money. I don’t know if I should keep my Del Rosario Insurance after this. It’s not like they aren’t deceiving their subscribers. It’s not even a large amount. It’s only 1,200 pesos (30,000 won).”
In the video, a young man spoke in an agitated voice, raising his tone.
As if to prove his words weren’t a lie, he showed the documents he had submitted to Del Rosario Insurance and the text message saying that the review had been completed and the insurance benefit would soon be deposited.
But there was no deposit record.
They had said they would pay and then hadn’t.
The young man seemed very angry.
“I twisted my ankle going down the stairs, but they say this isn’t covered by insurance. Here are the documents they issued themselves. You see the reason for denial here, right? I feel so wronged. They clearly said it would be covered when I signed up, but now that I’ve applied, they say it isn’t. I’m going to try filing an appeal.”
A middle-aged woman spoke with a powerless expression.
She looked wronged.
“I’m a cook, and I got burned while cooking. This is within the scope of compensation too, but they said they’d verify the facts and still haven’t said anything. The amount is only about 2,000 pesos (50,000 won), but it’s so hard to get even 2,000 pesos.”
A man wearing a white chef’s uniform showed the burn on his arm.
It wasn’t severe, but it was clearly a burn mark.
“I don’t know when they’re going to verify the facts, review it, and pay. If they say it can’t be paid, I’ll accept that, but I don’t understand why they’re dragging it out like this. It’s a little frustrating. I don’t know why they handle work this way.”
I flipped through shorts and checked the videos.
It seemed to have been quite a good choice.
Maybe it was because of the algorithm, but there was a lot of content related to Del Rosario Insurance.
All of it was negative.
This was exactly what I wanted.
Just winning through sheer volume.
I wanted to damage the image Del Rosario Insurance had.
What we wanted was to scratch the trustworthy image held by Del Rosario Insurance, by the Del Rosario Group.
But in the Philippines, that wasn’t easy.
No matter how many tips we sent to broadcasts and newspapers, not a single line would be published.
They already had everything under their control, so of course they wouldn’t report anything disadvantageous to themselves.
So we used shorts.
They couldn’t reach as far as YouTube.
And YouTube was exactly what many people used.
We didn’t need well-made videos.
Thousands, tens of thousands of videos that felt raw and unfiltered kept being uploaded.
We competed with quantity.
It didn’t matter if the message wasn’t delivered perfectly.
The important thing was simply to make people think, Del Rosario Insurance is like this?
The suspicion that maybe I won’t get paid if I file an insurance claim was enough.
If we made people who were considering signing up for Del Rosario Insurance hesitate even once, that was enough.
If we made existing policyholders feel uneasy, then it had done its job.
We only needed to make them think that the process of receiving insurance payouts was extremely troublesome and complicated.
But this operation flowed in a direction completely different from what we had expected.
We had only intended to end it by putting a scratch on them.
But the employees who had been dissatisfied with the existing working conditions ended up resigning, and the working-level staff disappeared.
It seemed the working conditions hadn’t been very good to begin with.
Quite literally, there was no one left to do the work.
The work wasn’t being processed.
The issue wasn’t the insurance money; there was no one to pay that insurance money out.
A review had to be conducted in order to pay insurance benefits, but there was no one to conduct the review.
This was the biggest problem Del Rosario Insurance was facing right now.
The system was alive, but there was no one to operate that system.
It had, quite literally, become paralyzed.
As the system became paralyzed, many people suffered inconvenience.
But the people who reacted more strongly to that inconvenience were not the people of Mindanao, but the people of Manila.
They began to question the Del Rosario Group.
The people of Manila began turning their backs on the Del Rosario Group.
*****
“The Insurance Commissioner has arrived.”
“Tell him to come in.”
A moment later, the door opened, and a middle-aged man with slightly thinning hair entered Celeste’s office.
That man was the head of the IC (Philippine Insurance Commission).
The IC handled the authorization and supervision of insurance companies in the Philippines, the approval of insurance products, the management of insurers’ financial soundness, consumer protection, and even disputes.
It was an organization with immense influence when it came to insurance.
Quite literally, the IC held Del Rosario Insurance’s lifeline in its hands.
If the IC revoked Del Rosario Insurance’s license, Del Rosario Insurance would collapse just like that.
And the head of that IC had come to see Celeste.
“It’s been a while, Commissioner.”
“It truly has been a long time since I last saw you as well, Chairwoman.”
A person who could cut off Del Rosario Insurance’s breath had come, but Celeste showed no sign of tension or surprise at all.
“You said you had something to say?”
Celeste spoke in a businesslike tone, as if she found it somewhat bothersome and wanted him to quickly say what he came to say and leave.
Instead, the Insurance Commissioner answered nervously, as if he were the one who had done something terribly wrong.
“Yes. The number of complaints being filed against Del Rosario Insurance is enormous right now. Complaints are flooding in, saying that insurance benefits were not paid even though they fall under the payment regulations, or that benefits promised to be paid still haven’t come in.”
“So?”
“Pardon?”
“So? What do you want me to do about it?”
“If you could give us an answer on how you plan to handle that matter, we will explain it properly and try to soothe them.”
The Insurance Commissioner explained the situation to Celeste and sought a solution, as though he were her subordinate.
“What? Explain it and soothe them? Why would you do something like that?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you have that little to do? You came all the way here over a few measly complaints? Are you bored? Should I send you somewhere else?”
“No, that’s not it. If complaints continue piling up like this, we’ll have no choice but to launch an investigation, so in order to respond preemptively in advance···”
“No, I put you in that position to stop that from happening. Whether complaints come in or investigations need to happen, I put you in that position so there would be no harm to us. And now what? You need to investigate?”
“I apologize.”
The Insurance Commissioner bowed his head and apologized.
It looked as if their positions had been reversed.
Celeste let out a sigh and spoke again in a slightly more composed voice.
“Commissioner. Go back and make sure your subordinates are kept in line so there’s no talk.”
“Yes···”
“And right now, Del Rosario Insurance is merely experiencing a temporary issue caused by employee resignations, so it will normalize soon. You don’t need to concern yourself with it that much. Understood?”
“Yes. Understood.”
“Take this with you.”
Celeste held out an envelope.
“You can’t take care of your staff empty-handed. That’s why I’m giving it to you.”
The Insurance Commissioner carefully accepted the envelope and put it away.
“I have a lot of faith in you, Commissioner. You know that, right? I put you in that position because I trust you.”
“I am grateful.”
“Then don’t disappoint me. Show me. Show me through your actions just how grateful you are.”
“Understood.”
“Then have a safe trip back, and I’ll see you next time at the gathering.”
“Yes, I’ll see you then.”
After the Insurance Commissioner left, Celeste picked up another report from the pile in front of her.
Her expression remained calm.
As if something like this was nothing at all.
In truth, Celeste did not consider this insurance payout issue very serious.
She thought of it as the deviance and rebellion of beggars who only cared about money.
She thought of it as the desperate flailing of beggars whining for money because they didn’t even have that small amount.
There was no problem with the system, either.
The problem was that there was no one to run that system.
A few people had quit because of the sudden high-intensity workload, but that wasn’t a problem.
People could always be hired again.
There were plenty of people who would work.
The Philippines had a population of 120 million. Would there really be no one to work?
The Philippines was a place where highly educated people lined up for employment.
The fact that the system wasn’t functioning normally right now was only momentary.
After a short while, it would return to normal again.
She thought that was all there was to it.
Celeste thought it was a waste of time to spend even a moment on such a trivial problem.
Celeste’s time was precious.
She had no time to ponder such insignificant issues.
If she had that time, she needed to think about greater matters, about matters for the nation.
In her mind, Celeste was already president.
Problems like this were no longer concerns for Celeste.
They were concerns for the underlings.
How could Celeste privatize the nation through the massive enterprise called the state?
Her head was filled only with thoughts of whether she could build Celeste’s kingdom, one that would never crumble for all eternity.
*******
Contrary to Celeste’s thoughts,
Contrary to her belief that it was a trivial and insignificant problem,
Del Rosario Insurance was nearly paralyzed.
It wasn’t certain, but there was talk that nearly 20% of the employees had resigned.
The real blow, however, was that all of that 20% consisted of working-level staff.
The employees, assistant managers, senior staff, and section chiefs who did the work on the ground had all resigned, leaving only department heads, deputy managers, and executives in management positions at the company.
The real damage came from the resignation of the people who actually did the work.
Everyone left at the company was a potbellied middle-aged man.
Everyone who could escape had escaped,
and only those with nowhere else to go remained.
Left on their own, they had no idea what to do and simply stared blankly at one another.
But they couldn’t just sit around waiting for persimmons to fall into their laps forever.
If there were no working-level employees, they would just do it themselves.
It wouldn’t be hard.
It was all work they had done before.
They were people who had once been called aces in their own right.
They charged in confidently, but it didn’t go as well as they had expected.
They couldn’t pick up speed.
It had been far too long since they had last handled practical work.
Too many things had changed since then.
Their eyes were dim now, and they couldn’t even see properly.
When they had been managers, they had boasted that anyone should be able to handle hundreds of these things a day, but when they actually tried it themselves, even doing a few dozen in a day was overwhelming.
Regretting it changed nothing.
They worked all day without even eating dinner, but instead of decreasing, the work only piled up with even more complaints.
The more they worked, the more it grew.
They felt like they understood why the others had quit.
It was like a swamp that pulled them deeper the more they struggled.
It was truly hopeless.
It felt as if they were facing a mountain they could never cross.
On top of that, another problem arose.
As they say, drizzle soaks your clothes.
Each payout was small, but because they were paying out an enormous number of cases, the total amount was no joke.
One person filed multiple insurance claims.
It was no longer an amount they could ignore.
They also had to mind the IC—the Philippine Insurance Commission.
Insurance clearly stipulates the scope of compensation, the amount of compensation, payment regulations, and payment deadlines according to the policy terms.
They had failed to keep those for a long time already.
An investigation should have come out ten times over by now, but unexpectedly, the IC remained quiet.
It was good, but it made them uneasy.
It felt as if the beating they were bound to receive was only being delayed, and that made them anxious for no reason.
Above all, their reputation had become terrible.
It wasn’t on TV, but right now, YouTube was overflowing with videos about Del Rosario Insurance.
If you looked at Shorts, dozens came out in a single day.
Most of them were negative videos.
They hadn’t received their insurance money.
Their claims had been rejected.
That was all the videos were about.
After seeing this, YouTubers with more than five hundred thousand subscribers actually tested it themselves.
To see whether all those videos were true.
The problem began from the moment they went to file an insurance claim.
The line stretched on endlessly.
And yet only two counters were open.
There was no one to work the counters, so it couldn’t be helped.
Online submissions were no different.
All they received was a message telling them their claim had been received and to wait.
After that, nothing was processed.
The videos ended by showing a page with no response after one day, two days, even a week.
Del Rosario Insurance was becoming dangerous in all sorts of ways.
*******
Things were taking a strange turn.
I hadn’t intended this at all,
I had only wanted to put a dent in Del Rosario Insurance, but now Del Rosario Insurance was staggering.
It hadn’t gone according to plan, but this was even better.
I had only meant to make things a little annoying and troublesome for them, but I hadn’t known they would reel this badly.
At the same time, I decided to change my plan a little as well.
Until then, I had kept thinking about how to get rid of La Camara.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a suitable method.
So I simply considered killing them all.
That was the only thing I could think of.
But then, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Was there really a need to kill them all?
No, was there even a need to get rid of La Camara?
To be honest, La Camara was an incredibly impressive organization.
It was an organization capable of taking the Philippines in its grip and shaking it at will.
It could control politicians and administrators, even the military and police, and its network and capital were tremendous.
Was there really any need to get rid of an organization like that?
Wouldn’t it actually be helpful if we brought it over to our side?
Then wouldn’t it be useful when Patrick became president?
After thinking it over for a long time, I decided that was the right answer.
La Camara was not an organization we needed to destroy, but one we needed to take over.
While talking with Bituin, I investigated La Camara.
At the end of our conversation, I learned that Celeste had created La Camara and nurtured it until now.
In practical terms, the owner of La Camara was Celeste.
Celeste’s authority within La Camara was absolute.
The rest were merely people who listened well.
Celeste had made it that way.
The answer came easily.
We only had to deal with Celeste.
It was enough to make me grateful.
Once Celeste was dealt with, the rest would be easy.
They said the remaining committee members would easily obey if a gun was pointed at them.
They said that if we so much as lifted a hand, they would crawl on their own.
We decided to take La Camara, which Celeste had built over a long time with such effort and care.
Didn’t Celeste also take a free ride when we pushed for the second-term system?
Then shouldn’t it be fine for us to take a free ride on what Celeste had raised?
We were simply giving and taking one thing each.