Poverty: daily staple of Philippine society
By Gemma Tulud Cruz
Gemma Tulud Cruz, a lay
educator
from the Philippines, is a doctoral
student in feminist theology at
the
Univ. of Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
MANILA, Philippines -- Run-down houses
dusty roads
travel by boat to
the next barangay
intermittent power cutoffs
These are the sights
that greeted me when I visited home for a short "re-connection" to the
country where I was born.
Nothing has changed. This much, I can say. The same grinding poverty
echoes in most parts of my Third World country. And what's worse, it is a
poverty that grips Filipinos every day -- every single day in this seemingly
God-forsaken country -- so much so that it has driven millions of Filipinos
out of the country in an exodus that the international community has started
to call the Filipino diaspora.
The living conditions are worse in some areas of the countryside where
even basic social services like electricity are nonexistent. In certain
places where education is a privilege rather than a right, it means
literally crossing rivers and mountains just to get to a dilapidated school
building.
This does not mean, however, that life in the urban areas is better.
Poverty also rears its ugly head there, and in more dehumanizing ways, at
that, especially for the informal settlers, or "squatters." One can see it
in the row of makeshift houses lining the railroad tracks. One can smell it
in the stench coming from the murky and dead Pasig River, which is
"perfuming" the illegal structures called "houses" that squatters live in
along the river. One can feel it in the cramped space of the "houses" put
together out of odd pieces of wood and cardboard that are hanging
precariously under some of Manila's bridges. Indeed, if "the love for money
is the root of all evil in the world," pervasive and grinding poverty is the
root of all suffering in the Philippines.
The majority of Filipinos do not only see, smell, taste, touch and hear
poverty. They breathe it
every day.
Severe poverty is the root cause of the now-familiar Mindanao conflict.
In Sulu, for instance, a staggering 92% of the people live below the poverty
line, while in Tawi-Tawi and the Abu Sayyaff lair of Basilan -- the other
two centers of the conflict -- 75% and 63% of the people are mired in very
poor living conditions. The prevalence of poverty makes it very easy for the
terrorist group Abu Sayyaff to lure and recruit poor, out-of-school youths
to join them in their nefarious activities by promising easy money and a
better life.
In Mindanao, this same gripping poverty fuels the fight of our Muslim
brothers and sisters for an independent Muslim Mindanao republic. The
feelings of revulsion and the consequent fight against devastating poverty
has ignited other revolutionary armed struggles, such as the ones led by the
left-leaning New People's Army and the Cordillera People's Liberation Army
in the North.
Conflict rooted in poverty wrapped in history, ethnicity and religious
identity: this constitutes the daily staple and struggle of the Filipinos.
Even in the faraway Netherlands, where I am living for the moment, my
country's woes haunt me with CNN news of bombings, coups d'etat and the
infamous rebellion of the poorly dubbed "EDSA Tres."
But where does this leave us? At the end of the day, those challenged to
take responsibility for the poverty and conflict are a diverse group. The
challenge is directed at the U.S. government, which is seen as continuing to
meddle in the Philippine government's affairs. In today's gloablized world,
it is directed at the economically dominant G-8 and the First World
countries.
The challenge is also directed at the leaders who run the country,
especially, as is the case in the Philippines, when those leaders do not
live up to the demands and responsibility of the office entrusted to them.
Finally, the challenge is directed at the only set of players remaining: the
people themselves.
Indigenous Filipino theology is characterized by a theology of struggle,
which posits that the people have to be a part of the "struggle in the
struggle." Indeed, in this day and age of elitist economic globalization,
the struggle to combat debilitating poverty can only find authentic vision,
mission and participation among those who suffer from it most: the poor
Filipinos.
A decent roof over our heads
food on the table
education for all
these are but some of the basic aspirations of the majority of the people of
the country I call my own.
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