The women of Pescador

Commentary
By Denis Murphy
1:52 am | Monday, October 1st, 2012


he women of Pescador in Navotas attempt to stand straight up with their children, almost defiantly, we might say, in their world of poverty and abasement. It is hard not to talk dramatically about such women, even though hundreds of thousands of similarly poor women do it every day, and succeed to a great extent.

There were six of us—Fr. Jorge Anzorena, my wife Alice, Ate Cita Vendiola, Luz Sudueste, Benjo Raposa and myself. We wanted to see if our nongovernment organization could help the people there. We found small, thin women selling miserably little fish that looked more like strips of gum than something to eat.

The women must have been beautiful once, but now their faces are wrinkled and their teeth are missing. They are from the 150 or so families in the Pescador neighborhood who live in temporary housing along both sides of R-10.

They live in tents that are packed close together, worn and dirty on the outside. But inside the tents are clean, and all the space is carefully used. Some families have only three or four square meters, just enough room for a family-size bed, where their whole life of sleeping, eating, loving, studying and playing is carried out.

The families have been in this emergency housing for at least a year, since Typhoons “Pedring” and “Gener” and a community fire destroyed their old homes. How long should emergency housing last?

It’s a bad situation. The government promised some families space in a new tenement. Other families are willing to live on stilts in old fishponds in an area called Tanza. Maybe the people and the government can look into that possibility. A few years ago, the Pros Architects designed a village on stilts for the very same place. It can work. Haven’t tribal people lived graciously on stilts in the southern Philippines?

The women also hope the government will give them loans with which they can start small businesses, such as selling fish.

We had the impression that the women had done just about all they could do by themselves. We asked them what lessons they had learned that they could share with us. One of the leaders said, “We must go on and on, no matter what. Life must go on.” We asked, “Are you angry with God, perhaps?” Another woman said, “If God were not here taking care of us, we would not be here.”

It was a Saturday, so after a long talk the people invited Father Jorge to come back on Sunday and say Mass for them. He agreed, so on Sunday we were back and had a very simple, prayerful Mass in the middle of the tents. The altar was an old piece of plywood. A row of small girls sat in front, looking very intently at Father Jorge and myself. We were being judged. The adults stood behind, perhaps 50 all together, mostly women.

When the time came for the sermon. Benjo and Alice talked.

“Just encourage them,” Father Jorge whispered to Benjo. “Tell them God loves them and is very pleased with them. That’s enough.”

The women were very grateful. They thanked Father Jorge for having “noticed them” and for taking time to visit them. Maybe they hadn’t expected anyone’s attention in their lives. One older woman put her arms around him and cried softly.

The women may not be beautiful as they perhaps once were, but the children are, especially when they are pouring water over themselves and their young bodies gleam in the sunlight. They are beautiful, too, in their quiet moments: Long before the Mass started, a little girl seated on one of the chairs before us was telling her little brother to be quiet. “Sssshhh,” she told him with a very stern look. There was no one else around.
We had the impression the women live for their children.

These women are a good example of how God wants men and women to live in this world. It is described in the Prophet Micah (6:8): “Do good, love tenderly and walk humbly before your God.” There are many women like them among the poor. There are men, too, of course, but it is the women we met that weekend.

If the reader is fed up with the problems of Manila or feels somehow uneasy with or threatened by urban poor people, please visit Pescador and talk to the women. I think it will help. It helped us.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).

Blackjack or charcoal?

Commentary
 By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer 9:12 pm | Monday, March 12th, 2012

Two projects will soon come to life near the shores of Manila Bay. They are as different as two projects can be: one is the casino empire of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) that will occupy a vast area of the reclaimed land off Pasay and Parañaque; the second is the construction of a smokeless “pugon” for charcoal-making that will rise at the northern tip of Pier 18 in Tondo, Manila, within sight of the old Smokey Mountain.

 The projects are so different in philosophy, actors and resources, that one day the government may have to choose one or the other as its signature approach to development. The projects are totally different.

The casinos will occupy 60 hectares or 100 hectares (accounts in the paper differ) of the reclaimed land. The new pugon will take only 120 square meters of land.

The casinos will be financed by international gambling companies; the pugon will be backed in great part by the Catholic archdiocese of Manila. Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, former archbishop of Manila, supported the latter project; Current Manila Archbishop Chito Tagle gives it as much backing. National Housing Authority General Manager Chito Cruz has helped in other ways.

The casinos will be run by giant entrepreneurs approved by Pagcor, some of whom, such as, Steve Wynn and Kazuo Okada, have been in the papers recently for allegedly bribing government personnel. The pugon will be run by a cooperative made up of poor men and women engaged in charcoal-making, who live in the shanties nearby.

The casinos produce wealth for their owners, and fun, excitement and, ultimately, great sorrow for their customers. In the end all gamblers lose in the casinos. The pugon will produce high-grade charcoal and wood vinegar as a byproduct; and it will provide livelihood for 40 poor families this year and, it is hoped, many more later on.

Casino gambling, as experience has shown us, has led to racketeering with the Mafia and triads, guaranteeing a run-up in crime incidence (murder, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery) and corruption in government. The pugon is an example of cooperative manufacturing that can be the basis of a local economy benefiting all members of a community.

I have not been invited to board meetings of the casinos, but I was able to attend a meeting in late February of the men who will run the new pugons once they are built. The men came one by one into the day care center where the meeting was held and sat down, or tried to sit down, in the small yellow chairs the children use. They came straight from their work, so their faces were black from the toxic smoke the traditional pugons emit. The faces of many women and children in the community were also black because they too help in the work. To be candid about it, the men looked a little menacing, but they smiled as they tried to get comfortable in the tiny chairs, and it was then you could see a brilliant contrast—white dazzling smiles—bursting from their dark faces. The men looked younger than they are. The vice president of the group looked 45 at most, but told me he was already 59.

 There are 350 families in the area which is called Ulingan. Most make charcoal which creates that raw smoke that drifts through the whole community. Some families are scavengers or earn from sorting and selling garbage. We saw very few idle men just standing around, unlike what you usually see in other poor areas.

The people of Ulingan have a water co-op that receives metered water from Maynilad, which the co-op sells cheaply to the families. The profit is used to help families when someone dies or is in the hospital or falls into some other emergency. The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program reaches 400 of the approximately 1,200 families in Ulingan and nearby sitios.

The men and women at the meeting seemed happy with the CCT and the loans and temporary work the program also offers. The name of the organization is Samahang Matiisin. The people are still waiting for a good English translation. Any suggestions?

The men will work in smokeless pugons and are interested in all the arrangements. How long will the training period be? How big will the team be for each pugon? (We hope to build four pugons to start with 10 men at each pugon.) Labor will be donated, the men agreed. They discussed a sharing of the profits and work schedules in the new venture. The seminar will be run by Juan “Jun” Marquez who has his own smokeless pugons in Silang, Cavite. It was a very business-like meeting. 

Finally we ended the meeting and started home. This meant going out through the mud that cuts Ulingan off from the outside world. The mud is bad at all times, but when it rains it is so thick and muscular we wouldn’t really be surprised to see big crocodiles crawl out of it. The poor children have to go through this mud every day on their way to school. We are looking for rubber boots so they do not get injured or infected as they wade through the mud.

The difference between the casino empire-type of development and the smokeless pugon-type may be so great the government will have to decide to take the path of high stakes gambling and tourism, or that of basic manufacturing, and a simpler form of tourism. What will it choose? What should it choose?

Maybe the government can then give the 60-100 hectares of land reserved for the casinos to house poor families.
 Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates.