‘Blessed’ Jesse Robredo

Commentary
By Denis Murphy

9:12 pm
Sunday, November 18th, 2012   Debate in the Catholic Church today is mostly about the proper understanding of the Second Vatican Council. We can discuss these matters theologically, though that is the most abstract of approaches and sometimes the most puzzling.


There are more concrete ways to seek the meaning of Vatican II. We can, for example, ask what type of saints will be canonized if the Council’s teachings are fully implemented. Will the Church continue to canonize persons such as the recently honored St. Pedro Calungsod, or will it look more to people like the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo?

We have been steeped in Vatican II’s teachings for 50 years. We know more about the modern world that is in great part indifferent to Christian beliefs than the bishops who attended Vatican II in 1962-1965. If we thoughtfully search for saints for our times, we can almost certainly clarify the type of man or woman needed by the Church.

Will the Church canonize brave young people like Pedro who know nothing of our modern world and little of their own world, or will it honor mature men and women of this age who have mastered the modern world’s sciences, systems, technologies and disciplines for good ends and still possess a heart and a mind for our traditional faith, and a mind and a heart for the poor? Will it seek out men and women who can show in their own lives both the achievements of this world and the awareness in the end that there are just God, the poor and those who live as the poor?

We need both types of saints, of course, now and in the future. But of which do we have greater need if we are to transform the modern world?

I knew Jesse Robredo for 35 years. Many knew him better than I. We were friends. I wrote articles about him. One was titled “An organized people and an astute mayor,” and it was intended to praise his ability to work with organized poor people and turn a small sleepy town into a bustling modern city without losing its old cultural strengths. I worked closely with him on the problem of housing urban poor people over the last two years. I certainly didn’t know his personal spiritual life as his confessors and his wife knew him. But I’ve listened to people whom I admire and who knew him well. They tell us a great deal.

His wife, Leni, for example, said in an interview in this paper that every time Jesse came home from trips around the country he went as soon as possible to the Peñafrancia Shrine to report to Our Lady about the things that had happened to him. His life as secretary of the interior brought him into the middle of treachery, betrayal and danger, but it also brought him into the homes of the very poor, where he sat like any other visitor and appreciated the snacks that the poor offered. No Cabinet officer worked harder than Jesse or took on more dangerous tasks.

When I mentioned the idea of this column to one of my friends, he said: “Miracles, Denis, it’s all about miracles.” There are no physical miracles that I know of, but here is an incident that sets one wondering.

A friend of Jesse’s who held a high government position was aware of corruption in his office. He was reluctant to be a “whistle-blower” for many personal reasons, and then he visited Jesse’s grave near the Peñafrancia Shrine. He said that as he stood there he became aware that Jesse was urging him to do what was right. The friend weighed Jesse’s words of advice and decided to speak up. He said he immediately felt very happy. He did speak out. A miracle? A sort of miracle perhaps that may be much valued in the modern world?

If ever, Jesse would be the first happily married man with a loving wife and children to be canonized in centuries. Wouldn’t that speak to our modern world? He talked constantly by cell phone with his family. They lived in the same simple two-story home they lived in during his first term as mayor of Naga, 1988-1992.

I have been especially impressed by the affection that retired Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi of Caceres (Naga City) has shown for Jesse. The archbishop has been one of the modern pillars of the Philippine Church. In the past he often appeared as a rather stern and conservative person, but when I heard his talk at the end of Jesse’s funeral, I was deeply touched: He was a father mourning for his son, I thought.

Lawyer Angel Ojastro, who worked with Jesse for many years, told me this story. He took charge of the last arrangements for Jesse in Naga, according to the wishes of Jesse’s wife. He waited one night at the Archbishop’s House for Jesse’s body to be brought there for the wake. He found that the archbishop was still up.

“Go to bed, Excellency, I’m here. I’ll take care of him,” Angel said. He knew the archbishop had painfully bad knees and was sick in many other ways. “Go to bed, Excellency.” The archbishop refused. They both waited until almost 1 a.m. Angel repeated the phrase that was in my head: “[The archbishop] was like a father waiting for his son.”

If such a learned and insightful churchman as Archbishop Legaspi could show such love and respect for a politician—they had been mayor and archbishop in the same small city for 18 years—there was probably nothing in Jesse’s public life that the archbishop hadn’t heard about, nothing that would diminish his admiration. The archbishop held Jesse in such high respect to the end, which should make us wonder once again about Jesse Robredo’s true value.

Maybe someone should introduce his cause for canonization. Archbishop Legaspi, perhaps? It seems a step toward the world of the future.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
http://opinion.inquirer.net/41086/blessed-jesse-robredo

Seeking Equality

Commentary
By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer
8:19 pm
Thursday, November 8th, 2012   TO TALK of the poor in the United States is apparently bad politics. During the past presidential campaign, neither President Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney used the word “poor.” The reason seems to be that Americans were taught by former President Ronald Reagan and others that there is a good chance poor people who receive welfare payments, including widows and single mothers, may be swindlers. The suspicion spreads from welfare recipients to cover all poor people. Reagan talked of a so-called “Welfare Queen” who lived in Detroit—if I remember correctly—and had amassed cars, houses and jewelry as a welfare recipient. He never produced the woman.

American politicians talk now of the “middle class.” Obama is described by his own people as “the defender of the middle class.” As a result, I believe, his campaign speeches lacked fire and integrity, because he didn’t talk of the poor and suffering Americans he knows, including a great number of his fellow Afro-American people. It’s hard to feel passionate when you talk of the poor as “those who wish to enter the middle class,” which he did in the first debate. The historical weight of the poor people and their suffering, their central role in Scripture and their struggles to have a better life all vanish.

Romney, for his part, appeared to have lost interest in the economically lower 47 percent of Americans. This is a long way from the Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican President Richard M. Nixon, who all backed the “war on poverty” of the 1960s-1970s. The United States is moving away from traditions of fair play and compassion.

Another word no longer heard in American political debates is “inequality.” The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 focused the nation’s attention on the great and growing gap between the incomes of the top 1 percent of the working population and the remaining 99 percent. Data on this gap are still coming in: The Los Angeles Times reported recently (Sept. 12) that the present halting recovery in the United States “pushed to a new high the income gap between the country’s richest and poorest citizens.” For a time Obama spoke of this gap and called for fairness, but he soon got off that subject when his political foes pounced on him, accusing him of “class warfare” and being “a socialist.” Observers from other countries may wonder how a democracy like the United States can have a serious election campaign without talking about inequality of income and the inequality of political power to which it invariably leads. On the just concluded US election campaign, Al Jazeera News reported that the top 1 percent of the United States’ richest persons donate more to the presidential campaigns than the 150 million poorest people. What happens to democracy?

All Filipino politicians talk of the poor here, but I don’t believe any major political figure has talked of inequality in income between the richest and poorest and of narrowing the gap, though the rate of inequality of income measured by the Gini Curve is as great here as in the United States. China is now as bad as the United States in this matter. The same question must be asked here: “Can we have serious political discussion in the Philippines if people do not examine income inequality and work for greater equality and fairness?”

Some of my friends have told me that such a discussion will eventually be needed, but for the present it may be wiser to stick with a very simple work plan for the economy, such as President Aquino’s anticorruption strategy, at least until the economy gets its legs under it in a few years. But the trouble with this caution is that the economic pie grows more unequal as it increases in size.

What to do? Perhaps we can begin with one or two dramatic gestures, actions or resolutions that teach the value of moving toward greater equality and actually do some concrete good for the poor.

A visitor from Brazil told us recently that that country’s former president, “Lula” da Silva, once ordered that for every sum of money given for infrastructure, another amount equal to 2 percent of that infrastructure money be given to help the poor. It doesn’t sound like very much—only 2 percent—but in reality 2 percent of the country’s infrastructure funds would be a great deal of money and would do wonderful things for the poor. Such a practice teaches people that the poor need and deserve more than bare survival. It is compassionate giving. It is on top of money already budgeted for the poor. Maybe President Aquino can do something similar here. It would teach the values needed for democracy and narrow the income gap.

Great amounts of money will be spent on flood control infrastructure from now to 2035 under the government’s new flood control project. Can the President order that an amount equivalent to 2 percent of that figure be given to the poor? This 2 percent will be in addition to the money already allotted to them for resettlement. It can be used to improve schools and medical services for all poor people, create public work programs, enhance poor people’s diets, etc. The President can describe it as a small step toward a more just and fair Philippines. A small step for the President, a great step for all poor men, women and children, and for the country.

Can he also order that labor-intensive methods of construction be used? The International Labor Organization claims that the number of people employed will increase by 25 percent if we do so.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].

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UP-ALL Consultation on Flood Management Master Plan

Urban Poor Associates

25-A Mabuhay Street, Brgy. Central, Q.C.          Telefax: 4264118          Tel.: 4264119 / 4267615

Ref:  Princess Asuncion      Mobile phone: 09081967450     http://urbanpoorassociates.blogspot.com

** NEWS RELEASE *** NEWS RELEASE *** NEWS RELEASE *** NEWS RELEASE 

09 October 2012. In line with the celebration of World Habitat Month, Urban Poor Alliance (UP-ALL) held a forum on the new government flood control master plan on Tuesday at the Audio-Visual Room of the Social Development Complex, Ateneo De Manila University Campus.

Engr. Lydia Aguilar, Technical Project Coordinator and Director Patrick Gatan, Head of Major Flood Control Projects of Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) explained the plan. World Bank and Australian Aid, funder of the Flood control master plan were also represented. Professionals in housing and urban planning also took part in the event. Most of the 120 participants were urban poor leaders and NGOs working with the urban poor.

The flood control master plan will be one of the most expensive public works of the administration and it will involve relocating thousands of urban poor families in the course of implementing the plan.

UP-ALL a nationwide organization composed of POs, including riverside settlers and support NGOs, has been talking with the government, notable the Late Secretary Jesse Robredo, on the 50 billion fund for on-site/in-city/ near site relocation. Through this multi-sectoral consultation they engaged government to integrate the on-site housing project for estero dwellers.

Filomena Cinco, president of Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Legarda said, “This proposed flood control master plan arouses controversy among the poor as it will affect 773,000 informal settlers in the National Capital Region and 294,000 Laguna Lake settlers. This is a huge project that must involve urban poor settlers in planning. Just like our areas that are due for on-site housing. This kind of forum gave us venue to air our concerns. ”

After the DPWH presentation, at the meeting Jenny David of Alyansa ng mga Pamayanan sa Manggahan Floodway read the UP-All statement.

The statement read, “Kasama ng pamahalaan ang UP-ALL sa layuning maibsan ang pagbabaha sa Metro Manila. Hindi kami tutol sa kaunlaran na tinatanaw ng Metro Manila Flood Management Master ng Plan ng DPWH. Naniniwala kaming kung maisasakatuparan nang ayon sa plano at tamang proseso, ang mga proyektong inilatag ng DPWH ay hindi lamang makakapagbawas ng pagbabaha, makakapagliligtas din ang mga ito ng maraming buhay. Gayunpaman, bilang kumakatawan sa mga pamilya at komunidad sa mga tinagurian “danger areas” na target na linisin upang bigyang-daan ang mga nasabing proyekto, kami ay nagtatanong: may malinaw na bang plano para sa mga maaapektuhang pamilya?

The statement call for clear and acceptable plan for the affected families; concrete Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) for each community that needs to be relocated;  Identify areas for possible on-site development and  lands in the cities that can be used as in-city resettlement to avoid off-city relocation.

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UPALL Consultation on Flood Management Master Plan

Urban Poor Associates

 25-A Mabuhay Street, Brgy. Central, Q.C.            Tel.: 4264118 / 4264119 / 4267615              Fax: 4264118

Ref:  Princess L. Asuncion          Mobile phone: 0908 1967450          http://urbanpoorassociates.blogspot.com

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalist

MEDIA ADVISORY

As urban poor people celebrate World Habitat Month, Urban Poor Alliance (UP All) will organize a forum on the new government flood control master plan. It will take place on October 9, Tuesday 9:00AM-5:00PM at the Audio Visual Room of the Social Development Complex, Ateneo De Manila University Campus.

The flood control master plan will be one of the most expensive public works of the administration. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) identified a total of 735,000 informal settlers who will be affected by the project.

The forum will be attended by  five groups—government officials headed by the DPWH who will explain the plan and international aid groups; professionals in housing and urban planning , urban poor leaders; and NGOs working with  the urban poor will ask questions about the plan and make suggestions.

The forum aims to help people learn from one another and widen understanding of the problems—social, economic and political—that are inevitable in a project of such magnitude. It will also seek meaningful solutions or approaches possible in a win-win context. The meeting will issue a joint statement.

Date: October 9, 2012 (Tuesday)

Time: 9:00AM-5:00PM

Venue: Audio Visual Room of the Social Development Complex, Ateneo De Manila University Campus.

Please Cover.

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).

Work and freedom

Commentary

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
9:24 pm | Thursday, September 20th, 2012

[On the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty are the words “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”]


On the last Sunday of July we took a night cruise around lower Manhattan, the New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. The statue stands out in the bay, far from the lights of Wall Street and the financial center that burn day and night. I never guessed as we headed out at sunset that I would spend most of the evening thinking about my old immigrant relatives and the unemployed men of the urban poor areas of Metro Manila.

Our boat slowed as we approached Freedom Island where the statue rises; we drifted closer until we were almost underneath it. We saw it in silhouette against the last light in the Western sky. With its pedestal, it towers to the height of a 25-story building. The face of the statue as it looked down with deep concern on the poor and powerless people of New York, seemed wrapped in the type of head scarf Muslim women wear. Perhaps the goddess Athena looked down on ancient Athens from the Acropolis in just the same way Bicolanos might think of Our Lady of Peñafrancia.

A few hundred meters away was Ellis Island, where millions of poor immigrants landed in the 1920s-1930s, including my parents, aunts and uncles. Poor people were unloaded at Ellis Island; well-off passengers sailed on to Manhattan. For all passengers, especially for the poor, the statue was a great symbol of hope. It was the sign they were welcome in America and could begin life again in the new country. There would be problems, but the immigrants would be able to get jobs with which to raise their families, and they would be able to do so in security and freedom, protected by the country’s laws and labor unions.

It dawned on me that work and security/freedom are exactly what the men in the urban poor areas of Metro Manila are asking for.

There are government programs in the Philippines that help with income and microfinance, but they are usually for the women. This is not to criticize such programs but to highlight the great need for jobs for the men, especially the younger ones. What will happen to our society if the men are basically inutil and have to be carried along by the women? So few decent jobs are now available that the drug industry is one of the biggest employers of young men in the slums.

Can government make an extraordinary effort to provide jobs for the urban poor men? It seems unlikely that our leading job-creating industries—tourism and call centers—can employ the urban poor. Can the government, then, provide work by sponsoring public works programs? President Aquino promised to do this in the Covenant with the Urban Poor that he signed on March 6, 2010, in Del Pan, Tondo. In the covenant there is a section that discusses jobs for the poor communities. There is mention of public works created by government, and jobs that might be paid for by a combination of cash and food. The number of these jobs must be multiplied many times over:

“We will create large-scale public works programs that can generate a substantial number of jobs for poor men and women. At the onset of our term, we will emphasize labor-intensive public works programs that can generate a significant number of jobs for our poor people and give them access to at least the minimum amounts of money, food and dignity needed for their daily survival and well-being.”

The International Labor Organization has recommended that the Philippines use labor-intensive work processes in the infrastructure programs it funds. This will increase the number of men employed by 25 percent. Can the new flood control program employ such labor-intensive practices?

The Tzu Chi Foundation is a practitioner of public-works-type programs. During the recent post-flood cleanup work in resettlement areas in Montalban, it paid the people living there P400 a day to do the cleanup work. The work was done. The people had food to eat, and the men had their dignity.

There are many problems that can be solved through these types of public works: tree planting, for example, building of dikes and digging of water catchments.

We compete for the heart of the poor. If the men have work, even humble tasks at first, they will feel they have a stake in society. If they are unemployed, they are vulnerable to very destructive forms of alienation.

The Irish who came to the United States in the late 1920s, including my relatives, had just ended a civil war. There was nothing much for them in Ireland, especially for those who were on the losing side in that war. Most had only a fourth-year elementary education. America gave them jobs. They weren’t intellectually demanding jobs—construction workers, stevedores and transit employees for men, and waitresses and housemaids for women—but they gave the immigrants a foothold in the country and basic dignity. They were “making it in New York.” Their children had a chance to go to college and become doctors and scientists.

Public works projects will help our urban poor men in Metro Manila repeat such a transformation.

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

Imitating Jesse Robredo

Commentary
By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
10:03 pm | Sunday, August 26th, 2012


The praise showered on Jesse Robredo by people from all levels of Philippine society should be a high-volume wake-up call for our political elite. They should be asking, “If I die, will anyone cry for me, as thousands did for Jesse? Will I be sincerely mourned? Will people stand a long time in the rain to get a chance to view my body?” They may very well answer, “Probably not. My family will mourn and a few close friends, but the ordinary people won’t mourn. What have I ever done for them? Why should they mourn?”

We hope the love shown for Jesse in his death will awaken them to the great chance God has given them to serve His people, especially the poor. It’s not only politicians who should examine their lives, of course. We all must do so. Socrates told us, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

May we suggest some matters that our political leaders can look into should they decide to be more like our late interior and local government secretary?

Please look on the urban poor with the more caring eyes of someone like Jesse Robredo. He found friendship there and people he admired.

Please look at the immediate project Jesse was engaged in with the poor. Initially, it concerns in-city, on-site housing for approximately 5,000 poor families on Manila estero, including the Estero de San Miguel, that runs by Malacañang just a stone’s throw away. Other houses are to be built in Quezon City for families living in Doña Imelda and Gulod. This housing is new. The usual relocation move was to ship families to distant places, such as Calauan 100 kilometers away. Such relocation fractures families and limits children’s education.

Jesse was willing to allow new approaches to housing the poor, which are also recommended by housing experts, including Felino “Jun” Palafox and Dean Gloria Teodoro and Albert Zambrano of the Mapua Institute of Technology School of Architecture. Mayors and government housing agencies have opposed the new approaches because they shatter long-standing arrangements.

As I watched 10 young girls from Estero de San Miguel sing in Malacañang in honor of Jesse, I thought, these young children are as naturally gifted as any other children, but they are from poor families and live in slums, and will never realize their potential. They smile shyly now and cry as they sing “Hero.” What they and the children of our poor farmers, fishermen, tribal people and workers need is a massive shift of resources from some projects the country now supports to the welfare of the poor and near-poor, or at least 50 percent of our people.

Why will we spend approximately P30 billion to build an elevated highway connecting NLEx and SLEx, so people can get from a Clark Field-Subic Bay airport to Makati in less time than it takes now? When such an amount of money will go a long way to meet our school construction needs, provide books for all, and reward good teachers?

Why are we giving 40-80 hectares of land in the reclaimed areas off Parañaque and Pasay to casino gambling? Do we fully realize the social and political dangers of inviting into the country a vast increase in casino gambling? “A bad tree cannot give good fruit.” Instead of casinos, can’t we give 30 or so hectares of the land to our poor?

We ask our political leaders and our business and religious leaders to visit the urban poor areas and get to know the poor as real persons, like Jesse Robredo did. It doesn’t mean we will not see the petty thieves, drunks and cruel people who share the poor areas with the good men and women. We will also see that the poor are often their own worst enemies. They vote for unreliable politicians, for example. Find what is valuable among the poor and why Jesus has anchored our salvation to the help we offer the homeless, hungry, sick and thirsty poor (Mt: 25).

Lastly, Jesse believed that a strong national democracy needs a strong, democratic base among the poor. He would not work for a more prosperous nation without working to bring the poor along as co-beneficiaries with the well-off. If we want democracy, we must work for equality.



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