Change the strategy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

In the New York City subway, there are signs telling people to notify a policeman if they see something dangerous happening: “If you see something, tell someone.” In Tacloban, there are hundreds of people, from all walks of life, who want to tell whatever “policeman” is listening that the government’s relocation plans in their city are loading one more disaster on the shoulders of poor people who have suffered enough.

As many as 20,000 families, who are still mourning the deaths of their loved ones in the onslaught of Typhoon “Yolanda,” as well as the loss of their jobs and homes, will be relocated from downtown Tacloban where they live to hills and logged-over woodland far north where there are no jobs. Most of the families will be sent to temporary housing, which is good for one or two years at most. Hopefully, they will be transferred to permanent housing within the two-year period, though there are doubts that the government can meet such deadlines.

This relocation plan violates the central lesson learned from the many relocations of poor people from Metro Manila in the years 1965 to the present: that you cannot relocate poor families far from the city because there are no jobs in these far-off places, and government cannot create jobs for so many people. Government is sending thousands of families, wounded in soul and body, to survive without work in strange surroundings, in deteriorating houses.

True, people can commute back to Tacloban to earn a minimum wage of P260. But by the time a family subtracts 20 percent of the earnings for transportation and other work-related expenses (baon, for example), there is little money left. We have also learned that a poor family cannot survive decently on a single low-income salary. The mother must work part-time; the children must help after school.

There is, however, no demand for washerwomen or manicurists in relocation areas; children can scavenge in-city, but there is no valuable scrap in a community of poor people. It is better, economically and socially, for rich and poor to live side by side. It may also be better in a religious way. Living side by side, rich and poor learn to know one another, which makes the Church of the Poor more feasible in our lifetime.

Alternatives

Are there alternatives? Thankfully, there are. There is more than enough idle land in Tacloban suitable for housing. The Bank of the Philippine Islands, for example, has printed a list of about 40 pieces of property it has foreclosed in Tacloban. Some of these areas measure 6 hectares. Some haven’t been used for 20 years. We had an engineer look at one of these 6-hectare properties, and he told us that very little money would be needed to prepare the land for housing.

This is a list of just one bank. There are other banks, businesses, government agencies and private individuals with similar land holdings.

A government that has concern for its poor people can make these landowners offers they can’t refuse, that can be well within the law and customs of a democracy. The Church teaches that God made the world for all. No one, no entity, can hold idle land which poor people need to survive. We are stewards of the land, not absolute owners in God’s eyes.

The people have suffered enough. In-city relocation is relatively painless. The people work with a contractor (government, nongovernment or private) to build the houses. They can decide what type of house and overall community development they want. They move in when the houses are ready. They can usually walk to work or take a short jeepney ride. All the services are available because the main water and light lines, hospitals, schools, markets, churches, etc. are already in place around the site.

To understand the uncertainty and pain of distant relocation in a temporary housing area, it is necessary to visit one. We were in the Operation Compassion (OC) relocation site in New Kawayan, 10 kilometers north of the barangays of Tacloban from which the people had come. We were there because it was raining and we had met two small boys shivering in the cold who were from the OC site and were out searching for firewood. We took them home and then the thunderstorm hit, so we decided to wait it out there. The 78 homes are all alone in an area of old fields and overgrowth. The wind and rain battered the houses that were shuttered up like turtles in danger. We wondered what the people would do if someone in the community had to be taken to a hospital at night. There were no vehicles in the community that we could see.

The storm passed, the sun came out, and the beautiful children spilled out of the houses to play in the street. It struck me that the children would suffer the most in the future in that relocation site. Food was scarce, some women told us, because community feeding was stopped a month or more ago. One mother told us she could live in the house for six months because she was told she would transfer to a permanent home in six months. She may be disappointed. The construction of permanent homes is moving very slowly in the government’s pilot project, which is also in New Kawayan.

How will the mother react when she has to stay a year, two years or more in that house? Added to all her problems will be the experience of living in a rapidly deteriorating house.

Hunger

People in Barangay 88, 89 and 90, as well as people in the temporary houses outside Tacloban, say there has been growing hunger ever since the government and the United Nations agencies ended the community feeding programs. The expectation was that new jobs and cash-for-work programs would help the poor enter once again into a cash economy after six months of community feeding.

However, Tacloban still has a long way to go: Only 2,008 businesses are active now out of the 12,900 businesses that were active last year. Jobs are scarce. Fishing has its down seasons. There are no large cash-for-work programs organized.

With growing hunger comes an increase in petty crimes and violence. Perhaps it’s time to restore the feeding programs. Why were they stopped, in the first place?

Change the relocation strategy and resume the feeding programs, before it is too late and we discover that we have clusters of poor people close to death all throughout the northern part of Leyte.

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

Night rains

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

Many of us lie awake these nights listening to the rain race across the city, wave after wave. We may be grateful for the dry homes we have. We may feel the hostility of the wind and rain and think of the poor people trying to get through the night in  kariton  hauled up on the sidewalks, or the people sleeping in doorways, allowed to do so by the security guards out of simple compassion, or the people in the shanties of the slums where mothers gather the children as close to them as possible to keep them dry and comforted.

We may think of the “Yolanda” survivors’ tents that leak whenever it rains, and we can sense the people’s fear that another typhoon is upon them. After some time we may realize very well that as a people, we haven’t done nearly enough for our poor brothers and sisters and their children. We can do much better.

Each city is supposed to acquire land and provide housing for its own landless poor. No city does enough. The national government is supposed to support the local initiatives with advice, funds and models. Despite the efforts of many good people, not nearly enough is done at the national level either. The country’s war on poverty is in a trough. Little happens that is very good or very bad. We hear a monotonous “no” from the government when working people, including teachers, ask for a salary raise. Land reform ends this month—unmourned, it seems. It ends “not with a bang but a whimper,” to use T.S. Eliot’s words. There is little movement in any direction. It may take a presidential election to wake us up.

It all comes down to the President to get something going. It is his team. Can he do something to renew hope in the poor that concrete good things will happen to them? What actions can he take that will kick-start meaningful development and recapture the trust in him that the poor had at the beginning of his term of office? I suggest that he proclaim land for the poor in four areas of Metro Manila. Others may have other suggestions.

Last June 7, 5,000 people led by Bella dela Rosa, Marlon Querante, Lito Tejada and Rowena Nevado walked 10 kilometers around the Manggahan Floodway to air their desire for a proclamation that would give them land tenure security and banish the sword of eviction that has dangled over them since the floodway was constructed in the 1970s. There are 40,000 families living on its banks.

Nearby in Lupang Arenda, some 63,000 families also want a proclamation. Arenda has grown almost unnoticed to the size of Cagayan de Oro or Dagupan. In Slip Zero, Tondo, a group of strong women has led 200 families on a 15-year search for a proclamation, and in Isla Puting Bato, 1,000 families want a chance at a new life.

Proclamations offer a new life, in that the poor get to own a piece of land that they develop with their neighbors into permanent, attractive and truly democratic villages. Proclamations don’t cost the government any outlay of cash, and they are very popular. They can be issued within a month.

The President has only one small proclamation to his credit. Why should we think he will proclaim land for half a million people in the four areas? First, he may have begun to listen to the criticism of his economy, coming from persons like Pope Francis. Rarely has a pope spoken so sharply on any subject as Francis has on the evils of economies like ours. Maybe the President, through his trips around the country, has seen that things are far from well and adjustments have to be made on his plans.

To proclaim the areas just mentioned will give many families a kick-start toward decent urban living, but, equally important, the proclamations will hopefully kick-start the administration toward a more direct service to the poor that will complement the many moves of assistance that the President has made for well-off business people.

A certain disenchantment has set in between the poor and the President. They like him and admire him for his honesty, peace-keeping and firm foreign policy, but he has become a remote figure. When was the last time he visited an urban poor area, or a rural barrio, or a fishing or tribal village, or a factory, to talk to the people? Such symbolic visits and conversations are important. How will the President know the people’s problems and their sorrows unless he listens to them? How will they know that he is aware of their problems and sincerely cares what happens to them?

Maybe the President will see the value of direct action and visit Negros one day with soldiers to arrest the hacenderos who use the law and violence to frustrate land reform. Maybe, he’ll go to Tacloban and see the poor families in tents that leak when it rains and turn into ovens when the sun is out, and he’ll take charge of the hunt for land for relocation. Maybe, people hope, he will realize he has done more than enough for the rich and powerful and must turn his attention to his poor brothers and sisters.

Such presidential action may invigorate the government and send a surge of energy through the ranks and bring back among the poor some of the hope they had in the early days of his administration.

Proclaim Manggahan, Arenda, Slip Zero and Isla Puting Bato, Mr. President.

We must work while we have the light, Jesus told us, “for the night comes when no man works” (John 9:4).

The end of his presidency and his great chance to help is drawing rapidly to an end.

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

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/76093/night-rains#ixzz365NzYF9J 

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