Best and worst of government

Commentary : Best and worst of government

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: February 18, 2010

EVERY DAY IN METRO MANILA WE HAVE numerous examples of the best and worst practices of government. In Navotas, young policemen beat up poor women old enough to be their grandmothers. The women wouldn’t disperse from a barricade they had formed to protect their homes against actions of the Department of Public Works and Highways which they believed were illegal. Lawyers and other government offices agree with the women.

Meanwhile in Baseco, Manila Mayor Fred Lim and Barangay Chair Cristo Hispano have agreed to resettle 300 fire victim families in the most humane and efficient way possible.

Cora Geducos, 61, was one of the women beaten by police in Navotas along the R-10 road that runs along Manila Bay. “He held his shield against my face,” she said of the young policeman who clubbed her, “then he bent down and hit my legs and feet with his club.” She showed me her bandaged toe and the lesions on her arms. “I didn’t think they would do that to us. We were just protecting our homes and our rights as human beings. I feel very sad about what happened. It hurts to think they would do that to old women like myself.”

Sixteen other women showed their wounds, including Angelita Villaruel, Virginia Cantellas, Daisy Jalbuena and Emma Villaruel. Few wanted to give their ages.

Fr. Robert Reyes had led a prayer service in the street at which the men and women of the barricade laughed and cried, hugged one another, listened to the Scripture, prayed and sang “Ama Namin,” which has become the anthem of the oppressed ever since it was sung in the giant rallies that supported Cory Aquino before and after the snap election of 1986.

The women were also water cannoned from a distance of a few feet. The use of water cannons is illegal in such evictions. Water cannons on women!

Usually after big fires the government takes steps to keep the poor from returning to the land they occupied, because it believes it has better use for the land. The fire victims must look for land elsewhere. Mayor Lim, the barangay captain, the local people’s organization, Kabalikat and architects from the Mapua School of Architecture have agreed on something more useful.

They, too, will not allow people to return to the land they occupied, but only until the land has been surveyed and subdivided into lots, and then they can return. The new settlement will have straight roads for ambulance and fire engine access. Access is the biggest problem in most slum fires. The recent fire spread because fire trucks couldn’t get near it.

Second, the mayor and others will ask the Mapua School of Architecture to survey and plan the settlement in consultation with the people.

Third, the restructured area will be the model for the other 6,000 families living in barong-barongs in Baseco. Because the soil is very “risky” and liable to liquefaction in case of an earthquake, houses will be limited to one story. The people involved will work with neighborhood groups, including Muslim organizations and Fr. Cris Sabili and the St. Hannibal Empowerment Center (SHEC).

The fire area has been bulldozed, and now looks like an ancient battle field excavated after the ages. Individual men and women wander about on it, lost in their thoughts. The setting sun sends long shadows of playing children across the scorched ground. The people are content as they line up for relief goods; they don’t have to worry about relocation. That is, all the people except the parents of a little girl who died in the fire.

In Navotas the people live on land designated for the widening of R-10. They agree to move and they qualify in every way for the relocation ordered in the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992. If they receive their relocation allowance, they will move.

The DPWH says it asked the National Housing Authority and other agencies to provide resettlement. When they couldn’t do so, the

DPWH claimed it had done all that was required and went ahead in another questionable way to plan the eviction. Instead of a home, it offered P21,000 to families to move, an alternative not mentioned in the law.

There is a greater willingness now even among the most influential government agencies to ignore the housing and resettlement laws. The government can deal kindly or cruelly with the poor, but there are serious consequences in this life and the next.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

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URBAN POOR — WORK FORCE AND CITIZENS

Urban poor people are blamed for the floods caused by typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana). Government officials demand they be prohibited from moving back to their homes along the rivers and esteros. The president has said that in the makeover of Metro Manila we must “rid the city” of informal settlers as if they were vermin.

There is no scientific basis proposed for such violent actions. Loggers in the Sierra Madre and developers may be more guilty. We may evict 80,000 families from the waterways at great expense and suffering only to find in 20 years the floods are back and stronger than ever. There must be a rock solid scientific reason to disrupt the lives of 400,000 persons.

Riverbank and lakeside dwellers will not insist on returning to their homes if they are offered in-city relocation near their jobs and the children’s schools.

The poor were affected that fateful Saturday (Sept. 26)just as the middle-class people. Unlike the middle-class, however, the poor had no place to go except back to their homes by the waterways.

Distant relocation is not the answer as there are usually no jobs available in the far away sites. Jobs are basic: without regular income the people will be hungry and soon return.

Let us move into 21st century thinking by making Metro Manila and our other cities inclusive ones that integrate the urban poor into their midst rather than force them into illegality on degraded sites. These diminish their humanity and serve as constant reminders of social injustices perpetuated by “the only Christian country in Asia.”

We call for a serious examination of the causes of the floods. Can it not be done by the Senate? What, if any, was the role of the poor? Who is really to blame?

We call for both public and idle private land near the riverbanks to be identified and set aside for riverbank and lakeside settlement, negotiated by government for temporary social housing use until it can identify and prepare permanent social housing sites for them in the city. We believe, however, on-site upgrading is the best solution.

We also call for a serious re-examination of our current unjust and inefficient land use patterns and a serious look at the implications of urbanization for all Filipinos, especially the poorer citizenry.

It is time to initiate humane and effective approaches that will enable our urban poor workforce to remain in the city, enjoy their rights as Filipino citizens, and help realize a vibrant, competitive, humane and inclusive Asian city.

WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD

SHELTER FROM HARM A girl whiles away the hours playing in front of her house in Bagong Silangan, Q.C. on Oct. 4.




WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD

Typhoon Ondoy no sooner began to subside than government once again blamed the poor families - - estimated to number about 80,000 families (400,000 men, women and mostly children) - - for the unprecedented flooding.

The government has prohibited these poor families from returning to their homes from the evacuation centers. Housing officials talk publicly about evicting all 80,000 families and relocating them outside the city, far from jobs and basic services.

These government actions are based on the belief that the poor caused the floods by blocking the esteros and rivers. Luckily there were other explanations for the flooding. Architects, geologists and urban planners reminded us that the causes of the floods were much more complex. Cabinet and city officials connived with developers to violate sensible planning rules. Others logged and quarried in the mountains around Metro Manila. Climate change played a role. Guilty, too, are those city officials who ignored the instructions of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992 that each city should set aside land for social housing. If that had been done 17 years ago, there would be fewer families on the rivers and esteros.

The poor are partially to blame, but there is a huge difference between the poor, the officials and developers. The latter violate the law for gain, motivated by greed. The poor live on the shabby waterways because they have too. They are there to survive and would gladly move to a relocation center in the city where they could get back and forth to their jobs. They are not necessarily opposed to relocation but to evictions and relocation that are inhuman and violate the Constitution, the country’s international covenants and laws.

We ask for two things. First, let government establish an independent board of inquiry to look into the basic causes of the flooding. We will then know who the main violators of the common good are. The study can examine also the possibilities of in-city relocation for the poor on the waterways.

Secondly, we ask government not to evict poor people until we have an explanation of what really went wrong and fully prepared and discussed plans.

The urban poor will resist evictions and relocation that violate the law and further impoverish them.

If government will not make such an inquiry, the urban poor will do so to the best of their ability.

Do not make the poor the scapegoat for the greed of the wealthy and powerful. We see poor people walking the streets looking for rice for their families. Don’t add to their suffering.

The urban poor extend their compassion to all who suffered in Ondoy, especially to the families of those who died trying to help others. May God take care of all of us.

A Prophet for the Philippines

A Prophet for the Philippines

by Denis Murphy

[This story hasn't happened yet, although we tell it in the past tense. It may happen any day now, so look out. Forewarned is forearmed. You will hear thunder rumbling.]

The old archbishop walked up and down beside his cathedral as he did every night after dinner. He said his rosary as he walked and was so deep in thought a person would have to bump into him before the archbishop would notice.

An even older man suddenly appeared beside him, seemingly out of nowhere. The man was dressed in the white suit, brown and white shoes and panama hat that gentlemen wore in the 1940s.

"You look terrible, excellency," the man said.

The archbishop knew him. "It could be worse, my friend."

"Is it the poor again?"

"My people just don't care about them."

"We know and we are going to give them one final chance. Remember that favor you kept asking us for?"

"The prophet?"

"We had a hard time finding him, but now we have him. We've chosen you."

"Me? I'm no prophet."

"That's what they always said, isn't it? Don't argue. You are God's prophet for this stiff-necked Filipino people. You are their Amos, Jeremiah, John the Baptist. It's decided."

"Wait a minute. What do I say to them?"

"It's up to you. We don't have any idea. Nothing seems to work with your people, especially those well-off people of yours. Good luck, excellency. You'll need it." The man disappeared in a single whoosh of air.

The archbishop-prophet wondered how he would approach his people. They like statistics and theory. They like serious discussions, but after such talk nothing happens. He was fond of quoting United Nations figures that claimed over 300 Filipino children died each day of malnutrition-related diseases. The children simply didn't have enough food. His audience shook their heads in horror when they heard his sad tale, but when they left the church all was forgotten. Calm, informed discussion wouldn't do it.

He thought for some more time and then decided: if I am a prophet, I'll act like one. A few days later, dressed in ragged pants, rubber slippers and a faded T-shirt advertising soap powder, with his face and arms smeared with dirt, he pushed a kariton to the middle of a bridge over an estero. People living under the bridge had been evicted. When word got around that the scavenger was the archbishop, the crowds gathered.

"The Lord God Almighty says: ‘Once upon a time 57 families lived in darkness under this bridge. Now it's empty. Where have you put my children? Where are my children? Where are the old people? Where is the old blind woman who lived here?' The Lord God says to you: ‘Because you drove them out and threw them in the streets like garbage, and left them homeless in the rain, I will punish this city. Shame on those who ordered the demolition. Shame on all of you who stood by and did nothing. Shame on you police who could have stopped it. Shame, too, on my priests who failed to struggle to stop it.'"

The Archbishop finished and as he pushed his kariton away from the bridge the crowd fell back to let him pass. "Thank you, excellency," an older woman said, but most everyone else was silent. Few looked the archbishop in the eye as he passed. Instead, they worried about him.

The headline in the leading newspaper the next morning was guarded: "Archbishop's Bridge Talk Puzzles Listeners." People calling in to the radio stations worried about the "appropriateness" of the action, or felt his dress and the kariton were "troubling". They noted the archbishop had completely departed from his usual low key manner of speaking. "He sounds so hostile now," a listener to Radio Veritas's Caritas at Maralita said. "I don't think I like him this way."

The archbishop understood the reaction was bad. It didn't do any good to threaten his people.

He was a prophet till he died, so he couldn't stop. He would try another approach, and so on TV the following Sunday night he wore a simple gray clerical shirt with a small wooden cross hanging around his neck. He asked the camera to zoom in close. He wanted to speak in the soft tones he used when talking to his priests who had problems or to old people close to death. It was indeed a soft tone, but thunder rumbled in the background of his words. The close-up would also, though the archbishop didn't realize it, show the kindness and sadness in his eyes.

He talked about two little squatter boys he had passed near a hospital. They were 4 or 5 years old and were sitting on a rubber mat eating cheese curls. Not far away were the kariton where their families lived. When it rained the families pulled blue plastic sheets over themselves and their kariton and settled down low like carabaos in the rain. "The boys talked and shared the bag of cheese curls, passing it back and forth. I waved to them and they waved back. I felt so sad. What will happen to the boys? Will their lives be full of pain and frustration? Then I realized, those two boys were there by the road because God intended us to see them. God is saying to us, ‘you are responsible for them'. Yes, we are also responsible for the mothers nearby building their small wood fires to cook rice, and for all the weak and poor of our city. As God gives these children to us, He also gives Himself. If we refuse them, we refuse Him.

He stopped there and stared into the camera. He prayed his people would take this last chance that God was giving them to amend their ways. He was afraid to think of what would happen otherwise. He heard thunder rumbling.

###

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.


http://www.thepoc.net/index.php/Parokya-Sa-Web/Tinig-ng-Maralita/A-Prophet-for-the-Philippines.html

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iWitness: Pier 16

08/19/2008 | 12:06 AM




They move from one place to another, rain or shine, they bring along their families cramped in a trailer van. This August, Kara David bears witness to the life of trailer van assistants.

Assistants to trailer van drivers or pahinantes usually travel from city to province taking with them family members. They reside in a trailer van with address at Pier 16! Just like a typical house, the trailer has facilities too. The van's chassis becomes their basement, the road serves as their kitchen, and nearby drainage functions as their toilet.

Pahinantes are modern-day Filipino nomads that reflect the country's poverty. Evelyn brings her child every week to the hospital due to persistent coughs and colds while Leonard studies under the pier's lamp post. Everyday, they scramble up the pier's fence to avoid getting caught by guards.

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Palipat-lipat ng lugar, karay-karay ang buong pamilya, umulan man o umaraw, nagsisiksikan sa iisang trailer van. Ngayong Agosto, ang buhay ng mga pahinante ang susundan ni Kara David.

Bumabiyahe ang mga pahinante mula lungsod hanggang lalawigan angkas ang buong mag-anak. Sa trailer van na sila nakatira, at ang kanilang address -- Pier 16! Itinuturing na nila ang sasakyan na kanilang mansyon kung saan dito na sila namumuhay. Ang chassis ng van ang siya nilang silong, ang kalsada ang kusina, at ang kalapit na estero sa pier ang palikuran.

Sila ang makabagong "nomadic" na Pinoy, ang salamin ng kahirapan sa Pilipinas. Si Leonard, pilit na nag-aaral sa ilaw ng poste ng pier. Si Evelyn naman, linggo-linggong dinadala ang anak sa ospital dahil sa pasakit na ubo at sipon. At araw-araw, sumasampa sila sa bakod ng pier makaiwas lang sa mga mata ng tagapagbabantay sa compound.

Makati fire victims seek help

07/06/2008 | 09:56 PM




750 homeless in Makati fire
07/07/2008 | 12:36 AM



Fire hits compound in Makati for nth time

Makati fire affects 2,000 families, destroys 500 homes

18 hurt in Makati slum area fire

iWitness: Diskarte ala Pobre

'Diskarte ala Pobre'

Episode aired on November 19, 2007

Every morning, noon and night, Quiapo Church serves free “lugaw" or rice porridge to the poorest of poor. On Tuesdays, the El Shaddai gives out free bread. The Methodist Church opens its soup kitchen on Thursday afternoons, while on Fridays, San Sebastian Church does the same.

Kara David meets a group of beggars who prove that with a bit of resourcefulness, one can survive for free in Metro Manila.

Their solution to seemingly endless poverty and hunger – and that of other urban poor dwellers – is documented in Kara's upcoming i-Witness documentary.

Aling Nining saves on her food budget by eating “pagpag" or food from the garbage dump. A college graduate, she continues living in a dumpsite to save her income. She has managed to buy cellphones, two colored tv sets and sends her three children to school with her thriftiness. For as long as her kids are still in school, she says she won’t stop eating – and feeding her children – recycled garbage.

A new and sometimes disturbing set of Filipino values, espoused by survivors of poverty, is explored by Kara David in “Diskarte Ala Pobre" this Monday late night over GMA, right after Saksi.

Sine Totoo: Philippine Agenda: Housing

In Philippine Agenda: Housing, veteran news anchor Mel Tiangco highlights the issues surrounding housing in the Philippines.

The special discusses the phenomena of urban migration and its impact on housing through the story of Marian. A victim of super typhoon Reming, Marian lost the house she saved up for years to build in Bicol. She believed she would meet better luck in Manila. But instead of finding work and a decent place to live, she and her children had to squeeze into a squatter shack in Payatas, already housing four other families.

Marian’s family is just one of thousands who migrate to the big cities every year. However, most of them do not earn enough to afford a decent home, and end up settling under bridges, along railways, sidewalks, or even in the center isles of big roads.

Sine Totoo host Howie Severino leads an animated discussion on the issue of being homeless with Philippine Agenda host Mel Tiangco and her segment producer Madel Zaide. Among the various housing programs implemented by the government, Tiangco stresses we still lack a program for the poorest of the poor, those who cannot afford even low-cost housing units.

A roof over one’s head… a decent home. Is there hope that over four million homeless Filipinos will achieve this simple dream?

Church joins housing rights advocates in observance of Habitat Day

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

Church joins housing rights advocates in observance of Habitat Day

28 September 2007. Bagbag cemetery is what Encarnacion Regalado and her family call ‘home’. They are living on top of a niche, using sacks as wall and dilapidated iron sheets as roof. The family has survived there for 28 years in the midst of heavy rains and a hell-like weather. Their horrific experience so far was not about ghost encounter but the non-stop demolition to make way for new compartments for the dead.

Regalado family is only one of the increasing number of homeless in Metro Manila, according to Urban Poor Associates (UPA), a non-government organization dealing with homelessness. “The government’s policies such as privatization of the public land, improvement of the dangerous area, beautification of the street have triggered forced evictions and illegal demolitions rendering poor families homeless.”

UPA called for a halt to demolitions as the world celebrates Habitat Day on October 1. "Driving away people from their homes is the most inhuman way to celebrate the World Habitat Day,” said Lawyer Bienvenido Salinas II, coordinator of UPA's legal unit St. Thomas More Law Center.

UPA notes that almost all cases of rampant demolitions being conducted by the government throughout Metro Manila have violated in one way or another the international laws and the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA), which prohibits use of force during demolitions and requires provision of suitable relocation areas.

Lack of adequate housing highlights a key concern in a letter signed last September 13, 2007 by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo.

The CBCP Permanent Council requests Archbishops, Bishops and Diocesan Administrators, to enjoin their priests to read in all Holy Masses on October 7 the CBCP’s “A Statement on the Nation’s Housing Problems" which was issued by the 94th Bishops' Plenary Assembly.

“As we speak in behalf of our homeless brethren and those living in very difficult conditions, let us continue praying for the speedy action of the government in response to their needs. Let us help them in whatever way we can,” Archbishop Lagdameo said.

Task Force Anti-Illegal Demolition (TF-AID) lauded the Church’s efforts in calling on those concerned to stop uncaring evictions and demolitions. Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, for example, has condemned as inhuman the ongoing demolition of houses along Commonwealth, Quezon City. Last September 24, together with priests and nuns, Bishop Tobias personally asked Mayor Feliciano Belmonte to stop the wrecking crew of Metro Manila Development Authority so that affected families can find temporary staging area.

TF-AID spokesperson Soti Sabarre said poor families who are mostly under eviction threat are set to mobilize next week to urge the government to look into their plight instead of the mouthwatering ZTE deal. “The $329-million contract for the National Broadband Network (NBN) project could already house 300,000 homeless families but this government would never borrow that amount to uplift the lives of the poor.”

TF-AID was formed by UPA, Community Organization of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE) Foundation, Community Organizers Multiversity (COM) and people’s organizations affected by government projects such as flood control, railway improvement, road widening and beautification. -30-