Trapped in unbreakable gridlock

Commentary 

Denis Murphy

One day the long lines of cars taking people home from work at the end of the day will slow to a crawl and finally stop. The roar of traffic will cease and a silence, alarming in its completeness, will take over. Soon one or two drivers will blow their horns in annoyance and then all the drivers will unite in a piteous plea to the gods of traffic to come to their aid. There will be no answer; the gods have left Edsa, C-5 and all of Metro Manila. They leave behind hundreds of thousands of cars trapped in unbreakable gridlock. The cars we were so proud of are now junk for the ages.

We should have known this moment was coming when we found that young bankers in Marikina must leave their houses at 6 a.m. to get to their offices in Makati by 9 a.m. Lawyers in Novaliches must leave their homes at 5:30 a.m. to get to a hearing in Makati at 8:30. There are no longer special rush hours; there are traffic jams at high noon and late at night.

We should have come to our senses when we found we were spending more money on parking spaces in Metro Manila than on the housing of poor families. The first six floors of the new Napolcom building at Edsa and Quezon Boulevard, for example, are given to parking cars. Whole buildings are given over to parking. The costs involved far outweigh the funds given to housing the poor.

We should have realized traffic was moving toward a tragic crisis when we saw increasing examples of road rage. Recently on Edsa, two businessmen crashed into each other. The two leapt out of their cars, drew their guns, and started firing. Unfortunately, an innocent passerby was injured. The two gunmen must have had their guns on the seat beside them, ready for action.

We should have realized that in a poor country where there isn’t enough food or medicine for every child, we should not keep spending money to build the flyovers, tunnels and elevated highways the cars demand. We barely managed in the past to keep up with the increase in cars, but we are falling behind (traffic is slowing): The patient is dying. The Department of Public Works and Highways estimates that it will have spent P1 trillion (12 zeros) on highways from 2011 to 2016 (Urban Roads Project Office). President Aquino has given the urban poor of Metro Manila affected by flooding P50 billion for the same five years, which is 5 percent of the total given the cars. The money given the poor is appreciated, but it is clear that the housing fund pales in comparison with that given to highways and cars. We can’t compare the two amounts in every regard, and there are other funding to be figured in, but the comparison gives some idea of the imbalances involved.

Finally, we should have stopped and taken a good hard look at our traffic problem when the Japan International Cooperation Agency told us that P2 billion was being wasted each day in Metro Manila because of the terrible traffic-fuel losses and unused work hours.

What must be done? The starting datum for a fruitful discussion must be that there are simply too many cars, and their number must be radically reduced, by up to half perhaps. There will be no hope of smooth-flowing traffic ever again if the cars are not seriously culled. Cars are the heart of the problem. Trucks, buses, bad driving habits, poorly-maintained vehicles and bad policing are much less crucial. In Metro Manila, 1.6 million cars were registered last year (DOTC/LTO, September 2013). If the number is limited significantly, we will not need new, expensive infrastructure; the present highways and flyovers will be enough. The money saved can be used for a first-class bus system. The reduced number of cars will allow for speed. Our young businessmen and lawyers will be able to board an air-conditioned bus near Cubao and arrive in Makati in 20 minutes, just enough time to read the papers.

How do we limit the cars? We must limit them, so there must be a way:

• We can do it through fees. If you wish to take your car on Edsa or other main arteries on work days, you pay a steep fee. To make this scheme acceptable, there must be a good public transport system as an alternative. Fees and new transport must appear at the same time. Singapore and other cities have used this method.

• The government buys back cars beginning with the oldest models. In addition, it gives the owners a lifetime free pass on the new bus system it will put in place. It offers other inducements as necessary.

• Up to 6 a.m. cars can travel freely. After 6 a.m. they must have special licenses. After 10 p.m. they can drive freely.

The prospect of a complete breakdown of traffic may seem farfetched, but remember, we once thought typhoons with 300-kph winds and seven-meter-high storm surges were far-fetched until Supertyphoon “Yolanda” leveled the Visayas. We need our creative people, young and old, to put their minds to this problem: How do we limit cars so that our traffic transport system can get us where we want to go swiftly and comfortably? In New York they now charge $14 to cross a bridge in a car, and $28 back and forth. It has lowered the number of cars coming into the city.

This is not a wacky search. We must limit cars, or you will look out the window someday and see an unbreakable Gordian Knot of stalled traffic.

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

Parola fire—joy and sorrow

Commentary
By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Recently in Parola, Tondo, a fire driven by tornado-like winds destroyed 100 hollow-block houses in which an estimated 300 families lived. We walked a few days later in the blackened ruins. It looked as if we were moving through a prison block of fire-scorched cells. The alley, however, was alive with children playing, men rebuilding, and the banging of hammers on roofs of GI sheets.


There were tragic stories. A two-year-old girl was trapped in her house. The neighbors told us they could hear the little girl crying for help even over the roar of the wind and fire. The crying went on for some time. Young men tried to reach her, but couldn’t. Then the crying stopped, and hours later firemen carried out the small body.

There were happy stories. One-year-old Rafael Iscala was trapped on the upper floor of his house with his aunt. His mother watched helplessly from the alleyway and then two hands appeared at the window; it was the aunt holding the baby. After a few seconds of hesitation, the aunt dropped the child. Men from Oceanlink Trucking caught him 15 feet below.

We met Rafael later in the relief center. When the crowd of children there heard his story, they looked up at the little boy in his mother’s arms as if he were the world’s first baby astronaut just back from outer space. Rafael accepted the attention with great modesty and his thumb in his mouth.

The survivors we met were happy to be alive. Laurie Cantero, the mother of four young boys, was grateful: “At least I still have my boys.” The little girl died only a few meters away. We asked Fe Galaban, a grandmother who lived with three of her own children and five grandchildren in her house, if she still believed in God. She was surprised at the question. “Siyempre (of course)! I don’t blame God. God didn’t do this.” The neighbors call Aling Fe “Mama.” When the mothers work, she watches their children.

The people are generally not critical, but some questions should be asked. The government did a good job with relief work. There is a new evacuation center built near the Del Pan Sports Center where the people were able to go. There is more than enough food there. On the other hand, the men doing the repair work have to labor by themselves. If they have money or the ability to borrow, they take out a loan from the bumbay at the usual 5-6 interest rate. If a man or woman head of the household has no money, there is no repair work. We didn’t see any cooperative repair work. “Kanya-kanya,” Vicente Mendiola said. “That’s all there is.” If a man has male relatives, they will help, but the neighbors are busy with their own houses. If people leave their newly bought housing materials unwatched, these will be stolen by outsiders. Even the burned lumber and GI sheets recovered from the ruins of the fire are stolen.

The government can take advantage of such fires and disasters to reblock homes and subsidize house repair. If a small area were rehabilitated, it would be a model for the rest of a large area—for Parola, for example.

Nowadays, as much time is given to rehabilitation as to emergency relief. If we don’t move ahead, we drift and fall back. Disaster can be totally tragic, or it can lead to new and welcome initiatives.

Joseph Estrada and Vice President Jojo Binay were there to give food and money. Liberal Party people were not seen in the fire area, nor were priests or nuns. No one brought the people together to plan better ways of rebuilding, or to pray. It’s not too soon to talk of the future. Such talk gives hope and a purpose in the hard situation.

Ironically, the house where the fire began is neat and swept clear of all debris, while most of the houses are still full of rubble.

There were hundreds of little children in the new relief center. At 4 p.m. the loudspeaker announced there was “merienda” on the first floor for children, and suddenly the children stampeded through the corridors and down the stairs. Step out of the way or be trampled. The children were laughing: It was all a game.

Parola lies at the mouth of the Pasig River. There are approximately 12,000 families packed into some 10-12 hectares of land, and it has so far defied efforts to develop it. The land was proclaimed for the homes of the residents by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Recently, the mayor took steps to get land titled for the people. A workable plan is still needed.

We left Parola with mixed memories. The people are resilient and sensitive to the sorrow of others. Not all of them, however: There are hungry people and bad guys who steal from the victims. The children are unmatched anywhere. The government, the Church, the political parties and the NGOs must do more. They all gave relief but now development is needed, which is more difficult to organize. Can the government, the people and all other groups develop a plan that will improve the lives of all the poor of Parola? “Kanya-kanya” is not enough for people. They have to unite and cooperate with one another to establish their own influential place in this society.

We will remember the two-year-old girl and her cries for help. We will remember young Rafael falling calmly 15 feet with his thumb in his mouth. We will remember Fe Galaban, the grandmother who was surprised when she was asked if she still believed in God.

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

Urban Poor Reenact Joseph and Mary’s Search for Shelter

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

Urban Poor Reenact Joseph and Mary’s Search for Shelter

Manila, 15 December 2009 (Tuesday). Over two thousand urban poor people will march along the streets of Manila today repeating the question asked by Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: "Do you have a decent place where we can stay?"

Led by Joseph, Mary and the three Kings, urban poor people in costumes will march from Gomburza Plaza in front of the old Senate Building along Padre Burgos Avenue to Manila Cathedral carrying lanterns, belen, stars and other Christmas symbols.

Participants include children, old people, victims of demolitions, scavengers, relocated railroad families, people’s organizations, various non-government organizations, friends and supporters.

The theme of this year’s Panunuluyan of the urban poor is “Umaasa at kumikilos tungo sa isang masagana at mapayapang lungsod”.

The Panunuluyan is sponsored by members of Task Force Anti-Eviction composed of non-government organizations such as Urban Poor Associates (UPA), Community Organizers Multiversity (COM), Community Organization of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE), with the help of various NGOs and people’s organizations.

“The urban poor’s problem is homelessness. We realized that at Christmastime, homelessness was also the problem of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. So we tried to connect those two. We were not the first one who thought of that because there is the old custom of Panunuluyan in the villages (barrios). So we decided to reenact the old tradition of Joseph and Mary going from place to place looking for a place to settle in and where Mary can have a baby with the modern problem of homelessness of the people,” said Denis Murphy, Executive Director of UPA.

“We’ve done that every year since 1987, twenty two years. And I think over those years we’ve educated the poor people to understand that God understands what it is to be homeless after the experience in Bethlehem. And I hope we have educated the powers that be that they understand also in a small way that to leave the urban poor homeless or to make them homeless even worse is to render God homeless as the powers that be did in Bethlehem,” Murphy added.

This year urban poor people will have a drama. They will have the reenactment of the search of Mary and Joseph for a place to live. And then they will go into the church for Mass with Bishop Broderick Pabillo at 9:30 AM. After the mass, people will have contests – singing contest, carol contest, belen contest, dancing contest, costume contest; and lunch.

During the mass they will give some awards. One award is for the Urban Poor Person of the Year. This is for Myrna Porcare of North Fairview, Quezon City who was shot by security guards when she was trying to defend the homes of her fellow urban poor people.

They are also giving awards to the following: Congressman Leonardo Montemayor, Aba-Ako Party-list representative, for introducing House Bill 6675, the Omnibus Amendment Bill for Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) to protect the housing rights of the poor; Lawyer Jose Midas Marquez for his work reconciling the Supreme Court decision to clean up Manila Bay with the need to relocate the poor and give them adequate notice and consultation; Father Anton Pascual and Radyo Veritas for their unflagging advocacy on radio for the issues and concerns of the poor; And former Senator Joey Lina for his authorship of UDHA (R.A. 7279) that guarantees the right of the urban poor to adequate housing.

They are also giving a citation to a poor woman, Cirila Bulagner, in the name of all the members of Coalition of Services of the Elderly (COSE), an elderly people’s organization, for her years of service to the elderly in providing home care and teaching others how to help the elderly.

According to UPA, there are thousands of homeless families in Metro Manila mainly because of forced evictions, illegal demolitions, lack of access to affordable housing and public services, labor contractualization, high cost of living, globalization, commercialism, displacements due to armed conflicts, rural to urban migration, graft and corruption, urban poverty aggravated by greed, selfishness and indifference. -30-

MEDIA ADVISORY - Panunuluyan ng Maralitang Tagalungsod 2009

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

Panunuluyan ng Maralitang Tagalungsod 2009

We are having our annual Panunuluyan of the Urban Poor again on the morning of December 15, 2009 (Tuesday) from 8:00AM to 1:00PM.

Panunuluyan recreates the search of Joseph and Mary for a shelter where their child Jesus might be born. We see this event in the light of the urban poor people’s search for homes, peace and a decent life.

Beginning at 8:00 AM, about 2,000 urban poor people will march from GOMBURZA Plaza (opposite Old Senate Bldg.) to Manila Cathedral.

There will be a mass led by Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila at 9:30 AM. During the mass, the Urban Poor Person of the Year Award will be given to the person who in the judgment of the poor has done the most for them. There will be a Christmas carol, games for the children, choir, parol, best in costume and belen-making contests and a lot more. Please join us and bring your friends.

Photo ops: Drama at Bethlehem – Modern reenactment of the search of Joseph and Mary for a room in the inn.

Date: December 15, 2009 (Tuesday)
Assembly point: GOMBURZA Plaza, Padre Burgos Street (8:00 AM)
Mass with Bishop Broderick Pabillo: Manila Cathedral (9:30 AM)

Panunuluyan ng Maralitang Tagalungsod 2009

Dear Friends,

Greetings from all of us and the urban poor people we work with.

We are having our annual Panunuluyan of the Urban Poor again this year. It will take place on the morning of December 15, 2009 (Tuesday) from 8:00AM to 1:00PM at the Manila Cathedral.

As you know the Panunuluyan recreates the search of Joseph and Mary for a shelter where their child Jesus might be born. We see this event in the light of the urban poor people’s search for homes, peace and a decent life.

Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng not only brought great suffering upon the urban poor, as upon other sectors of society, but also revealed that there exists throughout society the belief that the poor are the cause of the floods. It is hard to remove such a belief by words alone, no matter how many times scientists tell us the poor were minor causes at most of the floods.

We believe it will help all people if we can spend a morning together.

Following the stars, about 2,000 to 3,000 urban poor people will march from GOMBURZA Plaza (opposite Old Senate Bldg. along Padre Burgos Street) to Manila Cathedral. The marchers will also include the Blessed Mother and Joseph.

Urban poor actors and actresses will perform the Nativity story in front of the Cathedral.

We will all attend mass led by Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila, then pay attention to the songs, dances, skits and stories of the young, middle aged and very old poor people.

During the mass, the Urban Poor Person of the Year Award will be given to the person who in the judgment of the poor has done the most for them. Some recognition will also be given to friends of the urban poor.

The morning will end with a joint Act of Hope — poor and well-off together — in the Philippines and Philippine society.

There will be a Christmas carol, games for the children, choir, parol, best in costume and belen-making contests and a lot more.

We will provide a good lunch for everyone and a never-ending supply of ice cream for the kids. Participants include children, old people, victims of demolitions, scavengers, relocated families, leaders of people’s organization, urban poor friends and NGOs from all over Metro Manila.

Please join us and bring your friends.

See you on December 15.

PASTORAL LETTER ON URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

PASTORAL LETTER ON URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

Unless the lord builds the house, those who build it labor
in pain. (PS 127, 1)

After the terrible destructions brought about by typhoon Ondoy in our metropolis, we now embark in rebuilding our lives and our cities. Life must go on. We must move on. We move now to the arduous work of rehabilitation. Let us do this not haphazardly and superficially so that we rebuild on firm foundations and the sufferings of others may not be aggravated. Let us allow ourselves to be guided by the Lord and his teachings.

On October 9, Aling Myrna and her teen-age son, residents of a community living in North Fairview, were shot to death by a private security guard as they protested the location of a fence being put up to keep them and their community “out of danger!”

Why do the thousands of people, people like Aling Myrna, cling to their homesites even in danger areas, and resist relocation to safer sites outside the city? The answer is simple. Their sources of livelihood are in the city, and there are none in far-away relocation areas. Commuting to the city from these areas would take many hours each day and would cost a very substantial part of a day’s income. Better the risks of life as an informal settler in a danger zone, they argue, than death by starvation in nice houses far away.

These, be it noted, are the people who keep the city humming. They are mainly market vendors and small tradespeople, bus and taxi drivers, washwomen and house help, janitors and construction workers, even policemen, firemen and public school teachers. They do not beg in the streets or steal food. Without them the city would come to a halt. Yet there is no legal place for them in the city.

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Centesimus Annus” (no. 43) is sharp and to the point on this matter.

“The obligation to earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace.”

Behind the killing of Aling Myrna and her son lies a whole “structure of sin,”: land values which are far beyond the reach of our poor and many of the middle class, low taxes on unused land, the use of vast amounts of land for shopping malls, for upscale residential subdivisions and golf courses.

The term “structure of sin” tells us that the evil is pervasive, built into the structures of our society, something of which we are all a part. If the construction workers who build our homes and offices received wages sufficient for legal income, those homes and houses would cost far more than they do. Our newspapers would cost far more if the scavengers in Payatas who collect old paper for recycling were able to live away from the garbage and filth. Indeed, practically all that we buy or the services we use bear the mark of this sin.

It is not enough then, to simply order people off the waterways. A deep restructuring of our society is called for, starting in the present crisis with urban and land policy. To this effort of restructuring, we, the Archbishop and Bishops of Metro Manila pledge our full support. Hence we call for:

1. Urban land reform so that the poor may have the possibility to have security of tenure in our cities where their livelihood is found.


2. A moratorium on demolition of the dwellings of the poor if there is no humane relocation for them as our present laws require. Humane relocation would include accessible places of work for them.


3. A follow through of the processes to allot public lands to the poor in the areas that have been given to them by presidential declarations. Let the public lands declared by the President be developed and effectively be made available to the poor.


4. Legislations to raise taxes on properties that are idle, or to altogether expropriate them. The right to private property should not be given priority but the common good.

“Christian tradition has never recognized the right to property as absolute and untouchable. The right to private property is subordinate to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone. Private property is in its essence only an instrument for respecting the principle of the universal destination of goods; in the final analysis, therefore, it is not an end but a means.” (Compendium on the Social Teachings of the Church #177)

5. The swift implementations of the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws by disallowing heavy and highly pollutive industries within our cities which are densely residential and commercial. The zoning ordinances of the cities should be reviewed. Heavy industries, and not the poor should be relocated outside of our cities. If this is done, more people will move out of our cities to work in these industries.

6. In re-settling the poor and rehabilitating our cities priority should be given to the employment of the people. Informal settlers have grown in number because of lack of employment possibilities in places outside the metropolis. The “squatting” problem is not primarily a problem of housing; it is a problem of employment.

7. Let us not blame the poor in the waterways for the flooding of our cities. Let us look beyond: the unabated logging in Sierra Madre and Mt. Banahaw, mining ventures in our mountains, haphazard collection and unplanned disposal of our garbage, irresponsible city planning and development of subdivisions, just to name a few. Together let us take a hard look at our present practices and have the political will to reform them. In truth we can say that the government officials and the rich have more to do with the destruction of our environment that aggravated the recent flood than the poor!

There are many cries for reform as we experienced the unprecedented calamities of our times. We join our voices as your pastors in this call but we call for much deeper reforms that would really address and better the situation of our cities. Only when the needs of the least in our society are addressed will our society achieve true and lasting development.

Let us not lose courage. Let is heed the voice of God in the recent events. God is telling us something. We have experienced the bayanihan and damayan spirit in a remarkable degree these few weeks. This tells us that if we want to, we can work together and be concerned even to the point of sacrifice. Let us then continue to work together and be concerned to reform our ways that the environment be respected and protected and the poor be given deeper consideration so that they too may have a more generous part in the development of our cities.



Your pastors in the Lord Jesus Christ.

+ GAUDENCIO B. CARDINAL ROSALES, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila

+ BERNARDINO C. CORTEZ, D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop of Manila

http://www.rcam.org/Homilies/2009/cardinal_rosales/pastoral_letter_on_urban_planning_and_development_policies.html

+ BRODERICK S. PABILLO
Auxiliary Bishop of Manila

Media Advisory - CHILDREN’S MONTH CELEBRATION in Baseco

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

Baseco Inter-Agency Network
CHILDREN’S MONTH CELEBRATION
27 October 2009 / Tuesday
Baseco Compound, Brgy. 649, Zone 68, Port Area, Manila

Theme: “BRIGHT CHILD: PROTEKSYON NG BATA,
PANANAGUTAN NG BANSA!”

6:30-7:00 Assembly for the Parade

7:00-8:45 Parade

8:45-9:00 Snacks and Preparation for the Program

9:00-9:10 Invocation - Open Heart Foundation

9:10-9:15 National Anthem - World Vision Development Foundation

9:15-9:25 Welcome Remarks - Hon. Kristo Hispano, Brgy. Chairman

9:25-9:35 Special Message - Mr. Emmanuel Soriano, Principal

9:35-9:45 Special Message from a Child - Mark Lunchael Gadi, Lingap Pangkabataan

9:45-9:55 Intermission Number - WMC-CARE

9:55-10:25 Recognition of Outstanding Parents/Volunteers

10:25-10:35 Commitment Signing - Ms Lani Cantilang
Directress- WMC-CARE
10:35-11:25 Cheering Competition / Face Painting

11:25-11:30 Awarding of Winners

☼ World Mission Community – CARE ☼ Hope Worldwide Philippines ☼ Open Heart Foundation / Buklod ☼ Lingap Pangkabataan Foundation ☼ Manila Department of Social Welfare ☼ Kabalikat sa Pagpapaunlad ng Baseco ☼ World Vision Development Foundation ☼ Baseco Elementary School ☼ Barangay Council ☼

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

at

Calcutta, Dhaka and the Poor

Calcutta, Dhaka and the Poor

by Denis Murphy
Saturday, 02 May 2009

There have been huge changes in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Dhaka, though the symbols of poverty remain: the rickshaws, pavement people, forlorn beggars and vast stretches of slums.

In Dhaka I came upon an old woman and a baby squatting by the side of the path. The woman was bent over the baby and had it wrapped in her faded red sari. They looked inconsequential, the two of them, like a bag of old leaves you could pick up and walk off with easily. There was no tin cup for begging, and they weren't there the next day. I watched a line of rickshaw drivers pass by. In Dhaka the rickshaw is pulled by bicycle power. The drivers were all small, dark and looked as if they had just been condemned to death. They work on average 12 hours a day in traffic so chaotic it makes Manila's look genteel.

In Howrah, Calcutta's sister city, we met a group of outcaste people-scavengers, sweepers, garbage men-who live near a giant garbage dump. We talked about their eviction: the High Court had ordered the outcastes be removed because of the pollution caused by the dump. About a hundred men stood around us talking while clouds of flies landed on their hands and faces. No one moved to brush away the flies, even from the faces of the babies that some of the men held.

The danger for visitors in seeing such poverty is that we may believe we are dealing with people who are somehow less than human, who only think of food and have no hope in life, or pride in their culture and history. We may believe they are unable to work in organized ways to change their situation, and that they have no sense of justice and human dignity. I was lucky enough in Calcutta and Dhaka to have friends who allowed me to understand a little more about these poor men and women.

In Dhaka I was able to talk to six Bengali Muslim women working with an NGO called Shelter for the Poor. They were organizing the slumdwellers of Dhaka to get land tenure security for their families. According to the United Nations' Habitat such security of tenure or freedom from eviction is a necessary pre-condition for urban development. The women said other NGOs offered water, light and health programs which were good, but if there were evictions, they would lose all those good things. "Land, land," they said, "that's what we need."

All six had taken part in protests against evictions. In one protest rally 100,000 persons employed a Mahatma Gandhi-like method by sitting down in one of the main intersections of the city. The police beat the protesters. Two of the six women showed the welts left by the policemen's lathi canes across their shoulders and legs. This was several years after the event. The women were thoughtful, funny and seemed to enjoy one another. Heh, I said to myself, these are not the fatalistic stereotypes we imagine the Dhaka poor to be.

The outcastes of Howrah said they had already taken a petition to the High Court signed by 250 of their 400 families. They wanted the Court to explain why it ordered them removed and the garbage left untouched. They will not go to their Member of Parliament who they found cared nothing about them; but they will see the mayor and if they get no explanations, the leader said, "We will fight under the banner of our organization." I was told their organization was a national federation of outcaste people. "We will rally and send petitions and keep after the government till they talk to us."

"We have lived here 70 years," they said. "We have city water pipes and two schools and 200 - 300 of our children go to school. We want a space in this world. We need it more than the garbage dump does." Such is not the talk of fatalists.

I think if we were able to go deeper in our relationship we would appreciate how much they love their children, their Muslim beliefs and have hope in India and Bangladesh.

Traditional culture is very much alive. At an anniversary celebration in a rural village a 45-minute drive from Calcutta, poor women recited the 100-year-old poems of Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Both Calcutta and Dhaka are parts of historic Bengal. A seven-year old girl performed classic thousand-year-old Indian dances later in the program.

It would definitely help human solidarity in Manila if the well-off could come to know the poor a little better than they do. Ignorance of one another creates stereotypes that have little to do with reality, but set people against each other.

If we know the poor people of Tondo, Payatas or the esteros, we'll marvel at their determined efforts to raise their families. In crowded huts with leaky roofs, and the smell of the garbage pile never far away; with so little food each day that the children cry for more till the mother has to slap them to make them stop, with no place to escape from the noise and crowds and the demands and threats of the world, they keep at it day in, day out, working and nurturing, hoping their children will be better off than themselves. Looked at it this way, their lives are gallant. They believe deeply in God. The slums are abrim with love; they are special places of love, not the urban jungles some people talk about.


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


http://www.thepoc.net/index.php/Parokya-Sa-Web/Tinig-ng-Maralita/Calcutta-Dhaka-and-the-Poor.html

A Matter of Courage

A Matter of Courage
by Denis Murphy

Development of the urban poor of our big cities requires them to have the courage of warriors. It is usually the women who provide it.

In a Tondo barangay, poor women are threatened with violence simply because they want to bring legal water services into their community. The women want the legal water (Maynilad or Manila Water) because it is four to seven times cheaper than the water they buy now, which is often controlled by mafia types. Women are threatened over the water issue even in a barangay that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited and where she supported the people's efforts to get Maynilad by committing P7 million of the local congressman's development funds.

The threats can be alarming. In one barangay, a young woman community organizer received the following message: "Ginugulo nyo kami dito sa lugar namin baka imbes na tubig ay dugo ang umagos dito. Tigilan nyo na kami!" (Stop messing with our community or blood will be shed instead of water).

The threats are often from the kagawads and barangay hangers-on, the women say. They know these men and their families. It is a very emotional situation that easily leads to violence. In the area the president visited, 500 women are now dropping out of the water scheme she supported, because they have been threatened with violence if they continue.

Despite the threats, 40 women in the North Harbor gathered P15,000 and brought Maynilad water into the area, which will save each of them P500-P900 pesos a month. Families who buy water from these women will pay only a little more than the 40 women who invested in the mother meter. They, too, will have big savings. In these days of economic hardship, P500 or more a month is a godsend: perhaps the difference between a healthy child and a malnourished one.

In the beginning, only a few women displayed the courage needed, but courage is catching and the example of a few can create a brave community.

Just when the 40 women had the water problem licked, the Metro Manila Development Authority and the Department of Public Works and Highways came along to tell them they will be evicted, though no relocation will be provided. It took courage to struggle for water; they must now gather up the same courage to resist the eviction.

Such evictions were condemned as illegal by Chairperson Leila de Lima of the Commission on Human Rights. In a CHR Resolution of November 6, 2008 she ordered the MMDA, local governments and national government agencies to stop conducting evictions and demolitions of structures used for dwelling purposes unless the families are relocated according to law.

The Pope's Justice and Peace Commission offers what should be a starting point in our thinking on the urban poor, squatting and eviction: "Any person or family that, without any direct fault on his or her part, does not have suitable housing is the victim of an injustice" (1988). The poor are in the slums as a result of injustice. Evicting them and leaving them homeless compounds the injustice.

The women met the 100-plus-man demolition team of MMDA and waved the CHR order in front of them. The demolition chief talked to them for a short while, then the demolition began. Now the women will go to the mayor. At every step they are warned that they can be hurt or they can "wind up with nothing." Fear is deep in the people. In Navotas, people who have been evicted but are living alongside the demolition area, say every time they see a blue MMDA vehicle they hold onto their children in fear.

It is not just about water or other items. Resistance is the poor's way to assert that they are free persons who want to live in dignity and security. We are not charity cases or useless people. We are not here to be manipulated or humiliated. We work hard and we have the same hopes as all men and women, they say.

Poor men and women find courage deep in their hearts to do all they can about the ills that threaten their world. Can we say as much about the rest of society?

http://www.thepoc.net/index.php/Parokya-Sa-Web/Tinig-ng-Maralita/A-Matter-of-Courage.html

Tondoman’s last flight

Commentary : Tondoman’s last flight
By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

I once wrote a short story about a Filipino superhero by the name of Tondoman. He could fly like other superheroes, but unlike them he could be wounded and even killed. Like all of us he had to risk everything when he went to help the poor. He wore a blue and white costume with a long red cape and a golden “T” on the chest.

He was active in Manila’s Tondo district in the 1970s. You may remember the many good things that happened to the poor during those years. He was at the height of his powers then, but he was already in late middle age and soon after his powers disappeared.

We don’t hear much about the old age of superheroes. It is not a nice time. They can never marry, so they are alone in their last years. They are poor since they cannot take money for their services, much like the true faith healers. They have no close friends and most leave their families behind when they became superheroes. In many ways it is a curse to be a superhero. The life of a superhero calls for total dedication to the cause of justice, a life that is rewarded with an old age of loneliness and near poverty. They do receive a small pension—and powerlessness.

The following is what happened to Tondoman in the last years of his life.

He lived alone and very simply in a small apartment on Leveriza St., a kindly old man who was well liked by his neighbors. No one there knew about his past feats. Then one day a woman by the name of Maria who was about half his age came to see him. She told him the country needed him.

“The poor are suffering,” she told him. “Come back and walk among us once again.”

She was the daughter of one of the leaders he had worked with in Tondo years before.

“I have no powers,” he told her. “They’ve left me.”

“We will pray together and in the morning the powers will be back,” she said with the assurance of the true believer in the value of her cause.

“I don’t think I want to go back. I’ve come to believe it’s not good in the long run.”

“I hate to hear people talk about ‘the long run,’ Tondoman. It’s usually bad for the poor.”

“But it’s true, Maria. Look at Gotham City. Have the people learned to solve their own problems? Not at all, and neither has Police Commissioner Gordon. Whenever there’s a problem, they flash the Bat sign on the night sky and Batman comes to save them. It’s no good. The people never develop.”

“That’s the long run. We need you now. It’s an emergency.”

He remembered the many times people had come to him with emergencies. He smiled remembering some of the things he had done. Soon he was lost in reverie.

He remembered that years before, he had one day snatched the president of the country from the golf course, took him 2,000 feet in the air and told him that he would drop him if he didn’t give the urban poor people of Tondo the land they wanted. It was only a threat. He didn’t intend to drop the president, but something went wrong, the president moved suddenly or something, and Tondoman lost him. Down the president plunged screaming at all the world. Tondoman fell like a rock and caught him just a few feet off the 18th fairway. They were so close they could smell the grass. Then he took the president up high, and made believe the fall was intentional. He told the president he would drop him for good if he didn’t give the land. Sure enough, the people got the land.

He returned back from his old memories. “No, I don’t think a superhero is good for the people. They should do things themselves and not rely on superheroes or politicians or anyone. That’s what I feel now. After we won in Tondo, everything stopped. They weren’t ready for the next problem.”

“Tondoman, please come and talk to us anyway. I boasted I could get you to help us. Come to our meeting with your costume on and talk to us. Say whatever you will.” They prayed and the next morning his powers were back.

He flew off to the meeting, remembering the great flights of the past. The crowd at the meeting cheered when he arrived, but he sat them down and told them what he had told Maria.

“Yes, you must have supporters, but you yourselves must decide what you want to do and be in your lives. You must lead. Don’t rely on anyone, even on superheroes. Rely on God. God alone is always dependable and always seeks your good. It’s bad for your leaders to rely too much on them. They are then free to do as they want. We should instead watch them to make sure they do their work properly.”

“We can’t fly or do all those other things. We need you.”

“You really don’t. You have no idea how much strength and wisdom you have within yourselves until you begin to depend on yourselves and not others. Jesus told us, if you have faith you can say to a mountain get up, fly to the sea and throw yourself in! If you have faith, you can fly, at least as far as God intends you to fly. Believe in yourselves, believe in God.”

There was a thoughtful silence when he finished. They sat quietly, some with their eyes closed. Time to leave, he told himself.

He barely made it home. He flew just above the treetops. He couldn’t go higher. He was like a plane running out of gas.

He made it home, hung his costume in the closet for the last time, and sat down to have a night cap. Now for the rest of my life, he thought.

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

©Copyright 2001-2008 INQUIRER.net, An Inquirer Company

Poorest city in RP capital is Manila

09/04/2008 | 07:59 PM

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.

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

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.

Demolisyon sa Commonwealth ave. at sa Port area Maynila, nagkaroon ng tensyon

Tension grips demolition on Commonwealth Avenue




Rock-throwing mars demolition in Paco, Manila

MMDA tears down illegal structures in Port Area, Manila

‘New homeless’ families welcome another uncertain year

Lim orders squatters out of North Cemetery

Lim tells squatters to leave cemetery

‘Informal settlers in cemeteries have to go’

Relocation of informal settlers set next year

Shanties cleared as city hosts ASEAN conference