The bishops and poverty

Commentary

by Denis Murphy

People who are engaged in work with the poor were happy that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines devoted its Lenten message to the subject of poverty under the title “Poverty that Dehumanizes, Poverty that Sanctifies.” The bishops are inviting people to reflect on poverty following the lead of Pope Francis, whose own Lenten message takes its inspiration from St. Paul writing about Jesus Christ: “He became poor, so that by his poverty you may become rich.” (2 Cor 8-9)

There are many things to admire in the CBCP letter, but the reference to the Pope’s letter invites us to compare it with his writings. When we do, some differences are apparent. The Pope’s writings, especially “The Joy of the Gospel” (his encyclical “Evangelii Gaudium”), leave no doubt in the reader’s mind that a flesh-and-blood person with a passion for the poor and a good knowledge of the world of the poor is writing. On the other hand, our CBCP letter—let us be honest—is austere to a fault. This lack of attention to style, passion and joy is surprising in a Church that has had artists like Palestrina and Mozart enrich its Masses and writers like St. Augustine and Cardinal Newman explain its mysteries. Not by concepts alone does man (or woman) live, but by all the forces of their beings—emotion, compassion, energy, poetry, clear thinking and excitement.

The bishops single out in their message a specific problem for criticism, which is the current practice of privatizing and relocating public hospitals. “The poor, who can avail [themselves] of health care at only public hospitals and local government health centers, are at risk of being further excluded from access to basic health care with the proposed privatization of leading public health institutions such as the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital and the National Orthopedic Hospital. Especially vulnerable are children and the elderly, unless government continues to aspire for the ideal of ‘universal health coverage.’”

We can add to the bishops’ list of affected hospitals the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), which, in the plan of the current lords of the North Triangle—Ayala Land, the National Housing Authority, and the Quezon City government—is about to be privatized and moved to the Lung Center compound. The PCMC and the Manila Seedling Bank alongside it are the latest institutions to be removed by the lords in what looks like a march to control the entire North Triangle for themselves.

On Feb 20 Fr. Robert Reyes led a protest march against this plan, along with the PCMC doctors and nurses and the Seedling Bank workers. Father Robert and the doctors who spoke at the rally said the plan would seriously harm the treatment that poor children receive. They protested the proposed relocation of the PCMC to the Lung Center compound. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any place more unsuitable for sick children than a lung hospital. The government would be wise to listen to its professionals who are willing to march for what they believe is good for their patients, and to men of God, including the bishops and Father Robert.

The speakers raised related issues, such as how much land should one company be allowed to control. Ayala Land is already partnered with NHA and Quezon City in Trinoma and Vertis North, and now they seek the land of the Seedling Bank and the PCMC. What limit on land must society set to ensure that the common good is maintained?

Thus, the problem of privatizing public hospitals leads to questions about the ownership and use of land in our cities, which in turn lead to economic questions of inequality of income and joblessness and political questions on democracy’s viability in a nation of many poor and few very rich. When you reach down into the burrow and catch hold of the tail of any of these problems, you end up pulling the whole tangled mess into the daylight.

If there are no controls or limits on land use, we can end up in a city of malls, condos, movie houses and supermarkets owned by a handful of very rich men. We will sadly lack seed banks, playing fields, places for old people to sit and watch children play, trees, quiet shady places for children’s hospitals, open-air art galleries, and housing for poor people. The same men or class of men will own the hospitals, public utilities, and even some mayors.

An excellent article in this paper by Kenneth Cardenas (“Cash-crop condominiums,” Talk of the Town, 2/16/14) explains how our problems, such as the eviction of poor people and hospitals, joblessness, land monopolies, disregard of urban planning and the common good are interconnected. At the center of the problems are the large real estate groups, including the Ayalas, SM, Robinsons and Eton Properties.

The problems are all connected, so we can start anywhere to unravel and solve them.

Why don’t we join the bishops in an effort to end the privatization of hospitals? If the bishops decide to act on their position on privatization, they will find many groups willing to work with them, especially, I believe, the urban poor, who need the public hospitals for health services.

If the bishops have a plan, they can invite various groups to join them, including the poor. If they plan a large mass, a rally, or a march, the poor will be happy to join. Actually, the bishops themselves don’t have to formulate a plan; they can leave that to others. They will have done a great deal by identifying a problem and gathering people to solve it. It’s probably better if the bishops don’t make the plan.

Such teamwork may carry over into future efforts. The lived experience of working with the poor may add to the bishops’ writings on poverty the passion and joy that are sometimes missing in their pastoral statements.

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

‘Build Back Better’

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

The international slogan for reconstruction work after disasters—“Build Back Better”—promises both a return to what existed in the past and a much better future. It offers reassurance and hope. We can easily build back after Super Typhoon “Yolanda,” but will we be able to build in a way something that truly offers victims a better future? This may be the main question facing the government in its reconstruction work in the Visayas.

We can return our fishermen and farmers to their old, pre-Yolanda and materially poor life conditions, but can we enrich their lives? Returning people to their previous lives of poverty is no big deal; helping them find or build better lives, that is the real, great achievement.

And this requires that we not only provide houses for the victims of Yolanda, but that the houses are in relocation sites that are acceptable to the people and that are up to international standards in terms of size, durability and attractiveness; and that the families get land tenure security.

On a larger scale, the question is: Will reconstruction work result in a society that is more equal in income and in political power? Will the income gap between the rich and the poor narrow somewhat? Will the poor and near-poor have a greater voice in the decision-making that affects their lives? Will democracy prosper?

There are worrisome signs indicating that the poor would be lucky to get back what they once had, inadequate as it may have been. What are some of these signs?

For one, there seems to be a large communication gap between the poor and the key decision-makers. In mid-January, in Tacloban, wives of fishermen told people working with Urban Poor Associates and the Holy Spirit Sisters that their children were still hungry and in growing danger of malnutrition. They pointed out that their tents, given by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), get wet inside when it rains; and cold rain blows through the tents; and adults and children get drenched when they try to sleep. The people in charge are no doubt willing to give more food and provide flooring materials for tent occupants, but they aren’t aware of these needs of the poor.

Food for children and some type of flooring could be provided  if the top decision-makers knew of these needs. They are caring human beings, after all; and the food supplies and flooring materials are available. But this sort of “response gap” indicates that the top officials are unaware of the day-to-day concrete reality on the ground. What is not known cannot be fixed. And do the decision-makers appreciate the intangibles that make people’s lives “better,” such as land reform, propoor law enforcement, land tenure security and many others?

The items that make life better for poor people are most often  considered matters of social justice. But the increasing reliance being placed on the business sector for such things by the reconstruction officials worries us. Big business can “build back”—it can provide houses, boats, seeds, fertilizer, etc., but it doesn’t have a very good record on “justice issues,” such as land reform, land tenure security and propoor law enforcement.

There is a role for all sorts of people in the reconstruction effort, but this doesn’t mean the business community should spearhead the overall movement. Can we employ business resources and intelligence in the pursuit of goals and execution of plans that a wider number of interest groups, including the poor people themselves, decide on?

Public skepticism about the openness of big business to so-called justice matters was heightened by a CNN report last Jan. 25 from the Economic Forum in Davos. It noted that income equality was extensively discussed at the meeting by the participants, but there was little indication the mostly wealthy businessmen and women there were prepared to do anything to narrow the gap. “They talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk,” the commentator summarized. Do Filipino businesspeople differently inclined in their response to this concern?

We have to provide rice and coconut farmers with seeds and fertilizers. In addition, we should institute land reform, the kind that would definitely improve their lives. Maybe the coconut farmers could also get back the coconut levy collected from them during martial law.

The fishermen need new boats and nets, and also the assurance that the municipal waters will be reserved for them, and that all other laws meant to help the marginal fishermen will be observed.

Indeed, the reconstruction project faces a big decision on the issue of relocating families from within the “40-meter no-build zone.” Like all relocation undertakings, this one inevitably raises more questions: For example, will it allow wage-earning fishermen to have a marina-hostel of sorts at the shore, where they can also sleep when necessary, so they can continue fishing in order to support their families? The marina-hostel will serve as a “fishing jump-off point.”

Relocation we know how to do; we know the mistakes to avoid, the biggest of which is the lack of jobs in distant relocation sites. Designing and building the facility for the fishermen will still take a great deal of consultation and discussion with the fishermen. We should get busy. For them, relocation without the marina-hostel is not even “building back.” And the challenge is “building back better.”

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates 

Listen to fishermen’s wives

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

We stood, with a dozen or so women, wives of Tacloban fishermen, looking out to sea for signs of a new typhoon. They had heard rumors of such a typhoon (Dec. 15) and had sent their children to the rescue centers. The women told us they were terribly afraid that the monstrous power that had crushed their homes and killed hundreds of their immediate neighbors would return, and they would hear again the shrieking winds. Given a reasonable recourse, they wouldn’t want to live near the sea—if only for the sake of their children.

Immediately before us were the pulverized concrete remains of Barangay (village) 90. No one lives there now. The survivors still tell of the many adults’ and children’s bodies pulled from under the debris after the typhoon, so the area now carries about it the air of horror of an open grave.

We walked with Holy Spirit Sisters Nory Gabito and Pearl Probadora through Barangay 89 and met Barangay Chair Melba Villalina. She was meeting with workers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. She looked exhausted. She said the government doesn’t have a detailed plan of what it wants to do with the 1,010 families of her barangay.

Given the government’s 40-meter-wide zone measured from the water, where housing is forbidden, a solution acceptable to both the people and government is difficult to find. Many families, she said, would accept relocation if their fishermen-husbands could remain near the sea to continue their work. Some 400 residents of the barangay died during “Yolanda.”

We walked a little further and talked to Belinda Guinoohan, 43, who lives in one of the tents donated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her living situation could be worse—as it is in many other parts of the country at all times—and, to be sure, it is far from comfortable. As we talked, a wet wind blew through the tent. The women joked that they slept on a waterbed, only the bed was all, real water.

They said the UN people who gave the tents told the people the government would tell them what to do. So far the government hasn’t done so. In retrospect, it is good the UN gave the tents, since that enabled them to stay together—at the site—while a solution has yet to be reached.

Belinda told me that no one from the UN, government or international NGOs has asked her or her neighbors what solution they would prefer. Consultation between the local government and the people affected by the disaster is the number one priority recommendation of the UN and of many others who have suggested some guidelines for the postdisaster reconstruction work. Belinda repeated the gist of what the barangay chair told us about a “double form of relocation”: the families inland, the fishermen to a “fishermen’s area.” This solution separates families, so it is far from perfect. However, on this matter, there are only bad solutions to be had at this time.

“Do you have a people’s group of some sort?” we asked Belinda.

“No, we don’t,” she answered.

She said a few of them individually and separately have gone to authorities to complain, but no one listened to them. It seemed to us, sisters and people’s organizers who were listening, that some sort of people’s organization was needed—the only realistic way those in authority can consult with thousands of poor people. When the idea of such a people’s group was mentioned, the women we talked with agreed: It was a good and useful thing to have.

The floor of the tent was wet sand. When it rained the water collected in puddles inside the tent. Women told us their children would cry and refuse to go to school whenever it rained.

We had to admire the gritty decorum of the women who, even in very difficult circumstances, wash the clothes and try to get them dry, even as they struggle to find food for their respective families, nurse the very young and comfort all the children—day after day with patience and grace. Has any government ever had better people to work with? I don’t think so. Maybe good, but no one better.

Our last stop on our last day was at the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Palo, a 10-15 minute drive from Tacloban. We went there straight from the fishermen’s area and found what could be called an instance of divine democracy: There was great damage done there too. This relatively new and beautiful church was damaged much like the fishermen’s huts. Huge sections of the roof had been torn away by Yolanda. You could sit in the dry part of the church and listen to raindrops falling on the altar area. What is the message? Is it that the church must share the life of the poor? Behind the cathedral nearly 1,100 bodies of people are buried under a simple green field—people from all socioeconomic classes, we were told.

There are, according to media reports, tens of thousands of poor families along the shorelines of Samar, Leyte and other islands. They are in much the same bad situation as the fishermen’s wives in Tacloban we talked with. How the government “re-houses” them and helps to put the wage earners among them back to work may be the heart and soul of the whole reconstruction effort. My feeling is we need much more open, transparent discussions—and more ideas and alternatives—to find the right answer(s).

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

The Poor Look for Fairness

Commentary
By Denis Murphy
10:28 pm | Sunday, January 5th, 2014

We shouldn’t be surprised if God focuses all His concern this Christmas on the men, women and children of Tacloban and the other battered areas of the Visayas. We shouldn’t be surprised if He creates a storm surge of hope, peace and courage that sweeps over the victims and prepares them for the long effort to build anew with solidarity and vision.

The task ahead is so huge, so far greater than anything the country has done since recovering from World War II, that I am surprised more of our leaders are not talking explicitly of God’s help. Is there perhaps too much self-reliance? Is there overconfidence?

* * *
On Dec. 17 the urban poor of Metro Manila and their friends met to agree on the advice they would give to government and agencies working with the victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” They were aware many groups of experts had already made suggestions on what should be done and what should be avoided. Still, they felt they had a special point of view and an organizing experience that would be appreciated by the poor people of the Visayas. Their advice is basically a request for government and others to encourage poor people to participate in all phases of development and to treat everyone fairly.

Half of the day at Ateneo de Manila was given to the presentation of suggestions by experts in and out of government, actual survivors of the storm and urban poor men and women. In the second half of the day the participants voted for the 13 most valuable suggestions. Nearly 180 people attended the workshop, but the number had dropped to 117 people by 6 p.m. when the vote was taken. The meeting was organized by UP-All, Urban Poor Associates, FDUP, PHILSSA and CO Multiversity. Here are the results:

• Number 1 with 90 votes. We need a social action structure that includes all the people willing to work: experts, Church, NGOs, fishermen and people’s organizations.
• Number 2 with 72 votes. We need programs that stress community values (solidarity,
sharing, democracy and equality), and pursue short and long-term goals.
• Number 3 with 60 votes. Here the people make a simple statement: “Distant relocation is no solution.” This refers in particular to families who may be moved from the 40-meter no-build zone. Where will they be sent? Will they have a choice of solutions?
• Number 4 with 59 votes. Have regular cluster meetings among LGUs, NGOs and people’s groups.
• Number 5 with 56 votes. The poor want a simple, transparent reporting of resources received and delivered, of plans made and rejected, of all successes and failures.
• Number 6 with 56 votes. Use community organization. In other words, get the people themselves involved in assessing, planning and acting according to their own lights.
• Number 7 with 52 votes. Treat everyone equally, especially in the 40-meter issue. In other countries there were efforts to remove poor people near the sea and replace them with resorts and businesses.
• Number 8 with 37 votes. Families should receive insurance for what they lost in the typhoon. In matters of health they should have full coverage.
• Number 9 with 28 votes. Do not let prices spike. Do something effective.
• Number 10 with 25 votes. Have common goals. All people must benefit equally. Perhaps it will be good to set up a special complaint office.
• Number 11 with 25 votes. Make sure there are at the end of the reconstruction agencies continuing to provide water, light, medical care, policing, day care and fire prevention.
• Number 12 with 19 votes. Encourage LGUs and barangays to adopt barangays.
• Number 13 with 2 votes. This suggestion wanted higher penalties be delivered by courts if people are guilty of stealing relief goods, hoarding, unjust allotment of land, etc. The suggestion was that these be made heinous crimes and therefore not bailable. Only two people voted for it. Why? Maybe the poor think it’s a useless recommendation. Even if only two people voted for it, why don’t we raise the stakes? If people decide to take advantage of a crisis, they should be fittingly punished.

The suggestions of the urban poor are in many ways similar to those of other groups. Their wish is for structures that would involve the poor, even in the planning. They stress justice and equality, fair treatment of all. They want community values highlighted, such as, solidarity and compassion. They want every child to have a chance for a healthy, well-educated and happy life.

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

Wounded people

By Denis Murphy

12:59 am | Monday, December 16th, 2013

The people of Tacloban and the other areas savaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” are a wounded people.

The smell of death is still in their nostrils; nearly every family has suffered a death. Families have lost all they own: the fishing boat and nets they saved up for over the years; the small businesses, tool kits, tricycles, and other assets they depended on for their livelihood; and the small homes carefully pieced together as a little more money came in.

They have seen death up close in the worst destruction witnessed in the country since the Liberation of Manila in 1944. Some of them must find it truly difficult to begin all over again. Some may despair. Many still hear the wind shrieking.

The people do not need bosses or taskmasters. It may be only their faith that still tethers them to their ordinary lives. The dire situation calls for people who can talk kindly to them, find out what they want to do, and help them do that, if it is at all possible and feasible.

For the reconstruction in the Visayas we need free, creative and imaginative people at all levels of work, but especially at the very top, among mayors and national leaders, and among the poor who will be 90 percent of the people involved in the effort. We need informed agreement, not grudging assent, among the poor; we need their enthusiasm. We need a healthy, but not slavish, respect for law and custom.

Jesus told us the law was made for man, not man for the law, and that the need to help one’s neighbor in times of trouble overrides all other laws. Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian people to violate British law several times on their way to independence.

Compare the view of Jesus and Gandhi with another understanding of the law that appeared recently in Tacloban.

Thousands of coconut trees have been felled by the typhoon. Some people wanted to cut the trees into lumber that they would use to rebuild their homes. They were told by officials that it was a violation of the law to do so, especially if done with a power saw. Thus, the children, the aged and the sick continued to sleep in the open.

Sometimes we must set aside laws and customs that are clearly not relevant, but those who do so must be ready to suffer the punishment established for such violations. Setting aside a law is no trivial matter, though it may sometimes be necessary.

In the reconstruction we have to give a special place to the poor people and to their organizations. We need the suggestions of the poor and their wholehearted support. The poor will be the final judges of the success or failure of the whole project in the way they will vote later and lead their lives. The poor people’s organizations are the best means of ensuring that we have the consent of the people and their free and “generous solidarity” (Pope Francis’ phrase).

All of us have to think outside the box and work with people who are outside our usual “box” of friends. We have to allow all levels of society a seat at the decision-making table. If we give the poor a chance to explain their points of view, we will be surprised by their wisdom. We must not demand freedom with regard to law and custom only, but also in regard to the orders that come from our officials. We must build on our democratic instincts. Leaders must come and argue their cases. The poor are not their indentured slaves. The poor are their “bosses.” This is a good time to part with the autocratic, bullying ways of the past.

We hope that in the process of reconstruction, a kind of people are formed who will continue after the reconstruction to build a democratic and prosperous society and rid themselves of inept politicians, homelessness, hunger and illiteracy. We need leaders who can bring joy into the reconstruction work and into the future.

The poor people of the Visayas need compassion and understanding. I realized part of this emotional reality when we took a taxi home from Makati last week.

We started talking to the taxi driver, who told us that he was from Tacloban and that his parents barely escaped death during the onslaught of Yolanda. As the wind grew stronger, the couple went outdoors and climbed up the sampaloc tree behind their house. The father, 79, and the mother, 65, held on to the tree for hours as the typhoon raged. They watched their house fly apart in the wind. They saw their other son hit on the head by a piece of debris and fall dead. The next day they buried him in front of their house.

The taxi driver began to shake. He took deep gasps for breath and the tears fell. “My brother, my brother,” he sighed repeatedly, “my poor brother.” We were silent for the next 45 minutes.

We say “wounded people,” but maybe it is better to say “challenged people” on their way to becoming the “joyful people” that Pope Francis talks about in his pastoral letter, “The Joy of the Gospel.”

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

A storm surge of suggestions

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

These days, President Aquino faces a storm surge of suggestions on how to run the government’s reconstruction program in the areas walloped by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” The purpose of this piece (and of a roundtable on reconstruction matters to be held in mid-December) is to help the President and his assistants to sort through the suggestions pouring into their offices. Some are good; some are not so useful.

There are rules for the dangerous and demanding work of reconstruction. Lawyer Angel Ojastro of Naga City, who worked closely with the late Jesse Robredo, sent the following list of suggestions compiled by former US President Bill Clinton when he was the United Nations’ special envoy for tsunami recovery (2006). In the interest of space I have left out some suggestions and trimmed down some:

• Governments, donors, and aid agencies must recognize that families and communities drive their own recovery.

• Recovery must promote fairness and equity.

• Local governments must be empowered to manage recovery efforts.

• Good recovery planning and effective coordination depend on good information.

• The UN, World Bank, and other multilateral agencies must clarify their roles.

• From the start of recovery operations, governments and aid agencies must create the conditions for entrepreneurs to flourish.

• Good recovery must leave communities safer by reducing risks and building resilience.

My good friend, architect Jonathan James Price, sent me his own list. Price is now a consultant with the World Bank in Manila. He is English but is fortunately married to a Filipino, architect May Domingo. He has worked among poor people in a number of Asian countries. I have also left out from his list some suggestions and trimmed down others:

• If possible, people should be allowed to return to their previous locations and, with technical assistance, rebuild safer and better housing where they used to live. It is very easy to make blanket judgments about no-build zones, but mitigation measures should also be taken into consideration. People often end up losing their occupancy rights as well. “Building back better” is a nice catchy phrase, but it doesn’t always get done, especially when so many people are affected and resources including technical assistance, monitoring capacity, money and materials are limited.

• Relocation projects should not cram as many people as possible onto the sites, but consider livelihood very carefully in the planning—such as larger plots of land for backyard gardening or common facilities like workshops. If livelihood is not considered very carefully in the relocation sites, they will be a failure.

• It’s best to avoid transitional housing or bunk housing and move people straight into permanent housing. People end up staying in bunkhouses for far too long.

• Whenever possible, big international nongovernment organizations should partner with local NGOs, people’s organizations, and community-based organizations in rebuilding communities and replanning or planning new settlements. In so doing, they can strengthen local organization and capacity as well as make use of all that local knowledge.

Most of the suggestions in these two lists seek to ensure that ordinary citizens and their communities will be involved in the reconstruction process (the poor, especially, because they are so often ignored or ill-treated), and that they will be treated fairly and with equity (justly). Price’s suggestions focus on historic mistakes that were made in past reconstruction programs and can be made in the future.

To act as Clinton and Price suggest takes time. It is better, they recommend, to proceed slowly and thoughtfully than rush to judgment in these complex and controversial matters, such as the site of relocation areas. If the people feel poorly treated, the road ahead will be slow and maddeningly frustrating all around.

Price focuses on some of these recurring mistakes, such as choice of relocation areas, overcrowding, and lack of long-term perspective. At bottom, it seems that he and Clinton are asking for compassion, consultation, determination, learning from past mistakes, and thoughtful, widely accepted steps forward.

How does the government show its determination to rehouse the million-plus homeless families despite the problems? How will it enforce its decisions? How will it punish individuals who place their own economic good over the happiness of thousands of poor people? Does it need special powers from Congress—for example, stronger expropriation powers?

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

Revolt in the Manila Zoo

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

9:40 pm | Sunday, November 10th, 2013

When it was time to leave the zoo I sat near the giant aviary that is close to the entrance, waiting for my wife, Alice and our coworker Ivy to come back from the comfort room. I was close enough to the aviary to hear a group of eagles, flamingos and storks talking. They don’t move their lips or bills, but you can hear them if you listen closely.

They were very angry. The zoo was shabby, they claimed, and the food was not adequate. Worst of all, some zookeepers were cruel. The animals were going to take action. I heard the word corruption repeated several times. I leaned so close to hear that a stork said to me: “If you are really interested, hang around. We will have a meeting by Mali’s enclosure.” My wife and Ivy returned and we decided to hide somewhere and later on join the animals at their meeting.

There were close to 50 animals in a big circle. Their complaints went beyond food, shabby quarters and corruption. Mali complained she was the only elephant in the zoo, the only member of her species. “I am desperately lonely,” she said.

The overweight lady hippopotamus told the animals how ashamed she was when the visitors came and saw her. “I’m a mess. Look at my tail; is that a fitting tail for the only lady hippo in the zoo?” She turned her huge rear in a circle so they could all see the tail. It had only five or six long strings of hair. “Is that tail something you want tourists to see?” She seemed to imply the success of the zoo depended on the state of her tail. From the rear it looked like a giant guitar with busted strings. “We need personal caretakers and beauticians,” she said.

The oldest deer in the zoo told the group in the sad voice of old deer: “They are all gone—the lions, leopards, rhinos, giraffes. They are no more, but their cages are still there and empty, like gravestones. We’re dying off one by one, and we are not replaced. I see no future for us.  Empty cages grow in number. We are near the end.”

Then the stork I had talked with earlier moved to the center of the circle of animals and began to outline the action plans. They would kidnap five zoo workers when they came to feed the animals on Sunday. They would issue their list of demands, and if the authorities didn’t give in, they would feed the keepers to the tigers and the crocodiles. I noticed the crocodiles and tigers didn’t look so enthusiastic about this food.

The eagle read the list of demands. It included calls for better food, better cleaning of their cages, and an end to corruption. “Any others?” the eagle asked.

Mali said, “We need babies. We elephants need babies. We don’t make sense without them.”

“We need flowers,” the deer said.

“We need to discuss all those empty cages.” A ghost-like voice called from a tree. I think it was the red-faced Japanese monkey.

The eagle conferred with the storks and flamingos. Then he told the animals. “We’ll get to all of that—the babies and flowers and deaths and all that other stuff, but now we need unity. Let’s get those zookeepers.”

When I heard this brush-off of the older animals, I began to worry. Whenever I hear a leader say, “Not now; we’ll get to your problem later,” I begin to worry. Remember “Animal Farm” and how the pigs manipulated all the animals?

“No, no,” Mali said. “We have to discuss these things now. I am afraid if we don’t, we will forget about them.” There were several shouts of approval.

“OK,” the eagle said and the meeting went on long into the night. They discussed everything all over again and wound up with a list of demands that ran to several pages. The animals knew in their bones that democracy and solidarity must begin on day one or they never take root.

Then I heard the eagle call our names. He was inviting Alice, Ivy and myself to talk at the meeting.

I told the animals how impressed I was with the way they carried out their meeting. I told them humans had a lot to learn from them, especially their willingness to work on everyone’s problems and not just those of the more articulate.

I suggested that they not threaten to feed the keepers to the tigers and crocodiles, since they would need the support of humans when it comes to the negotiations. Everyone needs allies. Anyway I’m not sure, I said, our tigers and crocodiles are eager to eat them. Alice and Ivy spoke in a similar congratulatory manner. Then the animals went home: tigers and deer side by side, crocodiles and monkey, those who had spoken and those who had been silent. They helped Mali back into her enclosure. What a job that was! They assured the lady hippo she looked very nice the way she was.

They cared for one another and worked to solve one another’s problems, and they will succeed, we believe.

* * *

We all have problems—whether we are rich or poor, old or young, good-looking or not.  If we work together, give and take, compromise with one another and encourage one another, we can end pork barrel scams, find other ways to help the poor, and create a country of justice and peace. We can be as wise as the animals.

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

Nila and her mangroves

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

10:42 pm | Monday, October 21st, 2013

Nila Mendez, 57, who, according to her neighbors, cares for the mangroves of Baseco as if they were her children, told us she was asking God that near the end of her life He give her a small nipa hut on stilts alongside the mangroves, but out of the reach of floodwaters. There, she said, she would rise at dawn and watch her mangroves blowing in the wind and growing strong. It was such a pretty scene she described that my wife and I prayed: “Why not two houses, Lord? One for Nila and one for us?”

Meanwhile in his retirement home in Antipolo, Bishop Julio Labayen, OCD, also rises at dawn, says Mass, and then watches the acacia and fruit trees in his compound. “God is in the trees,” the bishop told us when we visited him not too long ago.

Nila spends her days tending to the mangrove trees that protect the western end of Baseco from the storms that roar in from Manila Bay. She removes the rubbish that people have thrown among the plants as well as the garbage that comes from the bay and the Pasig River. She waters the plants during hot summer days. She gets her water from a well she dug in the sandy ground near the plants. She protects the plants “because they are the children of God.”

She fights with people who don’t listen to common sense. She is there all day long, like one of the old pagan gods at the edge of the rice fields, and she does all this freely. Her son gives her food. Kabalikat, the people’s organization, gives her a little money from time to time and some food. But she is basically a volunteer.

During the habagat (monsoon) in July, a storm broke the bamboo fence protecting the plants from the garbage. A total of 259 plants died, according to Nila. She seems to know each plant. She went right away to Kabalikat to get help. She gathered an army of volunteers and repaired the fence.

Tending to mangroves in an urban-poor area is hard work, Nila told us. “Taking care of them is like taking care of human beings. I tell young people, ‘Take care of mangroves and in the future they will protect you and your families. You’ll remember me then, because I will be buried right there near the mangroves.’”

Many know of Bishop Labayen’s long struggle for justice for farmers and for the tribal people in the mountains behind Infanta, and his and his people’s heroic efforts for many years to save the forests there. Only a few know of Nila’s story. She left college in Bohol at age 17, when she became pregnant and married a man she described as a boozer, a womanizer, a violent man who beat her, and a gambler. He had all the vices, she said. She paused to reflect, and then added, with an amused shake of her head: “I know everything about men.”

Isn’t there some relative in every family who is supposed to look out for the women of the family and make sure they are treated fairly in life? I think of Sonny, Don Vito Corleone’s son, in “Godfather.”

Nila came to Baseco in 2007, but she had been in Manila long before that. She worked in factories; she scavenged; she waited on customers in shops. She worked in the “Wet and Wild Karaoke Bar” as waitress, singer, accountant and manager. She worked with a Chinese man named Yu. “Were you his girlfriend?” a woman in the group listening to us asked, and everyone laughed. She sang in different bars, she said. She must have been a pretty young woman, with her sleepy eyes.

“If the plants are happy, I am happy and God is happy,” Nila said. “I tell Papa Jesus that the plants are not so strong, so he should help them and not let the water lilies come near them.” She speaks a different theological language than Bishop Labayen, but it carries the same essential message: We are all God’s creatures. He lives in all of us.

She showed us wounds on her arms and legs. “I get wounds, but no infection from leptospirosis (rat infection). I get so wet when the storms come, I’m afraid I’ll get a fever, but Papa Jesus helps me. Papa Jesus, I trust you!”

She said she tells young people: “Respect the plants; take care of them. Some listen to me.”

Such a dedicated woman can inspire a community to plant groves of mangroves to protect the people’s homes and give life to millions of fish and a home for small birds. It seems that Nila has tapped into traditional rural values linked with the soil, plants and animals. If the ecological and environmental movements can also tap into these values and avoid all touches of elitism, our movements will have a huge, widespread success. We will have a rich, irresistible future.

* * *

Urban agriculture is spreading in Baseco. We were told that 500 of the 700 or so full-time members of Kabalikat have urban gardens. The women listening to us told us they were each growing about P30 worth of vegetables every week. They said they were planting camote tops, pechay, tomatoes, and a long list of other vegetables.

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

Lessons from a departed sister

On July 9 I got one of those phone calls from overseas we always fear: My sister Maggie, a member of the Sisters of Charity, was very sick. The next day my wife Alice and I were on that long flight across the dark Pacific with plenty of time for somber self-centered thinking. Irish pessimism told me Maggie was dead, though we didn’t know for sure. I was alone now, I realized. All the others I grew up with—brothers, Maggie, parents, cousins—all were gone. If there was no one left to talk to about those days, would the memories themselves pass away? I also realized I had lost the best sister any man ever had.

I learned many things in the days after Maggie’s death. I had, for example, a small glimpse of God’s care of his aged followers; I learned of incidents in our family history that may have influenced what I have wound up doing in life: I recalled special memories of Maggie here in the Philippines, when we visited the Mangyan in their village outside Calapan, Mindoro. And I realized once again that the kindnesses we show people remain in their memories long after all other memories of us have faded.

At my sister’s funeral Mass about 200 Sisters of Charity attended. Nearly all are retired. The youngest nuns are in their 50s; only 10 percent of the nuns can put in a full day’s work. As an institution, the Sisters of Charity of New York are comparable to a retired person close to God after long years of loyal service. During the Mass I watched the older nuns prepare the ciboria and other vessels for Holy Communion. They were like sisters (small “s”) in their mother’s kitchen preparing a meal. They were so at ease, so at home there at the altar, so close to one another that God, who is mother and father, was clearly among them, chatting with them and helping shoulder to shoulder. God has a special love for the poor, the Church teaches. He has an equally special love for the old people who have served Him loyally all their lives. I was very happy Maggie was with the Sisters.

Cousins told me our great grandfather was evicted by England in the 1800s from the small farm he had outside Cork City, Ireland. The Murphys walked into the city without land or money and became what we now call “urban poor.” I’ve often wondered how I wound up in life working with urban poor people in Manila, especially those in danger of eviction. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the branch.

I remembered the day we went with Maggie to visit the Mangyan outside Calapan. We knew the Holy Spirit nuns who worked there, especially Sisters Magdalena and Victricia. The Mangyan gathered after dinner to greet the visitors. They sang and danced and told stories of their past. When Maggie’s turn came, she talked about the people of New York City and their tall buildings, crowded and noisy streets, and subways. She described how people went underground in the morning to get a train to work and came up at the end of the day. As she talked we noticed the people were troubled.

Much later Sister Victricia told me the Mangyan understood that New Yorkers lived underground like snakes and other wild animals. They felt so sorry for New Yorkers that every Sunday they prayed for them at Mass. Politicians like Mayor Michael Bloomberg may take credit for the progress that city has made in recent years, but maybe it was really due to the prayers of the Mangyan people.

In dealing with the illnesses of old people, Maggie, like most doctors and nurses, had her own bag of tricks. Kindness and street smarts are needed. In the last conversation we had by phone only a week before the fateful July 9 call, she told me about Henry, 87, who was a regular patient at her clinic for old people in Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island  (the old St. Vincent’s Hospital). Henry complained of fits of sneezing. My sister examined him but could find nothing wrong. She did notice that every time he touched his chest, he started sneezing. She finished the examination, then told him in a very serious tone of voice:

 “Henry, you must not touch your chest ever again. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Promise me now, you won’t touch your chest.”

“Yes, Sister.”

He returned a few months later. The sneezing had stopped and he said he had never again touched his chest.

All the people I talked with about Maggie—patients, colleagues, fellow sisters, friends and relatives—mentioned her unfailing kindness. The people we most admire in life are those who show kindness to all.

Meanwhile in the United States, columnist Charles M. Blow wrote in the New York Times (Aug. 10) of signs that Americans are becoming a people without pity or kindness. A cross section of Americans was asked, “What factor was most responsible for the continuing poverty in the country?” The respondents were given a list of possible causes. The cause singled out by most people interviewed was: “Too much welfare prevents initiative.”

To these people, poverty wasn’t due to a lack of education or of opportunities to work. Instead, they made the victims the guilty party. The poor are guilty because they are poor. The same results might be found here if such a test were administered. The Philippines cannot compete with other powerful countries if it relies solely on the skills of the capitalist world. It can compete and find its own appropriate mix of capitalism and culture if it remains a country of kindness and pity. Each people must moderate capitalism in their own way.

One more anecdote. My sister attended a community organization meeting in Lucena, Quezon, in 1982. One morning, instead of attending the sessions, Maggie, Fr. Tom Steinbugler and myself went to a nearby beach to swim. Suddenly there was a cry of shock and pain from Tom. He was bent over in the water. We got him up on shore and saw he had been bitten or stung by a jellyfish across his stomach. He had a hard time breathing.

My sister told him to bend over and breathe deeply. She told me later she didn’t know what to do. Tom later told me he feared he might die, and might have to go to confession to me. I thought we should urinate on the wound, but no man can pee on his own stomach, and I knew he’d rather die than have me pee on him. There was all this confusion, and then a woman from a fisherman’s shack farther up the beach came running with the traditional cure, vinegar. We put some on the red ugly wound and soon the crisis was over. The woman had seen our problems and knew right away what to do.

We were three very well educated persons there, but none of us knew what every adult and child in that area must know—that vinegar is the cure for a jellyfish sting. They also knew it was foolish to go in the water in the jellyfish season.

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

An old novitiate

Commentary
By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

You know you are getting old when you drive into a religious novitiate and care more about the men and women in the cemetery than the present novices. I realized this as we drove into the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches one day.

We go in past the old mango and balete trees that line the road; they are at least a hundred years old, but strong and shaggy, and somehow suggest you are on your way to an otherworldly type of place. There is a mystic air about the old grounds. Still we realize that the lawn that stretches from the house down toward Quirino Highway, between balete trees that are 50 feet in diameter, would make a wonderful par three golf hole.

The original novitiate building stands at the top of the hill, blazing white in the morning sun. Ironically, despite all the martial law rancor

between the Jesuits and President Marcos, the novitiate reminds a person very much of Malacañang: both are Spanish-style, two-storied, brilliant white and set in lush green lawns.

We spend the morning at a seminar discussing amendments to the Urban Development and Housing Act (1992). I am lucky to meet John Paul Dy, a Jesuit novice who accompanied me to the cemetery. I’m surprised by the renovations made. I remember the ivy covered stone walls, with Jesuits buried under the grass and leaves falling from the trees that overhung the cemetery walls. Now the cemetery is neat and modern, but the aura of age is gone. Gone, too, is the sense the old cemetery gave of the continuity of the Jesuit Order, which is its great strength: the men lying there know their work will go on.

No men opposed martial law with more courage than those buried there: Fathers Pacifico Ortiz, Joe Blanco, Jim Reuter, Benigno Mayo, Francisco Araneta, Antonio “Toti” Olaguer and, of course, Bishop Francisco Claver. I lived with them all, except Father Reuter. It wasn’t all serious work. One weekend Joe Blanco and I decided to grow mustaches. His turned out much better than mine. We walked to the Luneta from our house in Padre Faura to show them off.

Francisco Araneta was in charge of the small group, of which I was a member, that traveled by boat to the Philippines in 1953. He taught me how to play chess, then beat me three or four times a night.

Jim Reuter complimented everyone, including myself, a little more than we deserved. But looking back, it helped all of us to keep writing and performing.

Bishop Claver opened coke bottles with his teeth on one of our seaside holidays when we studied philosophy in Berchmans College, Cebu.

The two most outstanding men, I believe, were Bishop Claver and Horacio dela Costa, who was in Rome for most of martial law until he came home and died in 1976. The bishop was a courageous Bontoc warrior and a doctor of anthropology. He lowered God’s gaba on the army and police who abused people in Bukidnon and headed a local church that many saw as a model for others. Dela Costa was the smartest and wisest of all. He knew Philippine history as well as a person knows his own family’s history. He was probably the only man who could have led the Jesuits in the very peaceful transition from American to Filipino control.

Where are their likes today? Will we ever again see the Jesuits and other religious groups take such a strong position against injustice and authoritarianism as they did?

There were other great men among the even older Jesuits who are buried there—Fathers John Pollock, Joseph Mulry, Jim Hoggerty and some unique (eccentric?) men, such as, Hector Mauri who started labor union work among the sugar workers and sacadas, built fishing boats with nets 10 stories high, and designed SST aircraft that Boeing said were too advanced for their engineers to deal with. They recommended that Father Mauri send the plan to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. There was Guido Arguelles who was born one day before me, so we celebrated birthdays together. He brought fresh vegetables to the poor of Tondo, sang opera at the drop of a hat and was the only man I knew who thought carne norte was the world’s best food. The cemetery also contains the bones of 80 Jesuits “known only to God,” whose bones were transferred in 1945 from the ruins of San Ignacio Church in Intramuros.

Soon after we finished in the cemetery, the rain comes. In the Novitiate there is an air of recollection before the rain actually arrives, as if it gathers itself for prayer. The rain falls steadily on the old trees and the grass. It is the only sound we can hear. There is no one walking about, not even a stray dog. When the rain stops, the air is suddenly so fresh you feel you can wash your face in it.

For a short stretch of time the setting sun spreads its golden light. And then it is time for sleep.

As we drive out along the winding driveway, I feel certain that the men in the cemetery behind me are happy. But the question still remains: When will we see their likes again?

Jesuits and others were able to focus their energies during the martial law years on getting rid of a dictator. What can serve as a focus today? The new Pope (Francis) has suggested that it be the poor. Perhaps the poor and justice for all can serve as the focus. Perhaps the focus could be jobs, land and a better life for all the poor. In the “Covenant with the Urban Poor,” President Aquino promised public works projects to be done with the help of people paid in the form of cash and food. Why don’t we try such projects in our great need for jobs?

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