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).

Urban Poor Groups say, “Build Back Better in Disaster Areas”

Urban Poor Associates

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

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

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

17 December 2013. Urban poor groups composed of Urban Poor Alliance, Urban Poor Associates, Community Organizers Multiversity, and different people’s organizations believe the proper approach is build back better in disaster areas. Recovery must promote fairness and equity. Government must ensure that in the reconstruction process ordinary citizens and their communities will be involved.

The group held a forum entitled “Will We Build Back Better?” December 17 at the Ateneo De Manila. The purpose of the forum was to gather suggestions for ensuring national reconstruction following on Yolanda will be a success. The suggestions cover different aspects of reconstruction—land, houses, jobs, health, administrations of the work, necessary participants in the process.

The forum also remembered Panunuluyan. Ivy Pagute, community organizer and one of the UPA group who went to Tacloban for rapid-assessment said, “Usually every December we hold our annual event, Panunuluyan— which how Mary and Joseph search for a place where Jesus could be born. Because of devastation brought about by Typhoon Yolanda we won’t have one this year. However, this meeting reminds us almost a million people are looking for a home. This forum can be another form of a Panunuluyan because we are helping a million families to find a house. “

Before the program started the participants were asked to pray in silence while the recorded sounds of Typhoon Yolanda were playing. Participants and victims of Typhoon Yolanda were moved to tears.

Jeorgie Tenolete, President of Kabalikat sa Kaunlaran in Baseco, Tondo said, “When we visited Tacloban last December 6 it seemed that nothing had changed since the typhoon a month earlier. The survivors of typhoon Yolanda should be consulted. Resettlement sites should not overcrowd and jobs must be given importance.”

Celia Santos, one of the speakers and Advocacy Officers for UDHA Amendments suggested, “Barangays of different affected areas must do an assessment and planning for their short and long term rebuilding activities together with the residents. Funders and national government can now directly provide funds to barangays based on their identify needs. The barangay must allow active participation of its constituents so that all funds for rehabilitation plan will be accounted by the community.”

The speakers of the forum were from World Bank, NGOs, Urban Planner, People’s Organizations, government and the Church. The participants selected the top five suggestions that will be given to the President and his assistants.

Alice Murphy, UPA Field Director concluded, “we are doing this to make sure that the government acknowledges the best practices in the reconstruction. We want worldwide acknowledged best practices to ensure that the majority of Yolanda survivors to be served with integrity and that all their needs will be given priority.”

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From the House to the Senate

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Letter to the Editor

Urban poor leaders advocating amendments to the 1992 Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) visited the House of Representatives and Senate early December to hand over copies of a letter to certain legislators. In that letter, they thanked the lawmakers for legislation that favored the poor and asked for their continued support for the poor. They also sought their help to get the UDHA amended. The group believes that the proposed amendments to the UDHA will address and solve many present-day housing issues, including eviction.

Urban poor leaders wore the most decent clothes they had and brought their identification cards those days they visited Congress.

At the House, they were stopped by security guards. They told the guards that they had letters for Rep. Cresente Paez, the author of the amendment bill, and for 15 other congressmen who also sponsored it. Only four of the urban poor leaders were allowed to enter, the rest were sent away. When the four leaders were in the Congress canteen, the guards asked them to leave even though they were still eating. They ignored the guards and proceeded to bring the letters to the congressmen-addressees. The urban poor felt that they were treated like trash at the House.

In contrast, the Senate was very accommodating. They felt that they were welcomed with open arms by the institution. They were able to give their letters and felt they were greeted with warmth in the Senate offices they went to. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano found time for them and assured them of his support. Sen. Bam Aquino, a sponsor of the UDHA amendments, acknowledged the efforts of the urban poor leaders in amending the UDHA.

Ordinary people appreciate being welcomed as friends by public officials.

—CELIA V. SANTOS,

advocacy officer,

Urban Development and Housing Act,

Task Force UDHA Amendments,

25-A Mabuhay St.,

Barangay Central, Quezon City

Pope: Change economy, respect the poor

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Pope Francis, in his gripping pastoral letter “The Joy of the Gospel,” calls the Church to a new evangelization. Two of his challenges have special importance for the Philippines: his condemnation of “trickle down” or “growth without jobs” capitalism, and the importance he assigns to the poor in the life of the Church.

The Pope writes: “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” [53] Later in the same number, he says: “Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”

It may be the same message as earlier popes preached, but it seems more grounded now in the personal experience of this Pope. He claims that present-day economics makes us indifferent to “the death by exposure of an old and homeless person.” He is angry when he describes food being thrown away in wealthy countries and cities when poor people are starving elsewhere. He also blames the lack of awareness on the self-centeredness that this economy creates in people. He says the poor are “outcasts” and “leftovers” in such a society.

The Philippine economy that produces wealth, but remains barren of jobs, is not an accident, but the deliberate choice of our politicians and business leaders. It can be modified.

What will Christian politicians and the business elite do when faced with the Pope’s criticism? The Pope asks for a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. “I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which [favors] human beings.” [58]

The Pope does not expect change overnight. He would be happy, I suspect, if political and business leaders made some effort, however small, to reshape the economy. The Pope’s phrase, “generous solidarity,” seems to say it all.

The second challenge of the Pope is for all in the country to appreciate God’s special love for the poor. “God’s heart has a special place for the poor, so much so that He himself became poor (2 Cor 8:7).” The Pope says: “I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the  sensus  fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the [center] of the Church’s pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them and to embrace the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them.” [198]

Did any other pope ever speak with such depth of insight and passion about poor people?

If politicians and economic experts must reexamine our national economic system, all of us must see how we can come closer to respecting, honoring and helping the poor as God wants. Pope Francis’ words remind us that hungry children are a desecration of God’s most exquisite work. Forced evictions, unemployed youth, the slums themselves cry out to God like Abel’s blood.

Can we make sure the poor will be treated fairly and justly in the reconstruction work in the wake of Supertyphoon “Yolanda”? Will the fishermen made homeless end up in decent housing and still be able to fish, or will they find themselves far from their old homes and the sea? Not all social problems are located in the South. What share will the homeless poor have in the 300 hectares that SM is allowed to reclaim in Manila Bay?

Will the fishermen and other poor people around Laguna Lake threatened by flood control projects be treated fairly? Will the government share its plans for them with them? Will there be genuine consultation befitting a democracy?

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).

A horrible half-year

Commentary

By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Now that the worst is over in Tacloban and some other typhoon-devastated areas, it may be time to look not only at the awful tragedy there but also at the last six months, which were marked by a series of manmade and natural disasters seldom seen together in such a short period. It may be good to look at them now because people are quick to forget, especially with Christmas just a month or so away.

Midyear, economists criticized the national economy for creating “growth without jobs,” which meant that the rich got richer and the poor remained mostly stuck in poverty. It wasn’t an accident; the economy was designed by our business leaders and policymakers to operate in that way. Such an economy, dividing the population even further into rich and poor conditions of living, is at war with notions of solidarity and compassion, which should be guiding norms. (Economist Cielito Habito wrote in this paper on Nov. 12 that it was not enough that we have growth: “It must be growth that produces jobs and livelihoods for as many Filipinos as possible.”)

Then came the disclosures on the pork barrel scam involving leading politicians. In an estimate, a government official claimed that the P10 billion allegedly stolen by Janet Napoles was a trivial matter compared to the P1 trillion (12 zeros) stolen from the government from 2001 to 2010.

Next came the battles in Zamboanga. People have wondered how a small ragtag militia could gear for war and march on that city without the Armed Forces being aware of it, especially since there is a heavy military presence there. People also wonder why the military can’t find criminals, such as former general Jovito Palparan, And even more important: Why can’t the military find missing activist Jonas Burgos?

And then there was the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that jarred Bohol, Cebu and other areas.

Then came “Yolanda.” Day after day, as people watched the news on TV, they saw sorrow and pain, how fiercely men and women can love their children and one another, and how perishable we all are.

We saw people half-crazed with thirst in Tacloban and bodies of beautiful children lying dead by the roads. We heard of looting, and of a new species of criminal, the looter-rapist. Who would have imagined Filipino men taking food and whatever they wanted from poor women in a time of calamity—while dead bodies lay all around—and then raping the women? Many people simply sat and waited for death. And where was our Church? Where were the priests to bury the dead and console those laid low in sorrow? Bodies lay everywhere as if they were the usual garbage.

Some may ask, as Jewish people asked at the time of the Holocaust: Where is God?  God was there in Tacloban, receiving the dying children, the young parents and the aged into His arms. He was wiping away all their tears, as we are told in the Book of Revelation, and bringing them to their true home where there “shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

If our economic elite, military, elected officials, and even the Church can disappoint us, to whom will the people look for leadership? To the same institutions—where else?—but these must recognize their weaknesses, and begin anew with the intention to reform. There is an old saying in the Church, older than the Reformation: “The Church must always be reformed.” The same need exists for all our institutions. If the Holy Church needs constant reform, surely our human institutions do, too. There are enough decent, hardworking people in government to do the job.

Reform should include the willingness to listen to all groups of citizens, including the poor. We should remember that in a democracy, policy is a matter of compromise. It is also said: “In a democracy, reform comes from the ballots of the poor.” To help shape the future, the poor must have better jobs and education than they have now.

At a meeting on Nov. 13 at the Ateneo de Manila, the urban poor of Metro Manila and fishermen from Laguna Lake began to play their role in this renewal. The participants covered three matters: 1) what to do when there is conflict between government and poor people’s plans; 2) what to ask of government, now that it is clear there is much more money available than they previously thought; and 3) what service will the poor offer society in the settlement of the pork barrel disarray.

The poor do not expect to become another Neda (National Economic and Development Authority), but they have the skills to analyze government plans and sort out what is good for themselves and the common good, and what is not. They limit their advice to those matters in which they have direct knowledge. The fishermen of Laguna Lake have begun to do this by rejecting the ring road dike around the lake that will require the relocation of 45,000 families, and the shorter Laguna Lake Expressway Dike that will affect about 10,000 families. They will examine alternatives and support those remedies for flooding on the lake that treat them fairly. They will oppose solutions that do not. The fishermen who were at the meeting are from the Calamba-Biñan area. They have fished in those waters for generations, or at least since the time of Jose Rizal, who wrote about how much he enjoyed the fish caught in that part of the lake.

The poor realize that government has much more money than they ever imagined, so instead of pork barrel they ask government to widen the benefits of PhilHealth to include medicines, lab tests, ambulances, and other out-of-hospital expenses at affordable rates. They ask government to please improve the schools in poor areas, and give poor groups funding to begin to upgrade their areas—for example, their drainage. They ask government to review its economic policies and direct the economy to creating jobs. Finally they ask the government to make food available at affordable prices.

In return, the poor will organize to vote out of office all politicians found guilty of involvement in the pork barrel scam. They will make citizen arrests of people they know are guilty. They will cooperate with other groups in these matters.

* * *

For many years Nandy Pacheco and others have urged Filipinos to accept Christ’s peace in their hearts. This peace is the love, forgiveness, compassion and strength of Jesus. It is well described in St. John’s Gospel (Chapters 14 and 20). Christ’s peace takes away our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh. It takes away the sorrows of Tacloban and gives us Christ’s joy.

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

Urban Poor and the Pork Barrel Scandal

Urban Poor Associates

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

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

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

13 November 2013. Urban poor groups composed of Urban Poor Alliance, Urban Poor Associates, Community Organizers Multiversity, and other different people’s organizations presented urban poor peoples’ views on the pork barrel scandal and related matters November 13 at the Ateneo De Manila.

Professor Prospero “Popoy” De Vera, University of the Philippines Vice-President for Public Affairs and  Senator Benigno “Bam” Aquino spoke to the group.

Jeorgie Tenolete, President of Kabalikat sa Kaunlaran in Baseco, Tondo said the poor were shocked by the amount of money revealed.

Tenolete spoke for all urban poor when he said: “If that money were spent for the good of the poor majority, nobody would be begging in the streets, nobody would be evicted because housing is inadequate, nobody would be out of work, no children would be out of school, nobody would die because he/she had no money for medicines and nobody would be hungry. Now that we know there is money, they cannot tell us anymore that there is no money for basic needs. We will do our best to make sure that the poor will never be an ingredient in a scam like this—we will organize ourselves to go against the corrupt.”

The forum called for extending Philhealth benefits to every poor family; by making sure each student in elementary school had free uniforms, text books, meals and transport; provide funds to improve light, water and drainage in the poor communities; creating jobs; and flooding poor neighborhoods with rice, fish and vegetable at affordable cost.

The urban poor also pledged action by organizing signature campaigns and rallies for honest government and in order to jail pork barrel villains within one year; organizing voters against persons known to be corrupt; putting a committee of urban poor leaders and NGOs into the six agencies that received the money that would have gone to the pork barrel in 2014 to monitor the utilization of the funds; work with Bottom-Up Budgeting, and make citizens’ arrests of corrupt officials.

Alice Murphy, UPA Field Director said, “this forum is a venue for poor people to get together, share their sentiments, suggest alternatives and at the same time be enlightened on the issue of the  pork barrel scam. We believe that by free discussions we can learn and with understanding of the issues we can come to commitments that will improve the condition of the poor through better public service.”

She said: “We will start by advocating PhilHealth for our poor people. Many of our leaders have PhilHealth but when the time came that they try to use the card and present it in the hospital, they find out that it was not funded. Many poor people die because they don’t have access to hospital care.”

Token From Kabalikat's Habi Bag

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