MEDIA ADVISORY: Urban Poor Group Seeks Clarification of Supreme Court Ruling in Cleaning Up Manila Bay

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

Urban Poor Group Seeks Clarification of Supreme Court Ruling in Cleaning Up Manila Bay

Due to the threats of demolitions and forced evictions, several urban poor community leaders are set to take up a legal battle on Monday (February 16) as they seek clarification from the Supreme Court with its ruling in cleaning up Manila Bay.

Several urban poor communities in Metro Manila have sought the assistance of St. Thomas More Law Center of the Urban Poor Associates (UPA) and the Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligal (Saligan) to act as their counsel in a motion for clarification before the Supreme Court.

The urban poor movants in this motion for clarification will accompany the lawyers to the Supreme Court on Monday at 10:00 AM. After the filing they will give a press con outside the court.

The Supreme Court ruling seems to give license to government agencies, particularly the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), to demolish their dwellings found along the banks of Pasig River and its tributaries.

In its decision on MMDA vs. Concerned Residents of Manila Bay, et. al (SC GR. Nos. 171947-48), the Court mandates and authorizes the demolition of structures, houses of the urban poor included, as an integral process of cleaning the Manila Bay, without mentioning the obligation of the implementing agencies to observe the need for consultation and relocation in a humane manner as required by law.

This clarification from the court is urgently needed because the usual practice of MMDA is to demolish dwellings without giving notice and doing away with consultation, and without providing adequate relocation.

According to UPA, the number of families estimated to be directly affected by this court ruling is about 70,000.

Date: February 16, 2009 (Monday) / 10:00 AM

Venue: Supreme Court

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News Release - Urban Poor Group Seeks Clarification of Supreme Court Ruling


Media Advisory - Urban Poor Group Seeks Clarification of Supreme Court Ruling in Cleaning Up Manila Bay

MEDIA ADVISORY: CONFRONTATION - CHR vs. MMDA

Residents along R-10 in Tondo, Manila look on as demolition team from Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) conducts clearing operations on Feb. 3.

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONFRONTATION
CHR vs. MMDA

On Monday February 9 the irresistible force, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) headed by Chairperson Leila de Lima, will challenge the immovable object, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Bayani Fernando.

On the R-10 Road before Pier 10, near Moriones Street, the local residents will hold before the eviction teams of MMDA the CHR Resolution No. A2008-052, a resolution recommending the imposition of a moratorium on all evictions and demolitions.

The CHR has ordered all evictions which do not provide decent relocation to stop immediately. The MMDA since Feb. 2 has evicted families without any relocation. The two government bodies will confront one another Monday at 8:00 AM along the R-10.

The R-10 which stretches from Velasquez Street in Tondo to Lapu Lapu Street in Navotas is scheduled to be widened. Some 3,046 families by government count are in the way. NGO workers of Urban Poor Associates (UPA) and Community Organizers of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE) say there are more than 10,000 families on the road. Neither MMDA nor the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which commissioned the evictions, offers relocation.

The CHR has determined eviction without relocation is a violation of the country’s laws.

Please come.

Where: R-10 Tondo, before Pier 10, near Moriones Street

Date: February 9, 2009 (Monday) / 8:00 AM

Urban Poor Nagpahayag Ng Suporta Sa Panukalang Ordinansa Para Sa Moratorium ng Demolisyon, Ebiksyon

Walang nagawa ang isang matandang babae na residente ng Old Sta Mesa kundi pagmasdan na lamang ang kanyang bahay habang ginigiba ng mga tauhan ng Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) noong January 19, 2009.

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

Urban Poor Nagpahayag Ng Suporta Sa Panukalang Ordinansa Para Sa Moratorium ng Demolisyon, Ebiksyon

2 February 2008 / Quezon City. Dahil sa mga sunud-sunod na banta ng mararahas at di- makataong demolisyon, lumapit ang iba’t ibang grupo ng maralitang tagalungsod sa Konseho ng Quezon City upang hilingin na magkaroon ng ordinansa na naglalayong magkaroon ng moratorium sa walang humpay na panggigiba na wala namang sapat na konsultasyon at maayos na relokasyon.

Kaugnay nito, nagpahayag ng suporta ang mga grupo ng maralitang tagalungsod sa panukalang magkaroon ng moratorium sa demolisyon habang dinidinig ang naturang ordinansa.

Nakatakdang dinggin bukas (February 3) ng Quezon City Council sa Carlos Albert Hall ang naturang ordinansa sa isang public hearing na pangungunahan ng Committee on Laws, Rules and Internal Government at ng Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Bilang pagsuporta, ang public hearing ay dadaluhan ng iba’t ibang grupo ng urban poor sector kabilang ang mga non-government organizations tulad ng Urban Poor Associates (UPA), Community Organizers Multiversity (COM), Community Organization of the Philippines Enterprise (COPE), Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligal (SALIGAN) at Partnership of Philippine Support Agencies (PHILSSA).

Ang naturang ordinansa ay pagtugon sa rekomendasyon ng Commision on Human Rights (CHR) Resolution # A2008-052 na nag-aatas sa mga Local Government Units na magkaroon ng moratorium sa ebiksyon at demolisyon ng mga bahay ng maralitang tagalungsod upang pangalagaan ang karapatan sa disenteng tahanan ng mga ito.

“Ang naturang panukalang ordinansa ay hindi pangungunsinti sa mga informal settlers bagkus ay siyang magsisiguro sa makataong proseso katulad ng konsultasyon, sapat na relokasyon at iba pang mga pangangailangan na isinasaad sa Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA),” ayon kay Veronica Magpantay, coordinator ng Riverside Coordinating Council ng Ugnayang Lakas ng mga Apektadong Pamilya sa Baybaying Ilog Pasig (RCC-ULAP), isang peoples’ organization.

“Ang karapatang pantao ng bawat nilalang ay hindi dapat nako-kompromiso sa interes lamang ng iilan bagkus sa interes dapat ng nakararami. Ang mga maralitang tagalungsod ay mga lehitimong Pilipinong walang sariling lupa sa kaniyang sariling bayan. Karapatan din nilang ipaglaban ang kanilang dignidad bilang tao,” sinabi ni Magpantay.

“Kung walang maralitang tagalungsod, walang mga manggagawa, taxi drivers, magbabantay ng mga kotse (parking attendant), mangangalahig ng basura at iba pa. Marami rin sa mga nagtatrabaho sa gubyerno ay galing sa maralitang tagalungsod. Wala bang utang na loob ang bansang ito?” dagdag pa ni Magpantay.

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Commentary : Bishops repudiated By Denis Murphy Philippine Daily Inquirer Posted date: January 13, 2009

Commentary : Bishops repudiated

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: January 13, 2009

When Congress voted to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) but remove its teeth, namely, the power to coerce landlords to surrender land, the farmers outside the House of Representatives complex knew they had lost badly. Leonardo Montemayor, a former member of the House and official of the Federation of Free Farmers, said, “The defeat marked the end of all the dreams of all the farmers.”

The Catholic bishops also lost. Never before had they invested so much effort in a cause of the poor, only to see their teaching authority and political influence overwhelmingly repudiated by Congress.

The bishops had done as much as could reasonably be expected in support of the farmers. Some 70 bishops signed a statement backing the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with reforms. On the eve of the vote Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of Cebu, Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and Bishop Broderick Pabillo wrote again asking Congress to extend the CARP with reforms. Eight bishops joined the farmers’ hunger strike.

I don’t think people who were there will soon forget Cardinal Rosales sitting in a makeshift tent outside the House complex with the defeated farmers and hunger strikers and looking just as sad and weary as they were.

The overwhelming rejection by Congress of land reform, which is central to the Church’s social teachings, must trouble the bishops and they may well wonder what will happen to similar causes they champion, such as, human reproduction, if they are put to a vote.

What will the bishops do? Will they withdraw from such controversial issues as land reform or will they push ahead? If they abandon or lessen their engagement in the human rights struggle, they will leave the poor without a dependable ally in times of trouble. If they push ahead, they may very well fail again. However, it is also possible that they and everyone else involved in the struggle for human rights may learn from the recent sad experience and find more effective ways to achieve their goals.

It is clear that solutions to the major social problems require a political consensus in favor of the poor among the members of Congress. Legislators listen to those who can help them in the next election. The bishops and all human rights advocates can play a vital role in gathering people, helping them to organize to solve their problems, to think clearly at election time, and to do this in a coordinated way throughout the country.

How in the concrete can the bishops help create this new movement among the people?

There are degrees of involvement possible. The first degree, in which the Catholic Church is a main actor and decision maker, can be in the formation of the Basic Christian Communities or Basic Ecclesial Community, as the Brazil Church did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The foundations of Partidos Trabalhadores (PT), Lula da Silva’s party in Brazil, we were informed by some of its founding members, lie in the Basic Christian Community (BCC movement of the 1960s to 1970s. Almost all the mass membership of the PT, whatever their political stripe, were members of the movement. The organizing culture of the PT was, therefore, basically that of BCCs which stressed listening, respect for others and compromise, rather than ideological hard lining. It helped, we were told, that the senior leftist leaders and intellectuals were in prison. There were tens of thousands of BCCs in Brazil in those years. Can the Philippine Church expand the number of its BECs, deepen their appreciation of human rights issues and the need to link with other groups in some form of national action, especially during elections?

The second degree of involvement for the Church is in large secular movements, such as, organizations of the farmers. The Church can support these groups, but it is not in charge of them. The Federation of Free Farmers was such a group. The main education activity for the FFF was a 30-day live-in seminar, which was most often given with the help of the priest chaplains, and centered on the Church’s social teaching. On the eve of martial law, the FFF claimed 300,000 members. The movement had its flaws, but no other group has reached such a membership.

The Church may also help groups not so clearly linked with the Church. Usually such groups are required by the Church to be non-violent and democratic.

The third degree of involvement is in the support of particular candidates and parties. This step may be farthest from the Church’s normal guidelines. Ordinarily the Church is advised to avoid partisan politics. However, desperate times call for desperate solutions. Maybe the Church is called to be more active in a partisan fashion, since that may be one good way to get the country established once again on the road to justice and prosperity.

Nandy Pacheco and Eric Manalang of the political party Ang Kapatiran [The Brotherhood] have just published Passport to a New Philippines, which explains their party’s goals and assumptions. Many bishops quietly support the party. Ang Kapatiran can be one ally of the bishops if they decide to be more politically involved. Ang Kapatiran believes strongly in the importance of the lay people in political matters and in the necessity for a party platform that expresses exactly what the group stands for.

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

©Copyright 2001-2009 INQUIRER.net, An Inquirer Company

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

Dave’s wish

Youngblood : Dave’s wish

By Shella V. Espineli
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: December 23, 2008

Dave is a timid 10-year-old boy, who is small for his age. He is the fourth among six siblings and a hard-working Grade 5 student of mine. Three elder brothers and a sister are somewhere in Davao. He is the oldest among his brothers in Manila, and so his mother expects many things from him. He has to do the household chores—marketing, cooking, cleaning the house, washing dishes, doing the laundry and baby sitting. Before all this, he has to sell pan de sal and maja blanca starting at 4 a.m. and kamoteng kahoy at 10 a.m. He attends a tutoring class late in the morning and regular school in the afternoon. He sells tahong on weekends.

Whatever he earns he turns over to his mother to buy their food for the day. Sometimes he saves P3 to buy bread, or for his baon or to keep it in his coin bank, wishing to save enough to buy a pair of beautiful shoes for school.

No matter how tired he is, Dave never absents himself from the tutoring program and tries his very best to understand the lessons. He comes even without lunch, though sometimes he brings a small amount of rice. If he has viand, it’s fried tadpole (which may be poisonous), or stir fried chicken skin with soy sauce, or powdered milk. Quite often, his classmates share their food with him.

One time a teary-eyed Dave told me he wished he could play, dress and eat like the other children. They, too, are poor but have a little more.

Dave’s mother wants the young boy to do everything, and sometimes he is scolded. His stepfather just got a job in construction but his income is insufficient for the family’s basic needs. Dave can’t stop selling early in the morning with his best friend Joshua, 11. They share everything: left-over bread, family problems, home work—even dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. According to Dave, they have promised each other that they would remain friends whatever happens. They believe education is the key to success.

For Christmas, Dave wishes that his savings will be enough to buy a pair of second-hand black shoes he has been eyeing in a neighborhood ukay-ukay. He says they are of good quality and he can use them in school. They cost P15.

If he has still some money left, he will buy clean clothes and if there is some more, he will buy food. He thinks fried chicken, spaghetti, mixed vegetables and ice cream would make a nice noche buena.

He also wants things that are a little harder to get: a happy family and finishing school together with Joshua. Surely someone who is up and selling pan de sal at 4 a.m. and never misses tutoring class or regular school, deserves a break some time. Isn’t that what Christmas is for?


(Ivy Shella V. Espineli, 26, tutors 50 poor children in Baseco as a member of Kabalikat, a people’s organization.)

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

By the side of the road in Tondo

Commentary : By the side of the road in Tondo

By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

WE sat with 12 women leaders of the urban poor at the edge of the homes that line the R-10 road in Tondo. Across the road stood the North Harbor piers. The women discussed the meetings they had had with the Maynilad water company about securing regular water in their area. It was hard to hear them over the roar of the big container van trucks that came within a few feet of us. It had rained a little while before, so the air was fresh, but not for long with all the trucks. Young boys and girls still half naked from playing in the rain squeezed through the group to get to Aling Marieta’s sari-sari store to buy candy or food items for Mama.

The women began with water, but later talked of hunger in the area, politics and family planning. When they talked of family planning Aling Marieta gave her opinion that the best method was to vasectomize the men. All the women agreed, even those who said they were pro-life. To the women it seemed eminently fair.

The families now pay on average P30 a day for the water they buy from private persons, or P900 a month. For this money they get 200 liters a day, which is below the minimum of 250 liters recommended by the World Health Organization for lower-income families. If the women can’t afford the amount of water recommended, they can’t clean the children or dishes and can’t take good care of their sanitation. Diseases result, but then there is no money for medicine.

If they had the Maynilad water, they would pay about P4 instead of P30 for the 200 liters they now buy, or a savings of about P780 a month. With this money they can increase their family food budgets by 25 percent a day on average; they can send all their children to school; they can afford medicine, storybooks, copybooks and new clothes and they can buy all the water they need.

The big obstacles are the fees charged by Maynilad: for a mother meter that would provide water for 30 or so families the fee is at least P20,000; for individual meters the fee is P7,000. The people are willing to pay, but little by little out of the money they save on water. They cannot easily manage a big down payment.

Cannot Maynilad and the people sit down and work out a solution to this fee problem? It seems a public utility backed by the government has some obligation to provide affordable water to the poor. Lawyers say there is a social welfare concept inherent in such an enterprise. In the worst of Metro Manila’s slums—the so-called danger areas—almost no family has legal and inexpensive Manila Water or Maynilad.

Legal electric connections could provide similar savings for the poor. An effort by the government to make sure the poor have affordable light and water would be a wonderful anti-poverty measure (families could save about P1,500 per month). There is little room for corruption in such a program.

Hunger, the women said, is increasing in the area. Most families now combine breakfast and lunch. They talked of the “pagpag” chicken business which flourishes there. Scavengers get the garbage of Jollibee, sort out the chicken remains, wash them and package them into: bones with a little chicken still on them, which sell for P20 a kilo, and bones with a good amount of meat which cost P40.

The women seemed to enjoy sitting together in the late afternoon and appeared rather lighthearted when they talked of politics and family planning. It was hard to know if they were really serious. When they came to politics, they mentioned support for only one candidate: Joseph Estrada. “Erap pa rin,” they repeated. They discussed vasectomy with devilish delight.

We all felt better after having talked with the women. They are poor, but they are buoyant, thoughtful when they have to be and caring of one another and their families. The families can thrive if the children could get a good education and they had a decent place to live and enough food. What a waste if they can’t.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates.

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