By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013
My wife Alice and I were ninang and ninong recently to 24 couples who were married on the banks of Estero de San Miguel. The estero hasn’t been a famous venue for weddings, to say the least, but in the near future we may be surprised.
The couples will move a few meters along the estero from the fragile, congested shacks they now live in to beautiful family houses. Thanks to their own determination and the wisdom of a few government officials, they will look out their windows each morning to a clean estero, trees along the banks full of birds bathing in fresh air and sunshine. The only noise beside the birds will be students heading for Claro M. Recto High School. This is an example of the on-site, in-city housing President Aquino has promoted.
Urban poor people are often defined as families that live illegally on land they don’t own, in rundown, dilapidated houses. Does the shift of our 24 couples to the new houses mean they are no longer urban poor? Not in most people’s eyes: urban poverty is still linked to low incomes. But this tag may soon disappear from our 24. They may now be below the poverty line, but they are located in the heart of Manila, and so can take advantage of every job opportunity. Also their children are graduating from the nearby colleges at a higher rate than in other poor areas and they will soon bring good money home. The couples will then be above the poverty line. Are there other urban poor stereotypes that must be shed? Perhaps, but first back to the mass wedding?
We know how much excitement one bride can cause, so imagine the clatter and clutter as 24 got ready. Add to that the playfulness of their 50 or so children. Sadly for romantics, they were not marrying out of young love but because they needed a marriage license to enter the government housing project. Whatever the reason for it, the ceremony awoke in the couples an understanding of how much they had come to depend on one another over the years. Deep appreciation may be another name for love.
Remember the scene in “Fiddler on the Roof,” when the man asks his wife of many years, “Do you love me?” The wife makes fun of the question. What’s happening to him, she muses, and then she sings: “Do I love him? For 35 years I washed his clothes, cooked his meals, raised his kids, milked his goats, if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is?”
Urban poor areas are usually accused of being dirty, of harboring criminals, of allowing rowdy drinking and needless violence and of standing helpless in the face of corrupt politicians and drug gangs.
The 24 couples don’t want that identity, anymore than other groups of people would want it, and they have taken steps to eliminate such activity. They have put together a Management Estate Agreement that covers all the above, from garbage to drugs. They say they will put an end to the public drinking that leads to violence and all the other mistakes. Will that remove the last taint of urban poverty or are there other aspects of urban poor culture that need to be changed? Maybe not, but let’s not look only at negative qualities.
The urban poor may also have admirable qualities. The people of the Estero de San Miguel, for example, have shown remarkable strength of will in pursuit of their rights.
Vendors, drivers, scavengers, tricycle drivers, security guards, unskilled construction workers and small-scale businesspersons, they are not powerful in the eyes of society, but they have outlasted the powerful government officials who sought to evict them. They have attended close to 150 meetings with government agencies to get their housing on the estero. It seems a remarkable record of perseverance.
A few days before Christmas in 2011, President Aquino announced there would be groundbreaking for a housing project on the estero within a few weeks. However, an agency head called the people and said she was coming with a committee and she would decide about the groundbreaking, whether it would go ahead or not. The people told her, “Don’t come; you’re not welcome with that news. We won’t let you enter.” The day after Christmas, the community burnt to the ground. They didn’t give up. The people rebuilt. There were many other threats and endless anxiety over the years. Now they will live in the nice houses on the estero banks, with only the sounds of the birds and children on their way to school to disturb the peace.
With the help of their allied NGOs—Urban Poor Associates and CO Multiversity among them—some old notions about the urban poor are being redefined: They are learning to make their own analysis of their situation; to choose the solutions they think best to put together their own people’s plans for housing; and to undertake actions that are most appropriate. They have learned to organize, and they deeply appreciate solidarity. They act democratically in a persevering and resilient fashion. All this should be added to their usual age-old care for one another—they have always helped each other when times were tough.
“Urban poor was once a name assigned to poor people who lived illegally on land in rundown, degrading housing, in communities marked by violence, noise, drugs and abuse of children. Common usage now adds that they are well organized, democratic, independent in their thinking and planning, have great respect for one another and community solidarity, are persevering and resilient, and do not accept corrupt politicians and drug gangs easily.”
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/50837/weddings-on-estero-de-san-miguel#ixzz2QoF8BoiC
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Urban Poor Echoes Pope Francis, “Defend the Poor and the Weak”
Urban poor groups held their 27th Kalbaryo ng Maralita (Calvary of the Poor) today reechoing the call of Pope Francis, “Defend the poor and the weak”. With them were members of housing rights organizations including Urban Poor Associates (UPA), Community Organizers Multiversity (COM), and different people’s organizations from Tondo, Pasig, Quezon City and Laguna Lake.
The group marched from Liwasang Bonifacio to Plaza Miranda led by 40 urban poor people simulating flagellation.
Kalbaryo reminds Philippine society that the suffering of Jesus in his passion and death are repeated today in the sufferings imposed on the poor by forced evictions, homelessness, hunger, landlessness, injustice, joblessness, lack of dignity and powerlessness.
“We fear that it would lead to displacement of thousands poor families. We do not oppose the flood control project but we hope the government will understand our sentiments that while it is valuable, it must not come at the expense of displacing thousands of poor families like us already marginalized by society,” she added.
UPA pointed out that the land is the basic problem in resettlement matters as it is in all in-city and near-city housing of the poor. The government should now provide the land as it will be more difficult to do so as the years go by. We ask them to acquire resettlement land before they evict or plan to evict.The flagellants shirts were bloodstained with the words of the poor people demands such as, provide quality education for the poor, end hunger, implement on-site housing and include the poor in the decision making that concerns their welfare.
At 9 AM Manila Auxilliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo led the mass. 
Monday, March 25, 2013
Pope should take a new look at liberation theology
Commentary
By Denis Murphy
Monday, March 25th, 2013
Soon after the papal election was over, there were two images on my mind. One was of Pope Francis on the balcony of St. Peter’s in his white soutana, seemingly frail in the wet and chilly Roman night.
The other was of a lovely, gracious Muslim woman lying dead in her car after being shot by masked men for helping the poor of Karachi. We received news of her murder that same day.
Unlike most Catholics, I could not rejoice at the sight of the new Pope. I had two problems. One was the suggestion in the media and from Jesuit friends that as Fr. Jorge Bergoglio, he may have acted poorly in matters involving human rights and Christian loyalty during the military junta years (1976-1983) in Argentina. He may have allowed the torture of two of his fellow Jesuits, the reports said. I asked myself, couldn’t the cardinals in the conclave have found someone more heroic? Someone perhaps like Perween Rahman, the Muslim woman killed because she refused to leave the poor? Courage is also a Christian virtue.
The story of the two Jesuits began when Bergoglio, then the Jesuit superior, learned that the two men working in an urban poor area would be arrested, which in those days often led to torture and death. He ordered them to leave the area. They refused, and he dismissed them from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). They were arrested and badly tortured and later dumped on piles of garbage. Sometime during the night of their arrest, Bergoglio reached the military and they were not killed. Much later, the two were offered reentry into the Jesuits, and one refused.
What else could Bergoglio have done? He could have gone himself to stay with his men. He could have asked other Jesuits to go with him. Possibly their large number may have given the military pause. I think this is what Fathers Horacio de la Costa and Benigno Mayo might have done. Our urban poor people do it: If an area is threatened with eviction, the residents of other areas come to help. What would Archbishop Oscar Romero have done?
We have, I believe, a right to expect a degree of heroism from the man who heads the Holy Catholic Church we profess in the Creed. Heroism is not as rare as we may think.
The second hesitation I have is not with the new Pope himself, but about many conservative Church officials. They simply do not deal kindly with people who disagree with them. They are harsh and display a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. I don’t sense any interest among them to understand the roots of the nonconservative disagreement, though nonconservatives are a huge part of the Church, maybe the majority.
I hope the Pope will throw a line of hope to them that things can change. Perhaps he can begin by reopening some topics for discussion, such as the role of women in the Church. The women who want to be priests are not the enemy. No one believes more firmly in the Gospel than they do.
Thousands in Karachi mourn Parween. She was an architect by training, but instead of becoming rich designing homes for the well-off, she chose to spend her life with the poor, helping them gain land-tenure security and improve their houses and communities. In the poor areas she struggled with the racketeers who robbed the poor of their land, and even their drinking water. The racketeers cut the water mains, take control of the water, and then sell it. Some of the poor have no decent drinking water.
When the social fabric of Karachi fell apart in recent years, Parween redoubled her efforts. She said the following at a meeting of housing people in Bangkok in 2011: “The situation in Pakistan is indeed very bad—the Taliban, the bombs, violence, the disasters. Yet everywhere we look we see signs of hope. We look on these with eyes of respect and try to support them, and make them strong. The links we make with each other are a powerful way to do that.”
It is not pleasant to feel alienated in some important way from the Pope. A Catholic hopes to find at the heart of his or her Church a totally concerned, totally dedicated, compassionate human being. It is easier to see the Pope erring in matters of doctrine than in loyalty.
In the days that followed, however, I began to question my first reactions. Knowledgeable people denied that the Pope had ever compromised human rights during the military junta years. I heard voices: “The Almighty said to Job, who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance?” Could that be me? I wondered. “Were you there when I laid the cornerstone [of the earth] while the morning birds sang in chorus? Have the gates of death been shown to you?” (Job 38:1-2, 4, 7,17)
Perhaps the new Pope sought God’s forgiveness long ago, and has been forgiven. Jesus can say of him as He does of the sinful woman: “Much has been forgiven because she has loved much.” (Luke 7:36-50)
I hope the Pope takes another look at the theology of liberation. It is true, as he said in a Mass with the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, that we don’t want the Church to be just another “compassionate NGO,” but we don’t want it to be ineffectual in its efforts to end hunger, illiteracy and powerlessness. The theology of liberation provides a Christian framework for the people’s efforts to organize themselves, analyze their problems, choose their solutions, and take appropriate action. It isn’t perfect, but it is the only theology that fits comfortably with the poor who struggle in an organized, democratic and nonviolent way for their human and God-given rights. Also, the development of poor people is a science. The Gospel can and must inspire the process in a Christian context, but it can’t substitute for the science needed.
Hopefully, with the new Pope we are closer to becoming the Church of the poor.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49425/pope-should-take-a-new-look-at-liberation-theology#ixzz2OVZDNEBl
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49425/pope-should-take-a-new-look-at-liberation-theology#ixzz2OVYwnn1F
By Denis Murphy
Monday, March 25th, 2013
Soon after the papal election was over, there were two images on my mind. One was of Pope Francis on the balcony of St. Peter’s in his white soutana, seemingly frail in the wet and chilly Roman night.
The other was of a lovely, gracious Muslim woman lying dead in her car after being shot by masked men for helping the poor of Karachi. We received news of her murder that same day.
Unlike most Catholics, I could not rejoice at the sight of the new Pope. I had two problems. One was the suggestion in the media and from Jesuit friends that as Fr. Jorge Bergoglio, he may have acted poorly in matters involving human rights and Christian loyalty during the military junta years (1976-1983) in Argentina. He may have allowed the torture of two of his fellow Jesuits, the reports said. I asked myself, couldn’t the cardinals in the conclave have found someone more heroic? Someone perhaps like Perween Rahman, the Muslim woman killed because she refused to leave the poor? Courage is also a Christian virtue.
The story of the two Jesuits began when Bergoglio, then the Jesuit superior, learned that the two men working in an urban poor area would be arrested, which in those days often led to torture and death. He ordered them to leave the area. They refused, and he dismissed them from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). They were arrested and badly tortured and later dumped on piles of garbage. Sometime during the night of their arrest, Bergoglio reached the military and they were not killed. Much later, the two were offered reentry into the Jesuits, and one refused.
What else could Bergoglio have done? He could have gone himself to stay with his men. He could have asked other Jesuits to go with him. Possibly their large number may have given the military pause. I think this is what Fathers Horacio de la Costa and Benigno Mayo might have done. Our urban poor people do it: If an area is threatened with eviction, the residents of other areas come to help. What would Archbishop Oscar Romero have done?
We have, I believe, a right to expect a degree of heroism from the man who heads the Holy Catholic Church we profess in the Creed. Heroism is not as rare as we may think.
The second hesitation I have is not with the new Pope himself, but about many conservative Church officials. They simply do not deal kindly with people who disagree with them. They are harsh and display a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. I don’t sense any interest among them to understand the roots of the nonconservative disagreement, though nonconservatives are a huge part of the Church, maybe the majority.
I hope the Pope will throw a line of hope to them that things can change. Perhaps he can begin by reopening some topics for discussion, such as the role of women in the Church. The women who want to be priests are not the enemy. No one believes more firmly in the Gospel than they do.
Thousands in Karachi mourn Parween. She was an architect by training, but instead of becoming rich designing homes for the well-off, she chose to spend her life with the poor, helping them gain land-tenure security and improve their houses and communities. In the poor areas she struggled with the racketeers who robbed the poor of their land, and even their drinking water. The racketeers cut the water mains, take control of the water, and then sell it. Some of the poor have no decent drinking water.
When the social fabric of Karachi fell apart in recent years, Parween redoubled her efforts. She said the following at a meeting of housing people in Bangkok in 2011: “The situation in Pakistan is indeed very bad—the Taliban, the bombs, violence, the disasters. Yet everywhere we look we see signs of hope. We look on these with eyes of respect and try to support them, and make them strong. The links we make with each other are a powerful way to do that.”
It is not pleasant to feel alienated in some important way from the Pope. A Catholic hopes to find at the heart of his or her Church a totally concerned, totally dedicated, compassionate human being. It is easier to see the Pope erring in matters of doctrine than in loyalty.
In the days that followed, however, I began to question my first reactions. Knowledgeable people denied that the Pope had ever compromised human rights during the military junta years. I heard voices: “The Almighty said to Job, who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance?” Could that be me? I wondered. “Were you there when I laid the cornerstone [of the earth] while the morning birds sang in chorus? Have the gates of death been shown to you?” (Job 38:1-2, 4, 7,17)
Perhaps the new Pope sought God’s forgiveness long ago, and has been forgiven. Jesus can say of him as He does of the sinful woman: “Much has been forgiven because she has loved much.” (Luke 7:36-50)
I hope the Pope takes another look at the theology of liberation. It is true, as he said in a Mass with the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, that we don’t want the Church to be just another “compassionate NGO,” but we don’t want it to be ineffectual in its efforts to end hunger, illiteracy and powerlessness. The theology of liberation provides a Christian framework for the people’s efforts to organize themselves, analyze their problems, choose their solutions, and take appropriate action. It isn’t perfect, but it is the only theology that fits comfortably with the poor who struggle in an organized, democratic and nonviolent way for their human and God-given rights. Also, the development of poor people is a science. The Gospel can and must inspire the process in a Christian context, but it can’t substitute for the science needed.
Hopefully, with the new Pope we are closer to becoming the Church of the poor.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49425/pope-should-take-a-new-look-at-liberation-theology#ixzz2OVZDNEBl
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49425/pope-should-take-a-new-look-at-liberation-theology#ixzz2OVYwnn1F
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Urban poor dreams
Young Blood
By Princess L. Asuncion
My fiance, Ritche, has a friend whose house was partly demolished without a court order on the behest of the family that claimed the lot on which the house stood. The friend’s house was somewhat saved when he quickly filed a case in court.
After years of litigation, the parties came to a compromise. The lot claimant offered to dismantle the makeshift house of Ritche’s friend and turn over to him whatever usable materials remained.
The friend declined, saying that he could not bear the sight of his house being torn down by other people. He said every crashing sound of a hammer or wrench of a crowbar tearing apart the house would be like a bullet ripping into his body.
He couldn’t leave the house behind. He couldn’t let it be torn down by strangers. So finally, he asked for three days, and he personally dismantled the house, every part of it. He packed the parts in boxes and brought these to his new lot where he intended to live with his old and sickly parents. That’s where the house is now.
This story is not unfamiliar to urban poor men and women, and children, too. They value their houses as much as Ritche’s friend did. The first step our society must take to help our urban poor people is to understand them—to understand, first of all, their love for their dwellings, unattractive as these may be to us. Such an attachment cannot be measured. The sentimental value of a man’s house is life itself.
This was true in the case of Myrna Porcare, a community leader who was killed while protecting her house. I met her on the morning she was killed. I have her on video speaking about the piece of land where she had lived for more than 20 years with 1,000 other families on a 2.4-hectare site in Pechayan, North Fairview, Quezon City.
Myrna wanted to stop the security guards hired by the land owners from fencing the land, because they were going beyond what was stated in the court order. When she tried to stop a guard, she was killed by a shotgun blast in the stomach. Her son came to her aid and was also murdered.
There are many urban poor people who will sacrifice and even die for their houses. These are their treasure. The urban poor value everything around them, including their houses, in a very special way. No matter how bad we think they are, their houses are beautiful to them.
“A person doesn’t need to be a legal expert to understand what these poor families live through,” Ritche told me. “You only have to be human to understand.”
In the “Panunuluyan” play that the urban poor presented last December with the Philippine Educational Theater Association, titled “Maryosep,” I played the role of Aling Hing, a poor woman pregnant with her sixth child and a victim of a violent demolition. It was a hard role to play. The character’s thoughts were so different from mine, but after three months of rehearsals I came to think like Aling Hing. When the director told me that the demolition team was coming to wreck my house, it was not my own thoughts that made me angry and full of energy to act; it was the feelings of anger and love that Aling Hing would have had. I came to internalize her love and anger.
Another woman in that play was Maryjane. She is a real person. She had dared audition for the play although she has eight children. Her youngest child was then six months old, and she had to ask her husband’s family to take care of the child temporarily. Her husband recently died of tuberculosis.
Maryjane didn’t need special motivation to cry; every time she began to deliver her monologue in the play about the hardships of the poor, she burst into tears.
As I watched Maryjane, I reflected on the hard life that women like her have to endure, and how very few of us appreciate the way they carry on despite the difficulties of raising their children well. I have learned that urban poor women and men still dream. Poverty has shaken them, but they haven’t given up.
Think of the poor man who took his house apart piece by piece and carried it away with him. Imagine Maryjane and her eight children in the slum, and her dream of becoming an actress.
Princess L. Asuncion, 26, is a media advocacy officer of the Urban Poor Associates, an NGO that works for the housing rights of the poor.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49329/urban-poor-dreams#ixzz2OVXvjoEd
By Princess L. Asuncion
My fiance, Ritche, has a friend whose house was partly demolished without a court order on the behest of the family that claimed the lot on which the house stood. The friend’s house was somewhat saved when he quickly filed a case in court.
After years of litigation, the parties came to a compromise. The lot claimant offered to dismantle the makeshift house of Ritche’s friend and turn over to him whatever usable materials remained.
The friend declined, saying that he could not bear the sight of his house being torn down by other people. He said every crashing sound of a hammer or wrench of a crowbar tearing apart the house would be like a bullet ripping into his body.
He couldn’t leave the house behind. He couldn’t let it be torn down by strangers. So finally, he asked for three days, and he personally dismantled the house, every part of it. He packed the parts in boxes and brought these to his new lot where he intended to live with his old and sickly parents. That’s where the house is now.
This story is not unfamiliar to urban poor men and women, and children, too. They value their houses as much as Ritche’s friend did. The first step our society must take to help our urban poor people is to understand them—to understand, first of all, their love for their dwellings, unattractive as these may be to us. Such an attachment cannot be measured. The sentimental value of a man’s house is life itself.
This was true in the case of Myrna Porcare, a community leader who was killed while protecting her house. I met her on the morning she was killed. I have her on video speaking about the piece of land where she had lived for more than 20 years with 1,000 other families on a 2.4-hectare site in Pechayan, North Fairview, Quezon City.
Myrna wanted to stop the security guards hired by the land owners from fencing the land, because they were going beyond what was stated in the court order. When she tried to stop a guard, she was killed by a shotgun blast in the stomach. Her son came to her aid and was also murdered.
There are many urban poor people who will sacrifice and even die for their houses. These are their treasure. The urban poor value everything around them, including their houses, in a very special way. No matter how bad we think they are, their houses are beautiful to them.
“A person doesn’t need to be a legal expert to understand what these poor families live through,” Ritche told me. “You only have to be human to understand.”
In the “Panunuluyan” play that the urban poor presented last December with the Philippine Educational Theater Association, titled “Maryosep,” I played the role of Aling Hing, a poor woman pregnant with her sixth child and a victim of a violent demolition. It was a hard role to play. The character’s thoughts were so different from mine, but after three months of rehearsals I came to think like Aling Hing. When the director told me that the demolition team was coming to wreck my house, it was not my own thoughts that made me angry and full of energy to act; it was the feelings of anger and love that Aling Hing would have had. I came to internalize her love and anger.
Another woman in that play was Maryjane. She is a real person. She had dared audition for the play although she has eight children. Her youngest child was then six months old, and she had to ask her husband’s family to take care of the child temporarily. Her husband recently died of tuberculosis.
Maryjane didn’t need special motivation to cry; every time she began to deliver her monologue in the play about the hardships of the poor, she burst into tears.
As I watched Maryjane, I reflected on the hard life that women like her have to endure, and how very few of us appreciate the way they carry on despite the difficulties of raising their children well. I have learned that urban poor women and men still dream. Poverty has shaken them, but they haven’t given up.
Think of the poor man who took his house apart piece by piece and carried it away with him. Imagine Maryjane and her eight children in the slum, and her dream of becoming an actress.
Princess L. Asuncion, 26, is a media advocacy officer of the Urban Poor Associates, an NGO that works for the housing rights of the poor.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/49329/urban-poor-dreams#ixzz2OVXvjoEd
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Parola fire—joy and sorrow
Commentary
By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Recently in Parola, Tondo, a fire driven by tornado-like winds destroyed 100 hollow-block houses in which an estimated 300 families lived. We walked a few days later in the blackened ruins. It looked as if we were moving through a prison block of fire-scorched cells. The alley, however, was alive with children playing, men rebuilding, and the banging of hammers on roofs of GI sheets.
There were tragic stories. A two-year-old girl was trapped in her house. The neighbors told us they could hear the little girl crying for help even over the roar of the wind and fire. The crying went on for some time. Young men tried to reach her, but couldn’t. Then the crying stopped, and hours later firemen carried out the small body.
There were happy stories. One-year-old Rafael Iscala was trapped on the upper floor of his house with his aunt. His mother watched helplessly from the alleyway and then two hands appeared at the window; it was the aunt holding the baby. After a few seconds of hesitation, the aunt dropped the child. Men from Oceanlink Trucking caught him 15 feet below.
We met Rafael later in the relief center. When the crowd of children there heard his story, they looked up at the little boy in his mother’s arms as if he were the world’s first baby astronaut just back from outer space. Rafael accepted the attention with great modesty and his thumb in his mouth.
The survivors we met were happy to be alive. Laurie Cantero, the mother of four young boys, was grateful: “At least I still have my boys.” The little girl died only a few meters away. We asked Fe Galaban, a grandmother who lived with three of her own children and five grandchildren in her house, if she still believed in God. She was surprised at the question. “Siyempre (of course)! I don’t blame God. God didn’t do this.” The neighbors call Aling Fe “Mama.” When the mothers work, she watches their children.
The people are generally not critical, but some questions should be asked. The government did a good job with relief work. There is a new evacuation center built near the Del Pan Sports Center where the people were able to go. There is more than enough food there. On the other hand, the men doing the repair work have to labor by themselves. If they have money or the ability to borrow, they take out a loan from the bumbay at the usual 5-6 interest rate. If a man or woman head of the household has no money, there is no repair work. We didn’t see any cooperative repair work. “Kanya-kanya,” Vicente Mendiola said. “That’s all there is.” If a man has male relatives, they will help, but the neighbors are busy with their own houses. If people leave their newly bought housing materials unwatched, these will be stolen by outsiders. Even the burned lumber and GI sheets recovered from the ruins of the fire are stolen.
The government can take advantage of such fires and disasters to reblock homes and subsidize house repair. If a small area were rehabilitated, it would be a model for the rest of a large area—for Parola, for example.
Nowadays, as much time is given to rehabilitation as to emergency relief. If we don’t move ahead, we drift and fall back. Disaster can be totally tragic, or it can lead to new and welcome initiatives.
Joseph Estrada and Vice President Jojo Binay were there to give food and money. Liberal Party people were not seen in the fire area, nor were priests or nuns. No one brought the people together to plan better ways of rebuilding, or to pray. It’s not too soon to talk of the future. Such talk gives hope and a purpose in the hard situation.
Ironically, the house where the fire began is neat and swept clear of all debris, while most of the houses are still full of rubble.
There were hundreds of little children in the new relief center. At 4 p.m. the loudspeaker announced there was “merienda” on the first floor for children, and suddenly the children stampeded through the corridors and down the stairs. Step out of the way or be trampled. The children were laughing: It was all a game.
Parola lies at the mouth of the Pasig River. There are approximately 12,000 families packed into some 10-12 hectares of land, and it has so far defied efforts to develop it. The land was proclaimed for the homes of the residents by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Recently, the mayor took steps to get land titled for the people. A workable plan is still needed.
We left Parola with mixed memories. The people are resilient and sensitive to the sorrow of others. Not all of them, however: There are hungry people and bad guys who steal from the victims. The children are unmatched anywhere. The government, the Church, the political parties and the NGOs must do more. They all gave relief but now development is needed, which is more difficult to organize. Can the government, the people and all other groups develop a plan that will improve the lives of all the poor of Parola? “Kanya-kanya” is not enough for people. They have to unite and cooperate with one another to establish their own influential place in this society.
We will remember the two-year-old girl and her cries for help. We will remember young Rafael falling calmly 15 feet with his thumb in his mouth. We will remember Fe Galaban, the grandmother who was surprised when she was asked if she still believed in God.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).
By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Recently in Parola, Tondo, a fire driven by tornado-like winds destroyed 100 hollow-block houses in which an estimated 300 families lived. We walked a few days later in the blackened ruins. It looked as if we were moving through a prison block of fire-scorched cells. The alley, however, was alive with children playing, men rebuilding, and the banging of hammers on roofs of GI sheets.
There were tragic stories. A two-year-old girl was trapped in her house. The neighbors told us they could hear the little girl crying for help even over the roar of the wind and fire. The crying went on for some time. Young men tried to reach her, but couldn’t. Then the crying stopped, and hours later firemen carried out the small body.
There were happy stories. One-year-old Rafael Iscala was trapped on the upper floor of his house with his aunt. His mother watched helplessly from the alleyway and then two hands appeared at the window; it was the aunt holding the baby. After a few seconds of hesitation, the aunt dropped the child. Men from Oceanlink Trucking caught him 15 feet below.
We met Rafael later in the relief center. When the crowd of children there heard his story, they looked up at the little boy in his mother’s arms as if he were the world’s first baby astronaut just back from outer space. Rafael accepted the attention with great modesty and his thumb in his mouth.
The survivors we met were happy to be alive. Laurie Cantero, the mother of four young boys, was grateful: “At least I still have my boys.” The little girl died only a few meters away. We asked Fe Galaban, a grandmother who lived with three of her own children and five grandchildren in her house, if she still believed in God. She was surprised at the question. “Siyempre (of course)! I don’t blame God. God didn’t do this.” The neighbors call Aling Fe “Mama.” When the mothers work, she watches their children.
The people are generally not critical, but some questions should be asked. The government did a good job with relief work. There is a new evacuation center built near the Del Pan Sports Center where the people were able to go. There is more than enough food there. On the other hand, the men doing the repair work have to labor by themselves. If they have money or the ability to borrow, they take out a loan from the bumbay at the usual 5-6 interest rate. If a man or woman head of the household has no money, there is no repair work. We didn’t see any cooperative repair work. “Kanya-kanya,” Vicente Mendiola said. “That’s all there is.” If a man has male relatives, they will help, but the neighbors are busy with their own houses. If people leave their newly bought housing materials unwatched, these will be stolen by outsiders. Even the burned lumber and GI sheets recovered from the ruins of the fire are stolen.
The government can take advantage of such fires and disasters to reblock homes and subsidize house repair. If a small area were rehabilitated, it would be a model for the rest of a large area—for Parola, for example.
Nowadays, as much time is given to rehabilitation as to emergency relief. If we don’t move ahead, we drift and fall back. Disaster can be totally tragic, or it can lead to new and welcome initiatives.
Joseph Estrada and Vice President Jojo Binay were there to give food and money. Liberal Party people were not seen in the fire area, nor were priests or nuns. No one brought the people together to plan better ways of rebuilding, or to pray. It’s not too soon to talk of the future. Such talk gives hope and a purpose in the hard situation.
Ironically, the house where the fire began is neat and swept clear of all debris, while most of the houses are still full of rubble.
There were hundreds of little children in the new relief center. At 4 p.m. the loudspeaker announced there was “merienda” on the first floor for children, and suddenly the children stampeded through the corridors and down the stairs. Step out of the way or be trampled. The children were laughing: It was all a game.
Parola lies at the mouth of the Pasig River. There are approximately 12,000 families packed into some 10-12 hectares of land, and it has so far defied efforts to develop it. The land was proclaimed for the homes of the residents by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Recently, the mayor took steps to get land titled for the people. A workable plan is still needed.
We left Parola with mixed memories. The people are resilient and sensitive to the sorrow of others. Not all of them, however: There are hungry people and bad guys who steal from the victims. The children are unmatched anywhere. The government, the Church, the political parties and the NGOs must do more. They all gave relief but now development is needed, which is more difficult to organize. Can the government, the people and all other groups develop a plan that will improve the lives of all the poor of Parola? “Kanya-kanya” is not enough for people. They have to unite and cooperate with one another to establish their own influential place in this society.
We will remember the two-year-old girl and her cries for help. We will remember young Rafael falling calmly 15 feet with his thumb in his mouth. We will remember Fe Galaban, the grandmother who was surprised when she was asked if she still believed in God.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).
Sunday, February 24, 2013
This Church of ours
Commentary
By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
At any Sunday afternoon Mass in our Project 4 church, we see the very old and babies, poor people and scavengers (dressed up for Sunday Mass), lawyers, and young girls heartbreakingly unaware of all that await them—love, marriage, childbirth and motherhood, and maybe serious disappointment. There are grandmothers and a little girl in the pew ahead who spends her Mass staring back at me. There is an old man who, I think, stays for two or more Masses. There are nurses in white uniforms, beggars at the door (as there have been at church doors for over a thousand years), and young men who may be police officers. A young mother with two small children seems unaccountably sad.
It is a deep honor to be there with them every Sunday. One of the graces God gives old people, I believe, is the ability to take pride in all the people around them, as if they were their own, all of them from the babies to the nurses, young men, the choir members, the boys and girls serving at the altar, and the old folks. The old take pride in them all.
We sit there waiting for the Mass to begin, these very varied people, ready to ponder God’s word, laugh at a good story, change for the better, or at least try to change and to help one another if we can. These are God’s people, I thought; these few hundred people gathered here in Project 4, Cubao, are part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we profess in the Creed, just as much as the 2,000 plus bishops who gathered at Vatican II. The Holy Spirit is here. Jesus is in their midst as He promised.
We cannot separate these people and all the other members of the Church, known and unknown, from the priests and bishops, but I took away from that afternoon Mass a realization that we must do more in the Church to appreciate the dignity of the lay people and to make sure they develop in the Church as God wishes.
Perhaps we can gather from our community-organizing work some hints about how the Church may go about enhancing the life of the people of God. Often it is a matter of allowing people to be themselves. It is the one profession I know well.
In community organization we help poor people come together to learn how to analyze their problems—that is, the problems they face every day; we help them work out their own solutions, taking into account their allies and abilities and the strengths of the people opposing them. Lastly, we help them act in a democratic, nonviolent, community-wide way. I am not suggesting that the Church imitate this process as such, but rather, that it look at some of the unexpected, yet welcome, outcomes of this process.
At a certain point the poor people no longer need the community organizers (COs) on any regular basis. They initiate works on their own, imaginative works that the COs wouldn’t think of. Creativity spreads in a community; initiatives widen. People make better arrangements for savings, toilets, urban gardens, contracts with foundations, and buyers of their cottage-industry products, estate management, repayment schedules, and community discipline than the COs can.
Does the Church allow for or encourage such creativity among the laity? What, for example, does it learn from such people’s devotions such as the Black Nazarene? Nine million people gather, barefoot. What does that say to Church leaders? How can they help unlock the tremendous amounts of goodwill in that great movement of people for building a just and prosperous country?
Community organization sees in its more successful efforts the people coming together in true solidarity with one another: They form communities where they help one another and take care of the sick and very poor. They make sure all children go to school. These communities are truly religious, often of mixed Christian and Muslim people.
Does the Church actively build such communal solidarity? It has done so in the past—for instance, in the Solidarity Movement in Poland at the start of John Paul II’s papacy. The Basic Ecclesial Movement (BEC), sometimes called the Basic Christian Community (BCC), unites Catholics in prayer and social action in their areas, but the movement has never flourished here. The latest figures I received from the National Secretariat for Social Action a few years ago were about 7,000 BECs or BCCs, with about 70,000 members, in a country of 80 million Catholics. Some say the movement didn’t expand because it was too controlled by priests. In Latin America, it was more a people’s movement.
Our COs are sometimes disappointed when they are not publicly recognized in the media, or in the people’s narratives. We tell them they should be happy that the people believe they did the good work themselves. Humility becomes people who work with the poor. Let the people claim the success: The poor will never forget them; the poor, in their private moments, know deep down who helped them.
Perhaps the Church needs to learn the same lesson of humility. It requires big doses of common sense. Many women, for example, react critically when they see rows of priests and bishops investments moving up the middle aisle, and not a woman among them. We should find some other way to create solemnity.
We are called in the Philippines to be the Church of the Poor. We are sent like Jesus to preach good news to the poor, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, bind wounds, feed the hungry, and let the oppressed go free. There’s no room here for pride of any sort.
Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation letter is a model of such humility.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
At any Sunday afternoon Mass in our Project 4 church, we see the very old and babies, poor people and scavengers (dressed up for Sunday Mass), lawyers, and young girls heartbreakingly unaware of all that await them—love, marriage, childbirth and motherhood, and maybe serious disappointment. There are grandmothers and a little girl in the pew ahead who spends her Mass staring back at me. There is an old man who, I think, stays for two or more Masses. There are nurses in white uniforms, beggars at the door (as there have been at church doors for over a thousand years), and young men who may be police officers. A young mother with two small children seems unaccountably sad.
It is a deep honor to be there with them every Sunday. One of the graces God gives old people, I believe, is the ability to take pride in all the people around them, as if they were their own, all of them from the babies to the nurses, young men, the choir members, the boys and girls serving at the altar, and the old folks. The old take pride in them all.
We sit there waiting for the Mass to begin, these very varied people, ready to ponder God’s word, laugh at a good story, change for the better, or at least try to change and to help one another if we can. These are God’s people, I thought; these few hundred people gathered here in Project 4, Cubao, are part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we profess in the Creed, just as much as the 2,000 plus bishops who gathered at Vatican II. The Holy Spirit is here. Jesus is in their midst as He promised.
We cannot separate these people and all the other members of the Church, known and unknown, from the priests and bishops, but I took away from that afternoon Mass a realization that we must do more in the Church to appreciate the dignity of the lay people and to make sure they develop in the Church as God wishes.
Perhaps we can gather from our community-organizing work some hints about how the Church may go about enhancing the life of the people of God. Often it is a matter of allowing people to be themselves. It is the one profession I know well.
In community organization we help poor people come together to learn how to analyze their problems—that is, the problems they face every day; we help them work out their own solutions, taking into account their allies and abilities and the strengths of the people opposing them. Lastly, we help them act in a democratic, nonviolent, community-wide way. I am not suggesting that the Church imitate this process as such, but rather, that it look at some of the unexpected, yet welcome, outcomes of this process.
At a certain point the poor people no longer need the community organizers (COs) on any regular basis. They initiate works on their own, imaginative works that the COs wouldn’t think of. Creativity spreads in a community; initiatives widen. People make better arrangements for savings, toilets, urban gardens, contracts with foundations, and buyers of their cottage-industry products, estate management, repayment schedules, and community discipline than the COs can.
Does the Church allow for or encourage such creativity among the laity? What, for example, does it learn from such people’s devotions such as the Black Nazarene? Nine million people gather, barefoot. What does that say to Church leaders? How can they help unlock the tremendous amounts of goodwill in that great movement of people for building a just and prosperous country?
Community organization sees in its more successful efforts the people coming together in true solidarity with one another: They form communities where they help one another and take care of the sick and very poor. They make sure all children go to school. These communities are truly religious, often of mixed Christian and Muslim people.
Does the Church actively build such communal solidarity? It has done so in the past—for instance, in the Solidarity Movement in Poland at the start of John Paul II’s papacy. The Basic Ecclesial Movement (BEC), sometimes called the Basic Christian Community (BCC), unites Catholics in prayer and social action in their areas, but the movement has never flourished here. The latest figures I received from the National Secretariat for Social Action a few years ago were about 7,000 BECs or BCCs, with about 70,000 members, in a country of 80 million Catholics. Some say the movement didn’t expand because it was too controlled by priests. In Latin America, it was more a people’s movement.
Our COs are sometimes disappointed when they are not publicly recognized in the media, or in the people’s narratives. We tell them they should be happy that the people believe they did the good work themselves. Humility becomes people who work with the poor. Let the people claim the success: The poor will never forget them; the poor, in their private moments, know deep down who helped them.
Perhaps the Church needs to learn the same lesson of humility. It requires big doses of common sense. Many women, for example, react critically when they see rows of priests and bishops investments moving up the middle aisle, and not a woman among them. We should find some other way to create solemnity.
We are called in the Philippines to be the Church of the Poor. We are sent like Jesus to preach good news to the poor, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, bind wounds, feed the hungry, and let the oppressed go free. There’s no room here for pride of any sort.
Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation letter is a model of such humility.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
Sunday, February 3, 2013
A little girl’s signature
I remember an old dispute between two very good friends—Ed Gerlock, former Maryknoll priest who has worked with farmers and the aged poor all his life, and Columban Fr. Mickey Martin, a genuine hero of the sugar farmers of Negros Oriental and former Irish football star. It was over a little street child signing her name for the first time.
Ed helped run an informal school and shelter for street children, which was housed in the Malate Church compound. Mickey was the parish priest. One little girl who came to the shelter couldn’t, or wouldn’t, write her name. She had the experts stumped: She was the only child who didn’t want to write. Then something happened, to which my friends had completely distinct reactions.
The little girl had written her name, but she had chosen to use a rusty nail in writing it on the fender of a brand-new car owned by one of the parish’s benefactors that was parked in the church compound. Ed was delighted: The girl had come in out of the darkness. Mickey was horrified: Who was to blame, and what would he tell the woman owner?
As the dispute developed, I could imagine what the two men might have thought of each other. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mickey secretly thought that Ed was delighted that the little girl was not only writing, but was also striking a blow for social justice in picking out a new car for her first signature. Ed may have thought that Mickey was, deep down, more of a capitalist than the bred-in-the-bone friend of the poor he had been all those years with the sugar workers.
The two men are friends again. Little girls are still searched for rusty nails, of course.
In that old debate and the present people-government debates, both sides have arguable points. For example, the government has the right to evict poor families under certain conditions for the common good, but it must observe the rules imposed by the Philippines’ Constitution and laws and the United Nations Covenants on Human Rights it has signed. We should add here that Christianity and Islam have championed these rights since long before there was a Philippine government or a UN.
The government should also abide by the clear promises President Aquino has made to the poor, such as in-city, near-city resettlement. This position of the President acknowledges that the distant relocation sites the government once established—where no jobs were available—were a clear wrong that needed correction. No side has all the strong points, however. Anyway, in a democracy we don’t have to win by a knockout; a close decision is enough. Democracies compromise.
As I write this, a meeting is going on downstairs in our office of urban poor people. It is noisy, but music to the ears of people who desire more people’s participation in national affairs. The people are discussing the government announcement that it will evict some 16,000 poor families before May 15, either because their lives are endangered (families living in stilt houses on the waters of our Metro Manila esteros and rivers) or because the government wants them out for other reasons (for example, so it can build revetments or dredge the waters).
The debate at this moment may be about these 15,800 families. We hesitate to say “only 15,000,” since it is already a big figure, but the families concerned will grow in number very rapidly when we take into account the entire Flood Control Plan in which 209,000 families will be resettled—over a million men, women and children. Let us talk, therefore, about the 209,000 families. The Department of Public Works and Highways divides them into 154,728 families on the Pasig River-Metro Manila area and 54,800 families around Laguna Lake.
The sad truth is that deep down, the urban poor organizations don’t believe that government agencies care much about their welfare. They see the care and resources the government has put into the engineering plans of the flood control program, but do not see how it is preparing in an equally careful way for the resettlement of the 209,000 families. The government has little, if any, land set aside for their resettlement. It lacks accurate figures on how many poor families need to be relocated. Indeed, it may lack accurate figures on the total number of urban poor families in all of Metro Manila. The government says they number about 540,000, but the Asian Development Bank in 2004 said there were five million urban poor individuals in Metro Manila, or one million families.
What do poor people want of the government in this matter of the 209,000 families? They want the government to tell them in some detail what families will be resettled, and where. The government knows exactly where it will put the grand dam that will be the linchpin of the flood control work and the catchment basins. The poor also want the government to commit publicly to limiting resettlement to on-site, in-city, or near-city sites. “Near-city” means near enough so a wage earner employed in Metro Manila can commute to and from his or her home and job at affordable cost. Failure to limit resettlement along these lines flies in the face of the President’s commitment to the poor. They ask the government to make known at the beginning of each year where exactly it will resettle the families to be moved that year.
Finally, the poor want the government to treat them with respect. It is as simple as that: Bankers and lawyers are not forced onto trucks by police and shipped off to distant relocation, often in the very trucks that carry off the city garbage.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
Ed helped run an informal school and shelter for street children, which was housed in the Malate Church compound. Mickey was the parish priest. One little girl who came to the shelter couldn’t, or wouldn’t, write her name. She had the experts stumped: She was the only child who didn’t want to write. Then something happened, to which my friends had completely distinct reactions.
The little girl had written her name, but she had chosen to use a rusty nail in writing it on the fender of a brand-new car owned by one of the parish’s benefactors that was parked in the church compound. Ed was delighted: The girl had come in out of the darkness. Mickey was horrified: Who was to blame, and what would he tell the woman owner?
As the dispute developed, I could imagine what the two men might have thought of each other. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mickey secretly thought that Ed was delighted that the little girl was not only writing, but was also striking a blow for social justice in picking out a new car for her first signature. Ed may have thought that Mickey was, deep down, more of a capitalist than the bred-in-the-bone friend of the poor he had been all those years with the sugar workers.
The two men are friends again. Little girls are still searched for rusty nails, of course.
In that old debate and the present people-government debates, both sides have arguable points. For example, the government has the right to evict poor families under certain conditions for the common good, but it must observe the rules imposed by the Philippines’ Constitution and laws and the United Nations Covenants on Human Rights it has signed. We should add here that Christianity and Islam have championed these rights since long before there was a Philippine government or a UN.
The government should also abide by the clear promises President Aquino has made to the poor, such as in-city, near-city resettlement. This position of the President acknowledges that the distant relocation sites the government once established—where no jobs were available—were a clear wrong that needed correction. No side has all the strong points, however. Anyway, in a democracy we don’t have to win by a knockout; a close decision is enough. Democracies compromise.
As I write this, a meeting is going on downstairs in our office of urban poor people. It is noisy, but music to the ears of people who desire more people’s participation in national affairs. The people are discussing the government announcement that it will evict some 16,000 poor families before May 15, either because their lives are endangered (families living in stilt houses on the waters of our Metro Manila esteros and rivers) or because the government wants them out for other reasons (for example, so it can build revetments or dredge the waters).
The debate at this moment may be about these 15,800 families. We hesitate to say “only 15,000,” since it is already a big figure, but the families concerned will grow in number very rapidly when we take into account the entire Flood Control Plan in which 209,000 families will be resettled—over a million men, women and children. Let us talk, therefore, about the 209,000 families. The Department of Public Works and Highways divides them into 154,728 families on the Pasig River-Metro Manila area and 54,800 families around Laguna Lake.
The sad truth is that deep down, the urban poor organizations don’t believe that government agencies care much about their welfare. They see the care and resources the government has put into the engineering plans of the flood control program, but do not see how it is preparing in an equally careful way for the resettlement of the 209,000 families. The government has little, if any, land set aside for their resettlement. It lacks accurate figures on how many poor families need to be relocated. Indeed, it may lack accurate figures on the total number of urban poor families in all of Metro Manila. The government says they number about 540,000, but the Asian Development Bank in 2004 said there were five million urban poor individuals in Metro Manila, or one million families.
What do poor people want of the government in this matter of the 209,000 families? They want the government to tell them in some detail what families will be resettled, and where. The government knows exactly where it will put the grand dam that will be the linchpin of the flood control work and the catchment basins. The poor also want the government to commit publicly to limiting resettlement to on-site, in-city, or near-city sites. “Near-city” means near enough so a wage earner employed in Metro Manila can commute to and from his or her home and job at affordable cost. Failure to limit resettlement along these lines flies in the face of the President’s commitment to the poor. They ask the government to make known at the beginning of each year where exactly it will resettle the families to be moved that year.
Finally, the poor want the government to treat them with respect. It is as simple as that: Bankers and lawyers are not forced onto trucks by police and shipped off to distant relocation, often in the very trucks that carry off the city garbage.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates [urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com].
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