Where Are The Poor?

Written by: Denis Murphy (He works with the Urban Poor Associates.)
Posted at: Inquirer
May 06, 2006, 01:35am
Published on: Page A13, May 6, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANY have noticed the poor are not attending the present political discussions and rallies. This is not good, they believe, because without the poor the rallies are weak. But why are the poor absent? Some civil society leaders say the poor have first to be educated on the pros and cons of the issues and then they'll come. Others fear the poor may have completely different priorities, or have lost faith in all the current leaders.

In an attempt to find the beginnings of an answer, I attended an urban poor people's workshop on the Charter change initiative. Chito Gascon, former undersecretary of the Department of Education, was the main speaker. The first people I talked with were two young mothers from Daang-Tubo, Quezon City: Lisa Elinida, 24, married with three children and Melanie Juntilo, 19, married with two children. Each nursed a baby as we talked.

After some introductions, I asked them what Charter change was. They thought a while, then Lisa said, "A dance?" Later she said Charter change was a program of the President for jobs.

Their husbands are unemployed. They survive by borrowing food and money from their neighbors and by scavenging when they can for plastics and metals. I asked about food: for example, what they ate at night. They said they often have no food at night, so they drink water and try to sleep. These are the exact words told me just a few days earlier by a woman in the government relocation center in Cabuyao, Laguna. The two women buy bread when they can, and if they have P2 they buy Dimples (a fish-flavored cracker, a junk food).

The two babies looked malnourished. A medical person with me said one of the babies should be twice its weight. They are nice-looking babies, but very frail and they don't move around or move as quickly as well-fed children. Melanie's baby has a sore near his eye. The medical person asked her what it was, and was told "chicken pox." "No money for a doctor," Lisa explains.

Melanie also lacks a place to sleep. She, her husband and her two children sleep outside on some chairs. There was a certain sadness in the babies' faces, I thought, and they're not yet one year old.

"What do you want the government to do?" I asked.

"Give us jobs so we can eat."

Charter change, it seems, is not a concern for the poor. Their concern for jobs and food dominates their lives like the blazing sun dominates our summer days.

"Does God want people to be hungry?" I asked.

"No, it's the bad leaders who are corrupt and steal, not God. We believe in God. It's bad leaders."

Seventy-five percent of urban poor will answer this way. They know more about God's ways than they do of Charter change. They feel, despite their problems, that they are better off than they would be in their home provinces in the Bicol region and in Leyte province. "There," Lisa explained, "if you don't have money or fish, you do not eat. No one can share with you, because everyone is poor. In Manila, you can borrow and you can scavenge."

"Are you happy with life?"

"Mahirap-masaya", Melanie says.

"Masaya na masaya", Lisa says with conviction.

I think that if I can understand this attitude in the face of dire poverty, I can understand the poor.

I interviewed Maricris Yamasirap, 20, single and unemployed. She lost her job as a security guard. She lives by herself. "I borrow from my friends to buy bread. That's all I eat. Look at me, I used to be mataba [stout]. Now I'm so thin. Look at me." She holds up her arm, which is as thin as a child's.

"What do you want our government to do?" I asked.

"We want GMA [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] out. We're hungry."

Antonia Bolani, an older woman, who has listened to Maricris, says her husband doesn't work, but they have two sons working who help. "We're lucky, I guess, listening to the other people here like Maricris. I eat fish sometimes and meat once a month."

The women and the community organizers who work in their areas say the women I interviewed are typical of very many, maybe half of all the members of their communities. There are some urban poor who know the issues and care about Cha-cha, but they are the exception. The great majority, if not exactly as poor as the women interviewed, are concerned with jobs and food. Even land problems take second place unless there's an actual eviction. Can we blame them?

It's not poor people alone. Later in the day, on Radio Veritas, I heard Josua Mata of the Alliance of Progressive Labor say almost the same thing about workers: "Workers are interested in jobs and their rights, not in Cha-cha."

It is not accurate to say the poor or the workers are ignorant and need education about Charter change or snap elections. It seems rather, as can be seen from the interviews above, that they have totally different priorities and need help first in pursuing their own priority goals. They will, they said, join rallies for food and jobs. If such rallies find some success, perhaps they'll join other rallies.

"The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty." (Lk 2:53).