On Smokey Mountain, Manila's massive trash heap that has become home to 7,000 Filipinos, the steeple of an abandoned church juts skyward like an island rising from a sea of garbage. The steeple is a silent but stalwart symbol of desperate, determined people, picking through others' trash for treasures to sell.
Smokey Mountain is a microcosm of the nationwide decay wrought by abusive foreign nations and elite Filipinos who profit from the country's rich resources at the expense of the masses. In the weeks before the May 11 presidential election, as Filipinos questioned whether a new leader could or would reform this centuries-old, unjust system, some sought ways to turn the system to their advantage while others stepped up their struggles for reform, inviting the participation of those who share a vision for a just and peaceful Philippines.
By salvaging items on Smokey Mountain, Jun Lipit earns 30 pesos a day, barely $1 U.S. The wages mean "one day, one eat," but he prefers that to stealing. For Lipit, the Philippine presidential elections promised only temporary relief, and that only as he sells his vote to the highest bidder. "I don't think any one of them will make a difference anyway. I might as well eat for a week," he said.
Political detainee Jaime Tadeo shares similar sentiments, though tempered with a strong faith in God and in the people's movement. From inside his cell at Muntinlupa Prison, Tadeo sees his country as a much larger prison for which the key to liberation is not in a new president. "There will be no change with a change of leadership," he said. "You have to change the elite political structure that is unjust. There is no political structure for the poor."
Having devoted his life to organizing the national peasants' movement, Tadeo longs to return to "the forefront of the struggle." That, he said, "is my natural habitat." In the struggle also is his hope for the transformation of Philippine society.
Together, Tadeo and Lipit reflect the frustration Filipinos feel with the government's lack of vision and willingness to cope with their country's crises. The people distrust typical politicians, often calling them balimbing, a fruit with so many angles that its appearance is constantly changing.
Before the election, many Filipinos remained uncommitted to a particular presidential candidate, making the outcome unpredictable. Of course, predictions are difficult anyway in elections in which the common fare is ballot box snatching, flying voters who change their names as they move from one poll to the next, computer cheating in tallying votes, harassment of voters, and the interference of foreign governments seeking to protect their interests.
The people's growing aversion to trapos (traditional politicians) is evident in places such as Antipolo, a suburb of Manila, where community organizers of the urban poor are following their own vision for "alternative, principled politics." They have been targeting a local election, sponsoring their own mayoral candidate, because that's where they believe they can make a difference. They also think their candidate, Tony O'Hara, will help them protect their land and homes from over-eager real estate developers and miners.
Meanwhile, they continue to protest the destruction of the land by arranging dialogue with the developers, studying the law, and demonstrating on site with posters such as one written by 10-year-old Arbie Armachuelo: "The mountains, the hills, the trees are crying and in pain because of the continuing bulldozers and quarrying."
Community voter-education programs challenge voters to take a long-term view and rethink the tradition of voting for candidates who pay the poor now but abandon them later. Repelled by money politics, other desperately poor Filipinos refuse to sell their votes, or if they do take the money, they still vote for the candidate of their choice. Despite threats and harassment, they cling boldly to determination and hope as they press for reforms.
THIS YEAR hundreds of Filipinos and international friends chose the March for Life as a forum for voicing issues. A week-long journey, the march commemorates the anniversary of the Bataan Death March (this year the 50th).
Some 10,000 Filipinos and Americans died in the 1942 forced march to prison camp, and some 30,000 more died there under the Japanese military. As participants in the annual commemoration together retrace the 150-kilometer (about 100-mile) route from Mariveles, Bataan, to Carpas, Tarlac, they expose and protest ongoing threats to life.
Rev. Kazuo Sugawara, a Japanese pastor and missionary in the Philippines, conceived the idea of the March for Life to apologize for Japanese aggression and to proclaim the sanctity of life. Rev. Ephraim "Petz" Guerrero, a conference moderator with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), helped bring the idea to fruition and stressed its importance in building solidarity.
"When the people see [others] interested in and learning about their issues, they say, 'It's possible to go on with our struggle because these people are marching for us,' " said Guerrero.
Marchers passed barren farm fields, river beds, and houses filled with lahar, the volcanic ash and rock from Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 eruption. In relocation centers, marchers heard the victims' longings for aid, land, jobs, and a future for their children. They also passed through impoverished fishing villages, whose children are marred by skin infections and waters infested with garbage. In several places they heard accounts of increasing militarization and human rights abuses in response to the country's insurgency.
Most of the chants and speeches on the march opposed the proposed opening of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Financed with fraudulent loans involving a consortium of U.S. banks led by Citicorp, BNPP was constructed by Westinghouse Electric Corp. near a volcano and several earthquake faults. The nuclear plant reportedly has some 4,000 defects. Charges of corruption against Westinghouse recently were settled out of court. Now, despite the potential dangers, the Philippine government is considering a loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to pay Westinghouse to upgrade and open the plant in an effort to solve a serious energy shortage.
DURING A CONCERT and rally held for marchers and residents in Angeles City, Leonor Briones, president of the Freedom From Debt Coalition, urged Filipinos to protest interest payments on BNPP ($350,000 daily) and the new loan, and to call for a reduction of the international debt ($29 billion), which includes corrupt loans from the Marcos era. Forty percent of the national budget services the international debt and 19 percent is spent on the military, leaving only 40 percent for health, education, and social services. Most families cannot get adequate medical care, and only 22 percent of children entering elementary school can afford to complete high school.
"Until now, we are still on a death march. If Filipinos don't do anything about the debt, maybe their children will go through a death march, too," Briones said. "Go ask the candidates if they will pay the debt. Choose a candidate that will not pay, but will choose the people first. Then, children will have a chance to live, hope, and obtain their dreams."
The candidate whose name surfaced most frequently among marchers was Jovito Salonga, former senate president. "He's the only one for the people," said Doug Cunningham, a United Methodist missionary from the United States who edits UCCP publications and participated in the march. "He's very much for peace talks with the rebels, for writing off a significant part of the international debt, and for converting the U.S. bases. He's also the least likely to get elected. He doesn't have the money. The way to win an election here is to have the logistics, the local machinery to turn out the vote and to count the vote."
Some peasant groups have been targeting Salonga as their candidate, though, as Cunningham admits, even Salonga has not yet presented an economic platform to address much-needed land reform. Two percent of the population controls 75 percent of the land, exporting most food crops for profits. Farmers on the march were protesting their feudal relationship with land owners, the illegal logging that causes floods, and the high prices of pesticides, seed, and fertilizers that keep them in perpetual debt. "We are the hope of our nation because the foods come from us. But we eat only two times a day," said Miguel Caliwag, chair of the Alliance of Central Luzon Farmers.
"So many candidates come to us and give promises," Caliwag said. "But we don't need promises, we need action."
Marching for Life
The May 11 elections in the Philippines marked the first democratic transfer of power in that country since the ascendancy of the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the mid-1960s. But the election of Gen. Fidel Ramos, the apparent narrow winner over Miriam Defensor Santiago, promises only a continuation of Corazon Aquino's policies--particularly in his opposition to peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front and in economic policies that favor the status quo.
This spring, just weeks before the election, Filipinos, Japanese, and Americans retraced the route of the 1942 Death March to commemorate its 50th anniversary and to focus on ongoing economic, political, and environmental issues in the country. Darlene Slack, a reporter for The Marion Star and a member of the Ohio Coalition for the Philippines, participated in the April 5-11 "March for Life."
- The Editors
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