Philippine Trip - Episode 13

During my three week stay in the Philippines, the Lord in a new way opened my eyes and broke my heart with the overwhelming need of the poor.

And the situation continually gets worse. According to the ‘Barangay Republic of the Philippines Word Press,’ the urban poor numbered about a million in 1956, and today they number over 30 million. The Philippine population is 89 million. One out of every three Filipinos is poor. Based on the study of the National Wages and Productivity Commission, “a family of six (the size of the average Filipino family) needs at the very least $17.96 every day for food and other expenses.” The average worker in Metro Manila, which is the political, economic, social, and cultural center of the Philippines, earns $7.22 a day. In the poor section of Tondo, Manila, where Norman, my son, and his wife Tina, ministered for three weeks, a worker is happy if he makes $2 to $3 a day. They’re not poor because they are lazy and unwilling to work. They laboriously work nine or more hours a day, seven days a week to try to eke out a “living.”

The Philippine Government is doing little to improve the plight of the poor. In fact, in many ways they are contributing to the crisis. Thousands of urban poor homes constantly face demolition, often with little warning. They need space for parks, for super highways, for large and beautiful malls, for expensive homes and apartment buildings. Their malls are comparable to any mall in the U.S. They cater to the affluent, to tourist and to filling their personal coffers. The gap between the “haves and have not's” is gigantic.
According to Carmen Deunida, former spokesperson of Kadamay, “what the country desperately and urgently needs is radical change in this time of worsening crisis and hunger among the urban poor.” She further states that “it is not enough to depend on legal processes to acquire social justice and development for the urban poor.”

It is mind boggling to realize that the Philippines is only a microcosm of a large portion of the world. In fact, the Philippines is paradise compared to India and many countries in Africa. I am sad to say that since leaving the Philippines in 1975, the plight of the poor, for all practical purpose, has not been on my radar screen. O yes, I’d give to projects addressing their financial needs, but it was more or less a token. As a middle class American Christian, I joined millions of others who give little attention to the poor, the homeless, the mentally and physically challenged, the prisoners, the disenfranchised etc. Unconsciously, I gradually moved to the mind set of most Christians, “You can’t do any thing about it. The poor will always be with us so why get overly concern.” This mind set is an antithesis to the gospel, the good news that Christ came to bring deliverance not only from sin but also from the effects of sin such as poverty. In Old Testament times the Israelites made provision for the foreigners, the poor, the outcast. How much more should this be true in our Christian communities. I wish the cry of my heart was in consort with the words I'm writing. I'm not there yet, but praying to this end.

Before going to the Philippines the Lord had been speaking to me in a new and a more forcible way, through Scripture and other sources, as to God’s compassionate and tender heart for the poor. Oh yes, I knew all the scriptures but little was done to put feet under them. They were more or less just platitudes.

When Norman, my son, called me in April inviting me to join his family to minister to the poor in the Philippines, it resonated in my heart. In fact, at the time I was wondering if God was leading me back to the Philippines to write the last chapter of my life--a ministry to the poor. After much reflection and prayer I have no peace in making such a move at my age, 81. However, the need to minister and develop programs for the "outcast of this world" right here in the U.S. and even here in Morris, MN, where I live, is great. At present I don't know where this might lead me.


Next: Challenges and Closing Thoughts, Part 2