Inner Revolution

A man I most respect and wish I had more time to be with these past four decades asked me several days ago if I thought that there was hope for your country, particularly our youth. I was quite surprised about his question because I thought I should be the one asking him, not the other way around. It is, after all, this friend who has accomplished so much in his advocacy and vision that has always been about raising the poor to be productive middle-class Filipinos.

I knew where he was coming from with his question. He was not talking about Filipinos surviving the worst of times, politically or economically. Both of us being senior citizens, he and can recall the presidents from Magsaysay to Duterte in the last 70 years. We did survive the good and bad times and we know that our children and grandchildren will do the same. He was not asking about survival, he was asking about hope.

As long-time advocates against poverty and the lack of opportunity for those born into poverty, he was referring to the natural dream of the Filipino majority who had always been poor to find a new status in life for themselves and their families. After all, the extreme inequality of wealth and power in Philippine society has been the universal horizon of our country from the days of colonization. All the political rhetoric about government dismantling poverty has been more rhetoric than results.

It is true that official statistics have poverty below 20% of the population. It is just as true that Filipinos themselves regard themselves as poor at double or triple what government claims. Who should we believe then – the statisticians or the suffering poor? As anti-poverty advocates, we look at the stakeholders, or the victims; it is them we see and hear, it is their severe challenges we witness and attempt to address. Their poverty is less measured by figures but more by their pain and their fears.

The hope I was asked about is totally about the struggle of the majority of Filipinos and the chances of their succeeding. I know he already knew the answer, and at most, only needed an affirmation from one who had been more politically involved. He and I know that there is no chance for the majority of the poor within our lifetime and that the only hope is the youth with another 50 to 60 years ahead of them.

Our common conclusion is grounded on the running total of successes and failures we have seen from the beginning of our dedicated effort almost 40 years ago. It is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Like the statisticians, we have our personal records and experiences from our own respective organizations. The difference, though, is that our work and results are not swayed or altered with every election, with every change of president or public official.

The most basic, and painful, realization is that poverty is not just an economic state, it is a summary of many other life features. Poverty is a consequence of birth, not of failure. After being born poor, a coping mechanism develops in each one in order to survive. Poverty then becomes an attitude, a perspective, a subculture. Being born poor also means inheriting an environment that is stingy with giving opportunities. This lack of opportunity is a constant pressure on the poor that deepens all the more perverse coping mechanisms.

Poverty is also aggravated by physical and intellectual stunting. Hunger and sustained malnutrition inflict enough damage that cripples even the development of intellectual potential. There are among the poor a small percentage who are able to climb out of poverty because they have the critical aptitude and determination. The greater number, though, will continue in an almost flat line – and that’s the greater population of Filipinos moving forward in the next 50 years.

Circumstances, however, can intervene, as they have with the OFW phenomenon. I still remember when there were only seamen and some entertainers who were temporary Filipino workers before the substantial numbers that followed in the mid to late 70s. But fate did step in and work opportunities in many countries opened with Filipinos as the best choice of people who could do the work. It was never the government that provided the circumstances, although it did earn enough money to open new agencies focused on OFW affairs.

After OFWs, circumstances again intervened, and this time with call centers. Filipinos again became a people of preference. Together, OFWs, call centers and BPOs have carried our economy and prevented more political tensions from an otherwise greater number of unemployed and hungry Filipinos.

Meanwhile, the elite of society continue their exclusive control over power and wealth. There have been changes of personalities but newcomers quickly assimilated with the ways of the old rich, even embellished them all the more. The nouveau riche with more aggression and less delicadeza makes it even harder for the poor to rise. Trickle-down economics is not a valid economic format anymore; the top tries to catch everything so nothing spills over.

It seems my friend and I will see another generation where do-gooders have not done enough, and the best of intentions still accommodate paths to hell. We have seen small successes here and there, and we need to be motivated by them rather than none at all. After all, we will continue to push forward no matter what. We simply hope for better circumstances to intervene and propel the growth we dream of.

It is highly unlikely that intended reforms that can alter the extreme inequalities. But then again, the global atmosphere has turned disruptive, not only in climate but politics and economics as well. So much depends on the younger generations, those from 10 to 50 years old, to manage better what my generation could not. May theirs be first an inner revolution, a revolution of the heart, a revolution of vision.