Denis Murphy of the Urban Poor Associates spreads flawed analysis of the country’s poverty problem and then makes absurd recommendations to alleviate it. In his piece titled “Fighting against God” (Opinion, 5/3/13), he recommends that the poor be consulted because just like medical patients, they know best what is wrong with them and what they need. He says that if we do not listen to the poor, “we are missing the drive and intelligence of 25 percent of our people” and that if we oppose their demands,” we may end up fighting against God.” Murphy is recommending that to cure a sick person, the sick person himself must write the prescription!
He goes on to appropriate the words of the Pharisee Gamaliel in Acts 5:25-42: “Fellow Israelites, be careful with what you do with these men…. If their activity is of human origin, it will fail, but if it is from God, you may find yourself fighting against God.” Had the Inquirer bothered to read the passage, it would have found that Murphy ripped Gamaliel’s warning out of context because the disciples were not being stopped by the authorities from rescuing people from material poverty. They were preaching salvation from spiritual poverty through acceptance of Jesus Christ!
Murphy expands on his erroneous, self-serving interpretation of the Bible story, declaring that Gamaliel would tell those who will oppose the demands of the world’s poor people: “You are fighting God.” Murphy is so carried away by his bleeding heart that he takes wild liberties with the Scriptures by putting words into the mouth of one of its characters!
In his article “Not the ‘gates of hell’ but worse” (Opinion, 6/5/13), he declared: “The poor need help. No one escapes poverty by himself or herself. Not Batman, Superman, or even the Irish superhero Finn McCool, who is so strong he can lift himself up by the scruff of his neck, can manage to get out of poverty unaided.”
Murphy has been in the country for 43 years and has not heard how so many Chinese came to this country with only the shirts on their backs, dreams for a better life and the capacity and willingness to work and sacrifice to achieve the dream; how these Chinese were derided by Filipinos and how they soon silenced and shamed Filipinos after they took over the economy of the country in just a few generations. Had he bothered to study this Chinese phenomenon, he would have seen that to people who are determined to progress and who pay the requisites, pro-poor government and private programs and aid are not necessary.
He also does not consider that in the not-so-distant past, 90 percent of Filipinos were poor, but poverty incidence has since then shrunk to 28 percent. Chances are those 62 percent who have graduated from poverty practically did it on their own without the government services and benefits that all residents of this country are entitled to. The experience of the Chinese and the 62 percent of Filipinos only shows that in this country, poverty is not an unconquerable enemy to those who pay the price in terms of sweat, sacrifice, discipline, intelligence and wisdom.
A good indicator that a person has what it takes to escape poverty is when they do not listen to people like Murphy who say that the world must make allowances for them, but instead are willing to make the necessary adjustment in their attitudes and actions to make a go for the better life.
—MAYER QUIRINO,
quirinomayer@yahoo.com