Modest proposal

I thought I’d round off my articles on “Yolanda” and how it has drawn our attention to the poor by talking about an idea I’ve had for quite some time now. That idea is to launch some kind of “propoor coalition” to thrust fighting poverty to the forefront of national consciousness. What better time to do it than the dawning of a new year?

The idea came from my sudden realization that we actually have several people in our midst today who harbor unassailably genuine, or genuinely unassailable, compassion for the poor and carry an impressive track record of work to go with it. All it takes, as I see it, is to bring them together to initiate or unleash or force a paradigm shift from just achieving growth to ending poverty.

The first is an old hand in it. He is Tony Meloto, founder of Gawad Kalinga, an organization that began as a spin-off of Couples for Christ but has since split from it and forged its own identity as some sort of Carpenter for Christ. It remains staunchly spiritual while mounting a robust effort to meet the secular challenge of plucking out the poorest of the poor from the clutches of poverty, a thing Couples found un-Christ-like for straying too much into the realm of Caesar. Today, GK has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming one of the most trusted organizations in the country. I won’t bother to say what has happened to the other one.

Proof of it is that several huge international contributors to the relief efforts for Tacloban chose to course their contributions through GK. The organization can be trusted not just to make sure every dollar goes to the survivors but also that it does when it is most needed. It is one organization that actually has organization.

From the start, it was clear to the GK people that they did not just want to build houses, they also wanted to build communities. Housing projects are a dime a dozen, communities are rarer than an honest collector at Customs. Indeed, even human settlements are a dime a dozen, they’re just billboards that hide stark realities. Real communities are the true wonder, which is what GK has been building almost literally from scratch: It’s the former toughies, dregs of society, and wretched of the earth that have put them up, that are sustaining them and making them flourish with GK’s help.

GK started out building communities. In the end, it has built more.

Chito Tagle, the highest Catholic Church official in the Philippines today, however Socrates Villegas keeps trying to steal the thunder futilely) from him, is an old hand in serving the poor, too, although he was thrust to the limelight only recently. That was so when the retired previous pope, Benedict XVI, made him cardinal late last year, entitling him not just to vote for the new pope but also to vie to become one himself. A thing he never showed interest in. You know the genuine ones from their humility and simplicity: That is where their thunder comes from.

Tagle doesn’t have an organization devoted to uplifting the poor but he has an organization, the biggest one in the country, that has the moral power to harness the faithful’s heart and mind in that direction. And most Filipinos remain faithful, however faithless many of their shepherds have been. That in fact is what he has been doing all this time, as priest, as bishop of Cavite, and as a pauper-prince of the Church: He has been trying earnestly, desperately, to make the poor less poor, in mind as well as body.

He’s the one Church official of late who has been speaking out against the obscenity of poverty, the obscenity of corruption, and the bigger obscenity of the one coexisting with the other. He cannot for the life of him understand how anyone can steal amid the mind-boggling want. He cannot for the death of him comprehend how anyone can snatch the food from the mouth of a hungry child.

The pragmatists, of course, or those who imagine themselves to be so, will ask: But what has he actually done to fight poverty? Well, he has motivated, he has inspired, he has spoken. Sometimes, motivation and inspiration move mountains better than graders and forklifts. Sometimes, in the beginning is the word and the word is made flesh.

The last is not a Filipino, he is Argentine. He also happens to be the Pope. He also happens to be Time’s Person of the Year this year, becoming so for doing so much in so short a time. Not the least of which is drawing the world’s attention to the plight of the poor, not the least of which is drawing attention to the fact that his Church owes its origin and inspiration to someone who was born poor, the son of a carpenter who built more than physical dwelling places.

I can’t think of anyone more resolutely propoor today than Pope Francis. The man lives it, breathes it, finds his life’s purpose in it. I figure if we can get him to bless a propoor project that involves Meloto and Tagle, or—who knows?—get him to visit here and join forces with them, even if only spiritually, we can be off to a good start.

It did occur to me shortly after it struck me that we had these people to inspire, or push, such a project that they are all religious people, and Catholics at that. I’ll leave others to argue whether that’s accidental or providential, incidental or essential. I myself am sure that if we looked hard enough, we’ll find people of other faiths or completely secular ones who share the same vision, revel in the same spirit, and abound with the same dedication. Who can throw themselves into something like this.

Why should we wait for government to discover the urgent need to begin to end poverty? Why should we wait for government to embark on the urgent task to begin to end poverty? Meloto has not, Tagle has not, Francis has not.

A modest proposal, like I said.