One signal affirmation of the local Church’s total embrace of Francis’ Petrine ministry that is grounded on, in the now much clichéd generic,“the last, the least, the lost.”
“We as the Church of the Poor are called to renew our commitment to Christ’s mission and to always take the side of the poor and the oppressed, especially when and where thereis injustice and denial of basic human rights.
The farmers that till the land to bring us food, the fisher folks who navigate the seas for us and the workers who run the industries are still materially poor after decades and generations of work for living. Their dignity as co-creator of the Lord should be reclaimed.” So declared Fr. Enrico Martin F. Adoviso, chairman of the Archdiocese of Manila’ Commission on SocialServices and Development at the time.
“The handicapped, prisoners, indigenous people and even the victims of calamities are in dire need of our compassion to lift up theirhope and spirits. They are all poor, and they are all sons and daughters of our Lord,” the good padre furthered, according to CBCP News, even as he pegged 2015 as “a time to reexamine the use of natural resources to make sure that they benefit the poor.”
The poor by numbers now, culled from a Social Weather Stations survey conducted from Sept. 26 to 29 last year:
12.1 million Filipino families, easily translating to 60.5 million Filipinos, over half of the population;
the food-poor, or those ever-grappling to find the next measly meal – 9.3 million families.
As easily translating to 46.5 million individuals, 15 million children included.
Compounded by the highest unemployment rate among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, put by the International Labor Organization at 7.3 percent as of 2013.
Dire numbers put in direr flesh by Ka Amado Hernandez in his Bayang Malaya thus:
“Bisig na nagsaka’y siyang walang palay;
Nagtayo ng templo’y siyang walang bahay;
Dumungkal ng mina ng bakal at ginto ay baon sa utang;
Lingkod sa pabrika ng damit ay hubad ang mahal sa buhay.”
(The arm that farmed is one without the crops;
The temple builder, without a house;
The one who mined for iron and gold, deep in debt;
The sewer, whose loved ones are naked.)
How the Church shall go about concretizing its celebration of its Year of the Poor I haven’t discerned, a full quarter of the year already expended.
Yes, we can look up to Francis’ mercy-andcompassion- themed visit last January as one rousing kick-off. But whence, whither?
In the meanwhile:
“The economy grew by 6.9 percent in the last quarter of 2014, pushing the average fullyear growth to 6.1 percent, and maintaining the country’s trajectory towards a path of high growth. The fourth quarter and full-year growth is above the market expectation of 6.0 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively.”
So reported last January 2015 Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan, highlighting how the Philippine economy’s growth of 6.1 percent in 2014 is second only to China’s 7.4 percent and even higher than Vietnam’s 6.0 percent.
And 12 Filipinos – Sy, Gokongwei, Razon, Tan, Tan, Ty, Consunji, Tan Caktiong, Co, Co, Coyuito, Villar – landed in the 2015 Forbes’ list of billionaires with a combined total net worth of $49.9 billion.
Only a couple of days ago, this report too of the country’s ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals increasing both in numbers – to 690, and in terms of wealth – to $100 billion last year, according to the Wealth-X and UBS World Ultra Wealth Report 2014.
UHNW individuals are those with net assets amounting to $30 million and above.
So much wealth, so much poverty. Inequity at its most equal? The emptiness of economic growth all too strikingly real there.
Thus, Francis anew: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.
“This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.
“Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”
An even more telling lesson comes from St. Ambrose, the fourth century bishop of Milan, who took the Parable of the Dives with this censorious swing at the rich:
“The earth was established to be in common for all, rich and poor; why do ye rich alone arrogate it to yourselves as your rightful property?
“You crave possession not so much for their utility to yourself, as because you want to exclude others from them. You are more concerned with despoiling the poor than with your own advantage. You think yourself injured if a poor man possesses anything which you consider a suitable belonging for a rich man; wherever belongs to others you look upon something of which you are deprived.”
The greatest consolation for us mired in poverty comes from the Lord Himself though, “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
So shall we stay poor, year in, year out.
