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We Need Esteem

By Denis Murphy
UPA
Salindiwa Issue July-December 2009

Sometimes when I listen to poor people talk of their problems, I wish a politician sat on one side listening in, and a bishop on the other. The politicians would be surprised, I think, by how much the poor expect of them. I think the better ones would be embarrassed. The poor really expect the politicians they admire to find jobs for them and decent housing. They believe these politicians can work miracles for them. Such expectation may be naïve, but without it there is despair.

Bishops listening to the poor talk of their beliefs and spirituality will hear people who are very holy in God’s eyes, but need to be reassured of that, and relieved of the somber fear of God that has settled over them through the centuries. The poor need to hear from their religious leaders that God takes great happiness in them and has the highest esteem for the splendid lives they are living.

These are the messages we received toward the end of the Christmas season from eight families living on the sidewalk near Ali Mall. They were very poor, too poor in fact to be able to afford a place in a squatter area, where the rent can be over Php1,000 per month for a room. The children do not go to school, so they can work to help the families. Everyone works—the children climb into jeepneys to beg, adults sell cigarettes, candy and water in the traffic, or make and sell rags, and do many other things, like clean toilets and sweep up feces. The families are from the Santol, Bulacan relocation center, where they were relocated a few years ago by the government after being evicted from the North Rail railroad tracks. They are in town because there is no work in the relocation area. Two of the families have already sold their houses there to pay for medical emergencies, one of them involving an amputation.

Politics came up as it does in every conversation these months. The poor expect their candidates first of all to be honest. It is sometimes said that all the poor want at election time is to make a little money, and that they don’t care who wins. That may be true if they don’t have a candidate they like, but if there is one whom the poor feel knows them and their problems and wants to do something serious to help them, they will not settle for fifty pesos and a little rice. They know they will benefit from reform more than any other sector of the population. They know deep in their hearts that there is truth in a stick-em appearing now around Manila: “In democracies, reform comes from the ballots of the poor.” They know, too, the political road is the only way they have to a better life. The candidate who wants their vote must talk to them in some intimate way that will assure them he or she knows all their sorrows and cares enough about them to fight for their rights and their children.

One of the women we talked to on the sidewalk, Virginia Salinas, 52, who is mother now to seven children, said she struggles to keep them safe, though she still fears they will rebel against her husband and herself and against their situation on the sidewalk. She fears they will land in deep trouble where she won’t be able to help them. Virginia is a Catholic as are all on the sidewalk. “I’m a Catholic, but I don’t go to Mass. I’m so full of fear for my children, I can’t go to Mass. No, God is not angry with me. I know that and I’m not angry with God. How could I be angry with God? I just can’t go, I can’t, I’m so worried about our lives.” A person like Virginia, whose life is totally spent working and caring for her children, is leading a life of holiness, whether she sits on a sidewalk or in an armchair in a splendid house. She needs the religious leader, however, to assure her of that, and that God understands why she cannot come to mass right now. The leader can help her understand that in the mass she will find strength and God’s love.

Left alone the poor are too hard on themselves .I sometimes feel that the crowds that gather at Quiapo Church for First Fridays and big celebrations, such as the Black Nazarene procession, have too much of penitential sadness. I felt this in the crowd the First Friday of January this year in Quiapo, but then the young priest who said the mass gave a homily that stressed that God at Christmas gives us peace, joy and His presence in the baby in Bethlehem. I thought the mood in the huge crowd in Plaza Miranda lightened. Such a message is what the poor and probably all of us need.

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Features

We Need Esteem

We Need Esteem

By Denis Murphy UPA Salindiwa Issue July-December 2009

By Denis Murphy
UPA
Salindiwa Issue July-December 2009