Table Of ContentTHE PHILIPPINES
PEOPLE, POVERTY AND POLITICS
Also by Leonard Davis
RESIDENTIAL CARE: A COMMUNITY RESOURCE
SEX AND THE SOCIAL WORKER
CARING FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL PUPILS
The Philippines
People, Poverty
and Politics
Leonard Davis
Principal Lecturer, Department of Social Administration
City Polytechnic, Hong Kong
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-07170-8 ISBN 978-1-349-07168-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-07168-5
©Leonard Davis, 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly & Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1987
ISBN 978-0-312-00412-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Leonard.
The Philippines.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Philippines-Politics and government.
2. Philippines-Description and travel-1975-
3. Poor-Philippines. I. Title.
DS686.5.D383 1987 959.9'046 86-27990
ISBN 978-0-312-00412-5
To the late Sister Nanette Berentsen, CJP
Contents
List of Plates IX
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Glossary XV
Map of the Philippines XX
1 Custom, Practice and Impression 1
2 The Country in Context 30
3 Poverty, Sickness and Disease 63
4 Prostitution 99
5 Persecution and Oppression 125
6 1985: The Child, the Priest and the Crowd 166
7 Resistance and Revolution 180
8 Certainty and Uncertainty 198
9 Postscript 217
Bibliography 221
Index 223
Vll
List of Plates
Plate I Children of the Philippines
Plate II Everyday life (a) Making rice cakes (b) The pump is
often the centre of the community
Plate III (a) Mantoganoy (b) During the mass wedding at
Mantoganoy
Plate IV (a) Pedal power in Jolo (b) Mysterious fires often
destroy large squatter areas
Plate V (a) A farmer's small house made of nipa, near Lake
Mainit, Agusan del Norte (b) The Muslim communities
are among the poorest. These children are Badjaos, a
timid people who build their homes on stilts and flee
easily in the face of danger
Plate VI (a) Genus Carabao (b) Sister Nanette (second from the
right), to whom this book is dedicated, with the author
and a group of health professionals
Plate VII The memory of Jose Rizallives. The painting depicting
his life and death is in the museum at Fort Santiago,
Manila
Plate VIII (a) The garbage tip in Manila is known as the Smoking
Mountain (b) Children and pigs rummage along the
river bank
Plate IX (a) Dolfs Bunag teaches a health worker to pull teeth,
in Kitcharao (b) A leper woman (c) This boy's fat
tummy is caused by schistosomiasis
Plate X (a) Olongapo, a centre for prostitution (b) Santa
Monica, Manila, a centre for child prostitution
Plate XI (a) Tribal woman and child. Tribal Filipinos are among
the poorest people in the rural communities (b) Attending
a bodong, in Bontoc
Plate XII (a) Father Brian Gore celebrating mass in prison. He
was held on false charges of multiple murder for more
than a year (b) Father Pete, the smiling priest (c) A
loyal church worker, Albert Garrido
Plate XIII (a) A KAPATID poster in the TFDP office, Manila (b)
A TFDP poster from Mindanao, where some of the
worst atrocities have occurred
lX
X List of Plates
Plate XIV (a) Informers, intelligence, insurgents or innocent
bystanders? (b) Prison conditions are very poor
Plate XV (a) Father Tullio Favali (b) Cesar Climaco
Plate XVI (a) Conrado Balweg (b) Marcos, tested in crisis: posterfor
1986 election
Preface
It is no easy task to move into another country, another culture, and
to make sense of the attitudes, values and experiences of the people
that are the result of traditions, origins, history and opportunity.
The experience of the individual faced with this mountain of new
material - reading, discussion, observation and participation - is
unique. It is also selective, relies heavily on the perceptions of
others, weighs up opposing views, and emerges as a reflection of the
author's own beliefs, values and aspirations. 'Truth' is impossible to
establish. The Philippine presidential elections in 1986 made that
quite clear. Facts - in the form of statistics, direct observation and
personal accounts - remain open to question but are more difficult
to refute. In this book - describing poverty, brutality and the
determination of the United States-the reader is asked to focus on
the implications for the individual citizen and his family, on the
quality of their lives, and on the uncertainty of their very existence.
The people I have spoken to, the people I have lived with, deserve
better than this. Is it possible that Corazon Aquino can introduce
sufficient change to prevent a real revolution?
I have received considerable support and encouragement on my
travels in the Philippines and, above all, friendship. Many people
crossed my path just once; others throughout a six-year period.
Sometimes, the circumstances have been difficult; always the
welcome has been complete.
As case illustrations, I have used - as far as possible - those
associated with people I have known, people I have met, people I
have admired. Some have died but are well known - Nanette
Berensten, Cesar Climaco and Tullio Favali- and their memories
and achievements live on; others have died almost anonymously,
many children among them.
In writing this book I have drawn on a number of unmarked
documents and unreferenced photocopied articles, circulated in
haste to groups of church workers and others. A list of formal
references is given in the Bibliography. I am, however, especially
grateful to Sophie Dick of Kapatiran-Kaunlaran Foundation Inc.,
Manila, for permission to use in Chapter 4 some of her information
on prostitution, especially in relation to Samar, Leyte and Pagsanjan;
to the Komite ng Sambayanang Pilipino (Filipino People's
Xl
