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The Power and The Poverty, Causes of Child Abuse
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: Circa 1992 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC Perhaps the most tragic but clearest symptom of the sickness that ails the political and economic system in this country is the plight of Filipino children. Condemned to the sub-human life of the streets and destined to become prostitutes as the cast-offs of a selfish society, thousands of hungry children are the living witnesses to the greed and avarice of the few hundred ruling families who maintain a closed system of structural injustice perpetuated by violence and a disdain for human rights. It is this manifestly unjust system that has to change before the lives of children ever will. All of us are caught in the iron grip of the powerful clans as it is they who control and manipulate the economy for their personal benefit and use their vast wealth to maintain a political system that serves their family interests. Out of 200 members of the House of Representatives 145 come from the oligarchy. When the politics, power and profits of a few become the "National Interest" instead of the basic needs of the people then in practice the sovereignty of the nation has been subverted and the purpose of government has been lost. The hope of national freedom and nationhood cannot be realized. Democracy; Government for the People, By the People, has in effect been eclipsed by Government by the Few, For the Few. It is clear that such a system serves not the people but the puppet masters of politics and the results are obvious. Teeming slums, gross malnutrition, massive unemployment and immigration. It is this unbreakable and self perpetuating economic and political circus that perplexes President Ramos who has tried to dismantle a few of the monopolies. Should he try too hard there will be a coup should, he try to little there will be growing unrest among the fast multiplying population that will double in less than 30 years. Perhaps it is too naive to expect one man, no matter how well intentioned and honest, to change an entrenched and viciously jealous oligarchy. What makes change all the more difficult and daunting is the fact that legislative change and budget approval is firmly held by those 145 families. They too are far from united in their quest for gold and worldly glory. They fight violently over who will be king and get most of the loot. This they believe is rightly theirs as the inheritors of the Spanish and American heritage of power and oppression. Meaningful change is stagnated as the descendants of autocratic rulers are corrupted and deformed by the political incest that has locked them all in a time warp of a colonial and feudal past. The human cost is staggering. There is a minimum of three million malnourished children, an estimated 1.2 million street and 40,000 prostituted. For every 1000 live births 6.1 children die, 36% die within the first six days of birth. Many more die from easily preventable diseases. President Ramos will do his best to end the deprivation and suffering of children in prostitution. The President equated real progress and happiness with providing for children and he has a telling point. Too often the wealthy equate progress and development with possessing ever more money, riches and property. While they dine in sumptuous grandeur in palatial and empty houses, the poor, like Lazarus, lie dying at their doors with only the dogs to lick their sores and show compassion. As the prophet Amos said : " ...They sell the righteous for silver,and the needy for a pair of sandals, - they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way. (Amos 2:6-7) For the committed Christian the situation is a daunting moral challenge that many ignore it while others are killed trying to meet it. The so called progress and development that we see is mostly the progress of the rich towards greater riches. "Development" is government borrowings and foreign aid funds building an infrastructure for the rich and useless for the poor. The trend has always been to ignore the basic needs of the common people while slavishly paying fraudulent loans with the money of the poor. Most of the national budget, 41.1% is given away to pay off these fraudulent loans. The most recent gouging of the financial system by the criminals among the elite is just another example of how easily the entrenched manipulate the system to their selfish ends. The World Bank, that stalwart of conservative thought, gave this surprising analysis of the Philippine economy as part of the 1993 country report:- "The basic pattern of the political structure, dominated by a powerful elite controlling economic, social and government bodies ..has its roots in the unequal distribution of land, income and wealth in the Philippines and in the coexistence of mass poverty with sizable wealth." Reflections could hardly say it better.
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