Hopeful stories of communities organizing

Urban poor federations have impact on lives in the Philippines

Cameron Conner's columns for The Fig Tree are from blogs he wrote during his Watson Fellowship in Spain, the UK, South Africa and the Philippines. He is now back in the U.S. living in Minnesota, where he will continue writing stories he didn't write while abroad. His blogs are at cameronnorbuconner.com/blog.

In the Philippines, the San Pio village social housing project exists to serve the most vulnerable families in the city—the "marginalized squatter and garbage scavenger families of Metro Cebu," as the plaque dedicating it reads. It is owned and run by the Catholic Order Society of the Divine World. 

When Glenda Navidad, a resident of San Pio, received her eviction notice from the village, she thought there had to be some kind of mistake.

Glenda had broken no contract, and she was up to date on her rent. The grievous "offense" for which she and her 160 other neighbors were being thrown out of their homes was their attempt to organize an official neighborhood association to tackle local issues that amounted to little more than littering and road safety. This was, the priest in charge felt, an unsuitable question to his authority.

Glenda and her community reached out to the priest four times for a meeting. He ignored them. Unwilling to give up and subject their families to the streets once again, they did what he had sought to dissuade: they organized. 

They reached out to community organizers at Pagtambayayong Foundation for Mutual Aid Inc. (PFI) – the largest community organizing network in the region, who helped them connect with the other Urban Poor Homeowners Associations in the city that were part of their alliance.

Ever since martial law under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, urban poor communities in the Philippines often organized themselves through Homeowners Associations or Neighborhood Associations of 50 to 150 families to create informal governance structures when the official government turned a blind eye. Many have their own first-aid trained medical teams, fire-brigades and even disaster-response plans in the event of a typhoon or flood.

As these associations have grown in popularity, they have formed federations that in turn can leverage greater power when needed. 

At the end of May, Pagtambayayong worked with community leaders at San Pio to bring together representatives of the five Urban Poor Federations of Talisay which represent 1,000 individual homeowners associations and neighborhood associations. Meeting in Talisay's City Hall with City Councilor Gail Restaruo, who chairs the city's Committee on the Urban Poor, Glenda explained the situation: Their families had no other option. For many, San Pio had been their last resort. All they wanted was for their children and grandchildren to have a home.

This was the first time all five federations had met at the same time. Organizers from Pagtambayayong had moved heaven and earth to make it happen. The gathering was so significant that one attendee missed the graduation of his son to be there.

The conversation proved both decisive and effective. For the first time in their history, the five federations agreed to come together around a single issue and declared their unified support of the San Pio community, determined to take the issue all the way to the courts if they had to.

As the community organizer from Pagtambayayong asked each delegation if they would commit to supporting San Pio in their fight, and each responded with an unequivocal "yes," Glenda's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"This is what we have been praying for and working towards for years," she told the group before they left the room. "We now know we are not alone."

The next week San Pio worked with PFI to send a public letter to their priest's Superior General and have it published in the metro Cebu newspaper. Its appeal read simply:

"Our dream is that our right to security of tenure be respected, that harmony in our community is restored and that San Pio village is a model Christian community with Fr. Bag-ao as our good shepherd."

A columnist and ally of the movement published an article supporting their campaign: "Usually the priest prays for his people. This time a whole community is doing a novena for their priest."

The response was quick. Fr. Bag-ao, without issuing a public statement, accepted the rental payments of the president and executive committee of the San Pio Homeowners Association—a tacit acknowledgement of their right to remain.

Whether this is the first step in a gradual victory for the coalition or an attempt to "buy off" the leadership remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: the fight is not over. While the majority of residents remain unsure of their future, the community is united, backed by the federations and city council. Together, they stand ready and seek to teach the priest that if you make a commitment to the people, the people will make sure you keep it.

In this story, there is a profound moral about the importance of distinguishing between charity and justice.

Having worked in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake and in refugee camps during the Syrian Civil War and the spread of ISIS, I can say from personal experience that charity is necessary in many situations, but the story of Pagtambayayong's work with San Pio goes beyond that dimension.

While PFI often engages in charity strictly because of urgent needs its communities face, when approached by the leaders of San Pio for assistance, their response to the case was symbolic of their broader ethos: not "we will take care of you," but "we will stand with you."

To me, the story of San Pio bears an iconic resemblance to the parable of "The Grand Inquisitor" from Fydor Dostoyevski's book, The Brothers Karamazov. In the story, Christ returns to earth at the height of the Spanish inquisition, whereupon he is immediately arrested and thrown into prison. Visited the next day by the Grand Inquisitor himself, Christ asks to be set free and is told disdainfully that the church no longer needs him, that the people are happy now because the church offers them the two things people need: bread and truth. The people are happy, he says, because they are fed and have been relieved of the terrible burden of free consciousness.

In the case of both the Grand Inquisitor and the priest of San Pio, we see a charitable act paradoxically turned into a means of subjugation. 

Relied on in perpetuity, the provision of charity does not address the underlying reason why it is needed in the first place. It does not fundamentally change the dynamics of power that created that suffering, but maintains positions of "giver" and "recipient."

The challenge with charity is its tendency to rely on—and cultivate—dependency.

Justice, on the other hand, is the process of enabling others to act for themselves. This is the form of change-making, which community organizing, at its best, embodies. 

In contrast to the "arms-length" approach of charity, such a stance requires a great deal of risk. It means giving one's partner some claim on them, not having complete control. We cannot walk away when we choose. So justice requires a great deal of trust.

I was present at the meeting of the five federations and watched the transformation that took place as Glenda went from appealing with desperation to her audience for help, to the conclusion where, after seeing that the others would stand alongside her, she walked out proud at the head of the group, carrying a sense of dignity that no amount of charity could have created.

When PFI organized a mass-mobilization of nearly 1,500 delegates of the Urban Poor Federations several weeks after this meeting, Glenda and the San Pio community showed up in force. They shared their story in front of the crowd and demonstrated that ordinary people can have power to address the issues affecting their families, not merely ask it of others.

This is what community organizing makes possible.