A Reason for Hope: June 30

Through the Eyes of a Foreigner

By Andrew Engel

A Reason for hope

Can one say that Filipinos live in poverty?

Million are poor, it is true.  It is probably the accepted wisdom that being poor equates with poverty.  But to say poverty, I’m not so sure.

I guess it becomes a definitional disagreement and I’m running dangerously close to turning this piece into a semantic argument before I even get started.

I have always understood poverty to be a condition where people don’t have enough to eat; lack their most basic needs; have no employment opportunities; can’t look after their health, or get an education.

I could use hyperbole, expand on that understanding and be more emotion in my definition, as many considerate and caring people do, but I think you get my point.

Living in Davao where poverty is a word riveted to our social dialog, I now ponder its utility or indeed if it distorts the picture I see.  Does it do Filipinos a disservice by being an ineffective vehicle for understanding life in Mindanao and across the country?

What I witness suggests that to describe a large portion of Filipinos as people living in poverty, gets it wrong.  It simply doesn’t capture the whole meaning of the word poverty.

At the very least there are things about life in Davao, the interaction and behaviour of people that gives me reason to pause and reassess my preliminary thinking.

For a start, I see no poverty of the spirit.

People seem happy.  Despite the difficulties that are manifest in everyday life that require diskarte. Filipinos complain far less about their generally diminished circumstances than people in the first world countries where wealth is greater and more evenly spread.

If you think about it that is odd.   It just doesn’t fit with the connotations we associate with the state of poverty.  At least, not mine.  However, confusion is my constant companion.

Can you be rich and unhappy, or conversely poor and happy?  You bet you can.  We see it all the time.

The obvious conclusion is that money or financial security is not in and of itself enough.  There are other things in life which are needed.  To live in poverty, all of these other things, I would argue, need to be absent.

In absolute terms, poverty would need to exclude the love of children; the joy of family and friends; the freedom and wisdom to lower expectations and rationalise one’s life opportunities; to laugh and joke; to enjoy one’s environment; to relish small wins; by helping others; to be part of a community and interact just to list quickly what springs to mind. 

All of these things are evident in Davao and in the temperament displayed by people every day.

I see no poverty of imagination.

Watch a tradesman consider building options when the tools of trade he needs are not available. How he creates a tool to get the job done, how his skilled hands and trained eye achieves what looks like a machined finish.  No one could argue that Filipinos don’t have an idea for every kind of business and how nothing is wasted and every material irrespective of value is used or recycled.  Watch the inventive way a Filipino will circumvent a rule which he or she no doubt believes creates a disadvantage.

And why wouldn’t Filipinos have imagination. Drive through Bukidnon and marvel at grandeur of the mountains and valleys, green and luxuriant, abundant in flora, rich of soil, exemplifying the best that mother earth has provided.  Sit and take that it in and see if it doesn’t inspire one to dream or make one realise that richness comes in many forms.

Are the people living along this and other arterial roads poor?  Yes many are, but to wake up to these vistas, to see the last rays of the sun being absorbed by children playing and laughing as they walk home from school hardly squares with suggesting they live in poverty.

The picture of a Manila resident carrying his meagre belongings in a wooden cart, with his former home, a dilapidated and condemned building in the background (Mindanao Times, Sunday June 19) is shocking.  It is a picture of sheer human neglect and a level of human suffering none of us should be willing to tolerate. 

The last thing I intend in this article is to trivialise this level of despair.

What I am suggesting from an oblique angle is that the picture of human need is balanced by other images in the minds-eye.

It is not all doom and gloom and these other images give rise to that most fundamental human need, hope.  What I see, as well as suffering, is a community which is also resilient and strong.  Filipinos have not been defeated by their circumstances.

Is there a lot to be done, clearly there is much to be done.

But as I marvel at the spirit and imagination of Filipinos, I can’t think of stronger forces for improvement or a better reason for optimism.

I see no poverty of courage.

(you can email Andrew of comment at engelmint@hotmail.com)