By Ray Fulcher and Rachel Evans
MANILA — 3000 leaders of urban poor communities in Metro Manila met on April 25 at Trinity College, Quezon City, to declare their unity in demanding full employment and decent housing.
The meeting is the first to pull together many different urban poor groups from across the political spectrum in order to struggle for common interests.
There are around 4 million urban poor in Metro Manila, consisting of the unemployed, those on very low wages and those who have come from the countryside seeking a better life in the city.
They throw up shantytowns made from any available materials on any vacant land. There is no safe water and no electricity for the majority. They eke out a living in any way they can, including rummaging through the garbage dumps where some of them live.
The assembly was convened by the Congress of Unity of the Urban Poor (KPML) and addressed by its chairperson, Roger Borromeo. Also on the platform were senators Orly Mercado and Nikki Coseteng, Bishop Emilio Marquez of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Monsignor Francisco Tantoco of Caritas Manila and Jose Concepcion of the Bishops' Businessmen's Conference.
Borromeo said that the urban poor need to unite in action around common demands. Speakers from the floor called passionately for improved housing, jobs and better conditions for their children.
The assembly identified three areas from which money could be made available immediately for child welfare. These were PAGKOR (the government gaming commission), the Presidential Welfare Fund and the Countryside Development Fund (a pork-barrelling fund for politicians). Just 10% of the money in these funds would provide substantial services for children.
Health services are another concern, with 55% of Filipino children undernourished or malnourished, and perhaps one doctor for every 100,000 people. The assembly demanded one doctor for every barangay (local community of about 10,000 people).
On the same day as the assembly, the central government announced its intention to sack 500,000 government employees over the next five years. The government argues that this needs to be done to provide more funds for services to taxpayers.
Corruption at all levels of government means that much expenditure is misdirected. For example, roads are repeatedly dug up and "repaired" in order to justify departmental budgets. Bridges are built where there is no need for them, the senators responsible for the projects creating their own contracting companies to do the work.
According to Borromeo, another half a million unemployed represents "too much sacrifice for the urban poor ... it would mean more competition among ourselves for opportunities and services. It would mean a harder struggle for survival."
The meeting concluded with the signing of a "Covenant For Life", an agreement by the different organisations and advocates pledging themselves to unity in improving the lot of the urban poor. The assembly agreed to "join and link arms with the working class" by mobilising 100,000 urban poor on May Day.