By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Note: This is a piece that appeared here around three years ago which I came up with while looking for ammunition for an ongoing online debate on the causes of poverty in the country. The debate ate my time thus this replay. Will share with you the outcome of the debate later.
I always had a quarrel with those who contend that everything is to blame for the poverty of Filipinos – free market economy, US and Japanese economic imperialism, oligarchy, wrong government programs and policies, government indifference and neglect, trapos, landlords, loan sharks, name it – except the Filipinos themselves. My view has always been that the conditions in the country are not such to preclude upward movement in the social rungs. I have always believed that Filipinos could shake off their poverty if they work hard and are determined enough to improve their lot.
That’s the very reason that while in college in Manila in the late 70s up to the early 80s, it never occurred to me to embrace the thinking that it was necessary to overthrow the current government system in order to unshackle the masses from the bondage of poverty. At that time, it has already set in my mind that to a great degree, the squalor in the country is not caused by outside factors and conditions but is of the making of the poor themselves.
My thinking on poverty did not evolve in a vacuum. Crucial to the process were the bits and pieces of information on how the Chinese as a class have risen above the original residents of this country. One such information came from an elderly professor who said that during their childhood, they used to ridicule the Chinese calling them “Insik beho” as they passed by with their pushcarts filled with junk but that lo and behold, after just a generation, those push carts metamorphosed into trucks and cars with the children of those Insik beho now running most of the businesses in the country. An executive in the company I used to work for in Pasig also talked about how a Chinese friend of his blew his business through loose living and how fellow Chinese businessmen bailed him by giving him fresh capital and a lot of advice on how to do it right this time. The business fared well for a while but then the pleasure-seeking urge of the man reared up its ugly head resulting in another bankruptcy. This time, according to the executive, the other Chinese businessmen no longer lifted a finger for their wayward countryman.
From the two stories I concluded that Chinese are in stark contrast with the common run of Filipinos in that they, are hard working, are very disciplined and hate loose living in others.
No wonder they live better lives, I had told myself.
Why am I bringing this up? Just last week, I had a chance to take a close look at the condition of the landless farm laborers in Dilag, Tabuk City and my initial findings are powerful proofs that I have not erred when I concluded more than three decades ago that we do not need a revolution to rescue Filipinos from poverty. My kompare Giovanni Asbucan, the paper adviser of the Tabuk City National High School and president of the Regional Secondary School Paper Association of the Cordillera, had asked me to provide data for the feature-writing session of the Summer Journalism Workshop for the province’s high school and elementary paper staffs and advisers and I chose the topic of the transgenerational cycle of poverty of the Dilag farm workers. Here are some snatches of the interviews which to me are very telling:
John Doclan, 45, barangay Casigayan resident who employs farm workers from barangay Dilag:
The only remaining source of farm labor in this part of Tabuk City is Dilag. Other barangays now import most of their farm labor force from Isabela. Dilag has six groups called kabisillas which perform planting and reaping work for local farmers. (See description of kabisilla in the accompanying article.) We used to have three kabisillas in Casigayan and one in Magsaysay up to the 1990s but these disappeared as the members were able to send their children to school so much so that the new generation now perform non-farm work or are abroad.
Because the children of Dilag farm workers usually drop out in the elementary level and marry as early as at 13, have vices and usually do not think of the future, the cycle of poverty is repeated with each new generation unlike in the case of the Casigayan and Magsaysay rice planting groups which disappeared after the children of the members were able to finish at least high school.
Vice is a part of farm work. They smoke, they drink. At one time I was listening to them telling stories to each other. They said that there was one time they were drinking. Their finger food was pinapaitan (a meat specialty) but when they ate, their viand was cooking oil and bagoong (fish sauce) because how could you drink your liquor with cooking oil and bagoong?)
In fairness, in my observation, two out of every ten of them also have serious ambitions to progress. There is Mario (not his real name), 22, with three siblings, and still single. To farm workers in Dilag, one who is not married at 22, is already an old man. Unlike his fellow bachelors, he brings home to his family five cavans of the seven cavans he earns as one of the crew of my tresher. He drinks moderately. He does not smoke but chews mama which is a little bit cheaper than smoking because some of the ingredients like the betel nut leaves could be had for free. He just bought a motorcycle on P1,800.00 installment a month. He plans to use the motorcycle in a buying and selling junk.
Long time Dilag resident: There is no improvement in their lives for three generations now because they marry early and they do not value education. What they usually tell their children is to absent themselves from school to take care of their younger kids so they (parents) could go to work. This is sad because many of their kids do well in school.
I also do not understand why they break their back hauling palay and then buy cigarettes with their pay.
Another Dilag resident: Their poverty is their own making. They do not have discipline. Drink. Gambling. Laziness. They are Pantawid beneficiaries but it does not make a difference because they do not use the assistance wisely. Many outsiders are helping them like the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Social Welfare and Development and some private agencies but nothing doing. Government assistance is futile because they lack discipline.**
