JANUARY - JUNE 2004
Special Election Issue
THE CAMPAIGN
First-World Techniques, Third-World Setting The X-Men: The Story of Activists-Turned Political Consultants With a Little Help from (U.S.) Friends Campaigns on the High-Tech Road PHOTO ESSAY
ELECTION PERSPECTIVES
The Enigma of the Popular Will VOTER'S VOICE
THE LIGHTER SIDE
V O T E R ' S V O I C E — HOPE AND ELECTIONS IN PAYATAS
YET when they first came here, most of the present residents had little choice.
"This is where government chucked us in 1988," recalls Orlando Wong, 42 and married with four kids. He used to live along Quezon Boulevard in the area where the Bantayog ng mga Bayani and a driving range now stand. "This was all grassland then," he says, "only the grass grew as high as the roof. The street was all mud then, you had to go barefoot every time you stepped out of the house."
But he decided to stay on, even when the dump started to grow and spread. There were times, he says, when they couldn't eat because it smelled so bad. But he now has a home standing on a 76-square-meter lot, and for years has been earning his keep subcontracting the production of baseball gloves for a leather-goods company based in Rizal province. The hitch is that the work is seasonal, lasting only from July to January. But he's not one to complain.
Wong has also been consistently voting and says that elections do bring about some change. "Our community has become a magnet for all kinds of social services, more so after the disaster struck," he says. When asked if he still has hope for the country, he unhesitatingly replies, "The Philippines is going to walk the path of growth and development."
But he follows through with a mild rebuke. "The problem with our government though is that there's too much politicking," Wong says in a calm, measured voice. "Too much politics and too little action."
Wong and the Cauding couple belong to a growing segment of the Payatas population that is finding out that eking out a livelihood isn't as difficult as it once was and that their children now have better options and access to education and even to a life outside of the dump.
Like Wong, Lisa and Jake have already made up their minds over whom to vote for president and are just as pat with their choices among the local politicians. Their recently widowed neighbor, Felicidad Calumang, 52, however, is still mulling over which of the candidates she'll pick. She's in no hurry, though. "After all," she says, "the elections are still far off."
Calumang's indecision may be a consequence of politicians skipping the dumpsite. According to Andrew, none of the presidential candidates — not even FPJ — has turned up yet to sell themselves to voters here. And among the "senatoriables," he says, only film actor and Pampanga Governor Lito Lapid has so far passed the closest on his way to a sortie somewhere else. But national candidates may be missing more than potential votes by bypassing the country's biggest dumpsite community.
AN IMPROVING pocket economy isn't the only thing going on in Payatas these days that merits a closer look. Residents, or the poor in general for that matter, have had a tradition of turning out in droves during elections, largely motivated by partisan politics at the local level and swayed by populist promises and charisma a t the national level. But for many of them now, there is a new impetus to go out and vote because of a sense of personal duty to country and to God. For probably the first time in history, Payatas will be seeing a united evangelical Christian vote emerging, catalyzed by the decision of Brother Eddie Villanueva, spiritual director and international president of the Jesus is Lord church ministry, to run for president.
In February this year, Villanueva surprised everyone by holding the biggest election-related political rally at the Rizal Park. Initially, the Western Police District estimated the number of the rallyists at 2.8 million, but later revised the figure downward to 981,000. Even at the lower figure, though, Villanueva's rally still is undeniably impressive.
Some members of The Breath of Life Tabernacle Church, one among dozens of relatively small Bible-based groups in Payatas (there's even a ragtag church on the dump itself), were among those who cheered Villanueva as he gave his political speech there. Basilio Ocinar, 53 years old and part of that congregation, wasn't able to make it to the rally. But he is no less passionate about what he believes in. "It's our right to vote. As citizens of our country, we have to vote," he says, and immediately segues into a more ardent call. "What this country needs is a true Christian to finally put an end to corruption, for a man who has the fear of God in him will do no sin."
It isn't easy to dismiss the dumpy Ocinar as someone who has simply had too much of The Word of God in his diet. He hails from Samar and — just like Brother Eddie — in his youth was active in the underground communist movement. Ocinar was a frontline organizer, whipping up support for the New People's Army and quoting passages from Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. He fled to Manila and fell into a life of crime that eventually landed him in jail, earning him a tattoo on his right hip as a member of the Batang City Jail gang. He's been into every vice, from gambling to drugs. Now he is a firm believer that the key to personal upliftment is hard and honest work. So though his faith may color his choices, it may not necessarily cloud his judgment.
If Ocinar is typical of Villanueva's actively Christian supporters in Payatas (which he probably is), then the spiritual leader can very well give FPJ and GMA, survey topnotchers both, a run for their money in what many still consider to be solidly Erap — and therefore, FPJ — country.
On December 31, 2003, the Social Weather Stations released the result of a survey taken in November of the same year showing that 90 percent of Filipinos said that they would enter the New Year with hope. Hope then was registered highest among the rich and middle class at 92 percent. It was 91 percent for Group D.
But sometime into 2004, the paths of group ABC on the one hand, and that of the poor on the other, took a fork in the road. If newspaper columns are at all reflective of middle-class thinking, one would think that this nation has sunk into despair and that an FPJ win in the coming elections will only drive it in deeper.
This is quite a contrast to the mood and the sentiments of a female member of the Gino family who lost eight relatives to the Payatas dumpsite July 2000 tragedy, including her parents, youngest sister, baby daughter, parents-in-law, a nephew, and a cousin. "I have faith in the elections," she says, although FPJ is not her candidate. "Anyway, God's will will prevail. I hope there will be a change, my only wish being that there would be a clear resolution to our case."
Even 46-year-old scavenger Irma Dina, who looks old beyond her years, is going to vote, although up to now she is unsure of her candidates. Dirty and burnt by the sun, the migrant from Leyte has been scratching a living from the dumpsite for last eight years, sometimes with the help of her asthmatic husband and asthmatic children. Today she is alone, since everyone is bedridden; Dina thus expects to take home only P50, enough to buy just rice for her family. But she is close to being content as she'll ever be. Her home has electricity and water.
Truth to tell, elections have been distracting us from the best-kept secret of Payatas: that throughout the years it's not only garbage that's been making its way into the community. Change, too, has been smuggling itself in. People there may not know it but they've been improving their lives although in such small increments that it's hardly been noticed by anyone. But now it can be told: Payatas is bucking the odds stacked against it, from garbage, poverty, manipulation, and neglect to campaign promises made and broken. There is no anger now, only determination. You can smell it a mile away.
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PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM