The poor are
easily manipulated

I got many texts asking how was the complaint of my Belgian friend against Smart Telecom. I said, I didn’t know. So I texted my friend, Andre de Hertog.

His answer, “So far I only received a call from Smart regarding my bill. And I received my bill already. For the rest, nothing. Signal is still weak and going up and down.”

This means Smart just ignored the complaint, hoping it will just die down. But complaints don’t just die down. Smart is lucky. Andre is not a consistent complainer.

I was told Smart is a sister company of PLDT. But it will be unfair to fault PLDT for the lapses of Smart. Let Smart answer the complaint.

I am a Smart user too. I have never had a complaint. Or I would have been raising hell.

I commend Globe. It acts fast on complaints. Globe also has a good executive here who listens and acts decisively on complaints.

* * *

If our country is poor and our people wallow in poverty, it is because in this country we promote the culture of poverty.

We put them on the pedestal to be revered but without helping them get out of that poverty. Then we strip them of that dignity by, not only giving them cheap subsidized rice, but also lately, President Arroyo said she would give them help in cash of up to P1,400 a month for each of those believed to be poor families.

This raised the hackles of the Archdiocese of Manila and of Caritas. They said, this will just perpetuate laziness and strip the poor of their dignity as free men.

The Prelates stood up and said, if government wants to help, let these people work. God helps only those who help themselves.

* * *

Confucius wrote thousands of years ago, “In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”

Nearly 40 years ago, I still can picture a pamphlet published by the Major Religious Organizations of the Philippines at the height of the fight against the planters for their supposedly exploiting laborers in the sugar industry.

In the front page were big letters that proclaimed “The poor are the pasture of the rich.” It was a quotation from the Bible, Ecclesiastes I think.

* * *

And is it not that many leaders want to perpetuate poverty so that they have hungry people who can easily be manipulated? A kilo of rice every day will make the family beholden to whoever is giving them.

This is the point of these Church personalities.

Years ago in Pasay City, it was said, a mayor there could not be defeated, even if he had not done good for Pasay. What he was famous for was election or no election, the poor trooped to his place, lining up for a share of their rice. He was unbeatable.

And this culture is being done in many local government units.  It is even being done nationwide.

Get a municipality where residential lands are owned by a family and people staying there are squatters. They are subject to the manipulation of the landowner, using the battle cry, “Vote or Gabot.” Gabot means eviction.

* * *

Instead of the doleout, if the President goes around the country rallying the people to produce food, make use of vacant lands, give them free seeds, and cheaper fertilizer or use the organic fertilizer, one can just imagine the result.

Gov. Joseph Marañon used as the flagship of his administration food security. When he died, the province which used to import 30 percent of its rice needs, now imports only 10 percent, according to Gov. Isidro Zayco.

And Gov. Zayco said, he will see to it Negros Occidental will be self-sufficient in rice.

Because of the program of Gov. Marañon, do you notice that the price of meat – beef, pork, and chicken – has been stable here. It is because of the program of the former Governor.

* * *

We hope we can eradicate poverty. Populous countries like India and Indonesia are now self-sufficient in rice. India is even a big exporter.

Let’s work out for a new day when everyone will have food in his plate, a roof over his head, and clothes over his body. I like those lines of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in his “Queen Mab:”

“A brighter dawn awaits the human day,/ When poverty and wealth, the thirst of fame;/ The fear of infamy, disease, and woe,/ War with its millions horrors and fierce hell/ Shall live but to the memory of time.”*

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