The Difference Between Life and Death

When I was visiting the hovels of the poor in the overcrowded slums of Manila where we are setting up livelihood projects for the impoverished families of young teenagers we rescue from the horrific conditions of overcrowded disease infested jails I met Mark and his hard working mother. She has a junk collection business and the tiny hovel made of bits of broken plywood, flattened tin cans and plastic sheets was half filled with the collections they had made. Their treasure was plastic bottles, crushed aluminum cans, bits of plastic, old newspaper all useless junk to you and me but the difference between life and death for the family.

Mark was arrested when he picked up a piece of rusted junk metal, practically worthless and put it in his wobbly pushcart. Someone claimed it was private property and, the small slim, 15 year old boy was charged and jailed. There he suffered brutality and deprivation, hunger and endured the denial of his most basic human rights as a minor in detention.

Innocent until proven guilty he was forgotten and only rescued when the Preda jail rescue team found him and took legal action to have him release to the Preda boys home pending the resolution of his case. That was a long slow process. As many as 20 minors see the inside of a jail cell any given year more or less.

They rescued Mark and over a hundred other jailed children last year, by court order which the legal team procured from a compassionate judge that is implementing the Juvenile Justice Law. He was months in an over crowded jail with adult criminals. Most of the minors are there because they steal food, slippers, a T-shirt and some with more serious crimes. Others have no crime at all, they are framed up by police eager to show results for unsolved crimes, appease angry victims, or to meet an arrest quote to get promotion.

Living in that clapboard shanty with almost zero education, no job and no hope for any kind of a future 15 year old Mark and the other younger children had little chance to break out of the vicious circle of poverty. Poverty breeds poverty and the everlasting circle of hunger, ignorance and death.

The livelihood projects are giving hope and real action for many of these families. They will break that cycle of poverty with a small interest free loan. Mark and his parents will get a small bicycle with a big box attached to double their collection range and in half the time double their collection and sales of junk and increase their income in weeks. Life would be poor but livable. Mark will have a chance to go to school and break out of poverty.

In the distance over the rusty iron sheets of the slum town roofs I could see the towering skyscrapers and high rise office block and condos of the rich. The people that rule the Philippines compose only a small fraction, of the population, say 200 vastly wealthy families but they account for ownership of 70%of its wealth, power and government. The elite have it all and live in opulent luxury protected by police and army.

Even thought the People's Power movement ousted the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 in the EDSA bloodless revolution the elite have held onto power. Fundamentally the same system operates, the same inequality dominates. Hopefully the people's street revolutions in the Middle East, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya will bring real democracy and equality to those countries.

The sad reality is that shameless scandal after scandal leaps from the newspapers almost daily as the Senate investigators probe the corruption being uncovered by the Aquino Administration. Millions of dollars allegedly disappeared into the private bank accounts of corrupt officials, military officers and police. One General committed suicide on his mother¹s grave a few weeks ago when he was openly accused of corruption.

Most of the suspects in these crimes of the wealthy and corrupt go free and are unaccountable, they apparently have impunity. Even an new honest Secretary of Justice can’t bring them to account. All this while Mark and thousands like him suffer hunger and abuse in filthy prison cells without court hearings or evidence against them. They are forgotten as soon as the Iron Gate slams shut. Parents and relatives are afraid or unable to help them. The rich go free. Its up to us until the corrupt system is changed we need another people's power revolution for justice and freedom for the children.