What is poverty?

I’ve been doing development work for the past 40 years, and there is no issue that has moved me or given me as much pain as mining. What bothers me is this seeming indifference, this flippant attitude to the suffering that mining results in to the point of not even acknowledging its existence — or carelessly rationalizing it away. Despite the visuals, despite the very real interviews of the farmers, their hearts (those of the miners and businessmen) remain untouched, cold, unmoving. Something is very, very wrong.

One of the most consistent rationalizations I hear for mining is that these people are poor: “At least we are giving them something better. We are giving them schools, and jobs and money... How can you say their lives are not better?” Immersed in this perspective, they continue to mutilate the environment with the conviction that, anyway, they are offering something better.

I have even had one e-mailer saying that reforestation can bring back biodiversity. Any genuine scientist and conservationist would say this is a farce. There is no reforestation by man that can bring back the same magnificent design that nature has wrought. There is no reforestation done by man that can compensate for the ravaging of a 100-year-old virgin growth forest. None.

So one morning I woke up with pain in my heart, and tears rolling down. I wrote this down:

“Perhaps we need a redefinition of what is poverty. Is it just about money? When people are living in harmony and surrounded by magnificent splendor, embraced by pristine forests, blue skies, unpolluted air, sparkling rivers — can we truly call such people poor?

“We take that away from them and give them cash — disturb their relationships with each other. Are we not taking from them the very wealth that we in the cities crave? What is poverty? How do we determine if people are really poor? Alleviate poverty? Maybe we need to redefine what this is all about?

“When communities live in urban areas — and yes, they may be earning many thousands more but they have to breathe Manila air, and for recreation all they have are malls, not rivers to swim in or blue skies to look at — who is poorer?

“And when the paradigm is just about cash, are we not demeaning the very essence of our lives? Are we saying that money is the benchmark of how we determine our lives? When the people of Batanes who have no money can leave their doors open at all times of the day — is that not wealth that even the people in our elite villages cannot buy?

“What is poverty? Perhaps we need a new paradigm to determine the future of this country. Clearly the existing paradigm is wreaking disaster upon disaster, and wrecking the very fiber of our consciousness.

“If cold cash is the benchmark, what are we doing to our spirits? Our very essence?

“A new paradigm — that’s what we need. One that includes quality of life. One that does not allow quality of life to be sacrificed at the altar of matter. One that says the growth of the inner spirit is paramount before anything else.”

Ihad lunch with my brother today at Ayala Greenfield Estates. It’s far, but it’s amazing there. What was beautiful, more than the house, was lunching and feeling the fresh air, Mt. Makiling and the blue sky. The breeze was amazing; it had this healing energy to it. One of the guests mentioned that before they had gone there their son would get really sick. And since then, from very frequent asthma attacks, he has had only three in six years!

People in biodiversity sites have such environmental blessings, a hundredfold. When I was speaking elatedly about my experience in the forests of Sibuyan Island, Dr. Aldrin Mallari, the country director of Flora and Fauna International, the oldest conservation group in the world, told me, “Gina, that’s only the outskirts of an old growth. If you go inside, deep inside the forest, it’s like a cathedral. Sacred...” I had this image of light streaming through tall, tall trees, the forest alive with vibrancy.

And miners foolishly think they can ravage this and replace it with their own design?

A new paradigm. That’s what we need. One that accepts the web of life as an integral discerning factor in any development decision. This is not hocus pocus or airy-fairy talk — in this age of climate change and global warming, it’s what one would call enlightened.

A paradigm of development wherein cash is not the objective, but just the means.

A paradigm with a fierce loyalty to our motherland. Our forests, our seas, our rivers, our people. And one that, under no circumstances, would allow such resources to be used by foreign interests to our detriment. A paradigm that will not allow the wealth of our resources to be viewed as a “curse” rather than a blessing.

A paradigm that has confidence in our own ability to rise above

I ask the people who read this piece, and believe that we need to usher in a new era of commitment to our resources, to manifest their stand by helping us to get 10 million signatures on our petition. That’s more than 10 percent of our population. We have the future in our hands. I continue to be an incorrigible optimist. There is nothing in the world that can stand in the face of a people united for a noble cause.

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I can be reached at mailto:regina_lopez@abs-cbn.com.