Marginalized

Recently, I came across a news item that somehow arouses my interest on a sector of our society that seems to have been taken for granted if not completely ignored or forgotten. The news is about the tribute given to our soldiers wounded in battle defending our country from the enemies and ensuring the safety of our people, the latest of which was in the Zamboanga siege last September. Some of these wounded soldiers have been physically disabled due to loss of one or both legs. Obviously they are now handicapped for the rest of their lives.

Coming to mind right away are not only these disabled soldiers serving our country but all the other persons with disabilities (PWDs) or persons deprived of hearing (deaf) and of sight (blind). Apparently, their physical impairments also affect them psychologically or mentally, spiritually and most of all, even socially. Somehow, we have not paid much attention to them as we go on   with our own lives and as we cope with the many problems coming our way. They have indeed become one of the most marginalized sectors of our society.

According to the National Statistics Office, as of January 2013, 1.4 million people or 1.57% of our population have disabilities, with Region IV-A having the highest at 197,000 PWDs followed by the NCR with 167,000 then Region III with 139,000. The report further indicated that disability was highest among persons aged 15-19 years, 7.2 % of which are children aged 10 to 14, 6.9% aged 15-19 and 6.7% aged 5-9.

Since 76.18 million out of our country’s total population of 96.8 million as of 2012 are Catholics, Reverend Father Nonnette C. Legaspi, the Parish Priest of the Christ the King Parish, in Filinvest Homes, Batasan Hills who is also the Priest Minister for PWDs in the Diocese of Novaliches got interested in finding out how many of them are Catholics and what the Church is doing for them especially in the light of Pope Francis message last June 11, 2013 exhorting everyone to “always spread a culture of encounter, solidarity and hospitality towards persons with disabilities”.

After determining that there are 1.1 million Roman Catholics with disabilities, Fr. Legaspi wondered where they go to church, where they go for spiritual nourishment and whether the look up to the Church as their “Mother”. These are questions in his mind because the Catholic Church in the Philippines has 16 Archdioceses, 68 Dioceses, 4 Prelatures, 7 Apostolic Vicariates and a Military Ordinariate, but only two dioceses have an organized diocesan ministry for PWDs, viz., the Archdiocese of Manila and the Diocese of Novaliches.

Based on the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, the highest record number of persons under one disability is that of blindness at 473,143, while 135,569 persons have physical impairments (loss of one or both arms, hands, legs or feet or quadriplegic) and 121,598 persons have deafness of varying degrees,  and majority of them were Catholics. That was in 2000. It is 2013 now, so Fr. Legaspi is likewise wondering, how many of these deaf, blind and lame people are still Catholics.

This question is foremost in his mind and perhaps in the minds of most of us Catholics since the PWDs have remained silent during all these years and have apparently “stayed at the margins because they were just distractions”. This observation stemmed from an incident where several deaf children were not allowed to occupy the front pews of the church to have a better view of the mass and the interpreter because they “don’t need to be blessed anymore by the Lord; they are innocent, they are even holier than us”.  Commenting on this incident, Fr. Legaspi said:

“Here you have children with disabilities bringing their physical presence before the Real Presence of God in the Eucharistic celebration, and all I care about is close to sending them home and be content with the Sunday TV mass, perhaps because they need God less than my entire congregation?

The silence of the PWDs through these centuries of Catholicism in the country will not change. It is in this silence where they encounter God. What should change is our noisy culture of ignorance and shallow religiosity. A wrong culture obviously begets wrong language, spoken or unspoken. A religious culture bereft of spirituality, bereft of the culture of encounter, is a sham. In such a religion, some are children of God, while others are children of a lesser God. And fortunately, such is not the Catholic religion. No one Catholic is a child of the lesser God”.

Hence Fr. Legaspi’s appeal to CBCP is to create a new Commission on PWDs “to effectively correct the misunderstood views (a) that they are only beneficiaries of Social Services and (b) that their disabilities are primarily health issues” because, “when we think of people with disabilities in relation to ministry we tend automatically to think of doing something for them. We do not reflect that they can do something for us and with us… they have the same duty as all the members of the community to do the Lord’s work in the world according to their God-given talents and capacity” (1978 Pastoral Statement of U.S. Catholic Bishops)

Indeed this is the essence of Pope call for new evangelization also expressed in Cardinal Chito Tagle’s invitation during the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization: “to tell your stories, share your dreams, your sorrows your fears, your tears. Only in the weaving of our stories with the story of Jesus can we see again the wider story of humanity especially here in Asia, and the path open to us by the Lord to proclaim the good news with renewed fervor, with renewed methods, with renewed expressions”.

Email: [email protected]