All Apologies

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. The following posts are a quick update of what I've been doing the past couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I Get Deported

LOL j/k…but I hope the Philippine government doesn't read this post…

Before coming to the Philippines, I asked my parents if I needed to do anything regarding my passport, such as apply for a visa. "No!" they said. "You're the son of Filipino citizens—it should be okay." So I went on my merry way to the Philippines.

Last week, a conversation with O'Hagan brought up how she needed to apply for a multiple-entry visa. "Haha," I laughed. "I don't have to do that." "You sure?" she said. "Check your passport." I did. And then I realized that I'm an idiot.

Apparently you can stay in the Philippines for 21 days on a US passport alone. If you stay any longer than that, you need a visa waiver. And if you're planning to leave the country to travel around Asia and then enter again, like O'Hagan is and I was, then you need a multiple-entry visa.

My conversation with O'Hagan took place on Wednesday. I was like, well, I have time to get it renewed. Of course, I did not check how long it takes to actually renew a visa. Before learning that information, here is how I spent my time:

Wednesday: A tour of GK sites with Tito Tony—all day.

Thursday: GK1MB Rally—all day.

Friday: I got lazy—all day.

Saturday – Sunday: Government closed—all weekend.

Monday (Today): My visa expires—tomorrow.

The regular process for obtaining a waiver takes a week. For a fee, the expedited process takes 3 business days. But apparently, if you "talk" to the right people, it takes 1 hour.

Boo deportation. Hooray graft!

Karl and I went to the Bureau of Immigration, which is in charge of illegals like me. I walked in, expecting to find an office or a desk where I could renew my visa. Instead, I met Mr. X.

I told a random person wearing a

barong that I'm an American citizen and I need to extend my visa because it expires tomorrow. That was probably a mistake; I might as well have worn a shirt saying, "I'm foreign and ignorant—extort me please!" This random person introduced me to another random person, who shall be called Mr. X.

Mr. X is a bald, elderly Filipino gentleman also wearing a barong. He asks me in Tagalog if I speak any; I tell him that I know very little (extort me please!). He then lowers his voice to a shady volume and starts speaking to me in a broken English that I can barely hear or understand. He leads me over to a shadowy corner and somehow, through his broken English and my terrible Tagalog, I understand what he's talking about. There's a visa waiver fee, an expedited process fee, and his "fee."

Before coming to the Philippines, I heard that this kind of thing is standard operating procedure for dealing with police officers and government officials. Still, I don't know what I'm doing. So I tell Mr. X I need to go to my car. Instead, I meet Karl in a nearby Starbucks where he is waiting. I ask him if this is a good idea, but he hasn't been in this situation before—he's a citizen. So I call up a couple of relatives who might have been through this situation because they travel a lot, but I can't get a hold of anyone. Finally, I'm like: screw it.

I go back in. Mr. X takes me deeper into the building, into a dimly lit corridor, and we pass a poster that encapsulates the entire experience for me. The poster says, "Corruption and graft are not victimless crimes. Report people to this number xxxxxxxxx." Immediately, I think to myself: that thing is useless. I hand Mr. X my passport. I shake his hand, slyly slipping him the "fee." And he counts the money right in front of me, change and all, as nearby armed guards and government officials stare at us. I'm not going to be deported; I'm going to be arrested.

But nothing happens. Mr. X makes sure the money is all there and he tells me to come back in an hour. One more thing occurs to me as I leave the building; this guy could take my money and my passport and I would be severely screwed. I would spend the rest of my life as an American living as an illegal immigrant in the Mexico of Asia—oh the irony.

Karl and I wait patiently at Starbucks. An hour passes by. I walk back into the building. Mr X. is wating for me. He hands me this:

And inside:

Done and done.

GK1MB Rally: Evidence of a National Movement

Today was the GK1MB Rally. 1MB stands for "Isang Milyon Bayani" (1 million heroes); it's a campaign to raise awareness about GK in the Philippines and around the world by getting people to participate in Gawad Kalinga through tours, builds, and rallies such as today's.

Today's rally was held at Araneta Center, where Karl and I watched a couple PBA games several weeks ago. Instead of basketball fans and bakla, however, the Center was packed with GK volunteers and beneficiaries. GK rented buses to get people from GK villages to the center.


The day was filled with music and dance performances by professional groups, volunteers, and beneficiaries. In-between the performances, GK fulltime volunteers, including the founder, Tony Meloto, gave talks on GK's impact on the lives of its beneficiaries. At one point, I was called up onstage alongside other Filipino-Americans and foreigners who were volunteering for GK.


The guy speaking in the picture is Dylan Wilk, a billionaire Englishman who sold off his video game distributing business in order to volunteer fulltime. He's also married to Tito Tony's daughter, Anna. O'Hagan and me are next, followed by Victor, Theresa, and Liberty, who go to Stanford. Calvin is the FilAm in the white polo; he goes to Georgetown, but he studied abroad at Ateneo University in Manila, where he also volunteered for GK. He gave an opera performance earlier during the day.

Karl and I mostly chilled backstage:


The day ended with more inspirational talks and a lot of dancing. Here's Myra and me looking hot:


In 3.5 years, GK has set up 1400 communities. That's thousands of former squatters whose lives have changed, hundreds of volunteers who take time away from their families in order to spend it with the poor, and a handful of fulltime workers who have given up entire careers in order to make that happen. I'll go into a comparison with other similar NGOs later, but if you knew and saw and what I know and see, you too would wonder why more people don't know about GK. I guess that's why I'm here.

The Killer Bus and Cute Baby Pictures

Karl and I decided to take public transportation to the GK office today. I did not realize this would comprise all forms of Manila public transportation.

Tricycle from Karl's neighborhood to bus station: 5 pesos.


Taking the "killer bus," which lacks air conditioning and flies through Manila traffic as fast as possible: 18 pesos.


Shaking hands with the guy sitting in the jeepney next to yours: 7 pesos.


Falling down inside the train because your hands are busy guarding your wallet and cell phone against pickpockets and snatchers instead of holding onto something: 10 pesos.


Getting to the office alive and seeing baby Pia's face: priceless.

Karl's 21st Birthday Epic

Today was Karl's debut. Women celebrate their debut at 18 and men at 21, although I don't know any guys in the states who celebrate their debut.

The party was held at my Tita Trixie's poolhouse:


This is the birthday boy:


And there are the event planners: Agatha, Karl's girlfriend; Tita Lydda, Karl's mom; and June, Karl's best friend:


Family and friends are great and all, but this is what Filipino parties are all about--food!


And this is what I'm all about:


The debut started with the food (of course). And then 21 of Karl's friends and family proceeded to give Karl 21 gifts and birthday wishes. I was number 18, and I gave him a book on the history of basketball, which is his favorite sport.

This is Karl's lolo giving his some elderly advice:


Here's a video of Mick-Mick's birthday wish:

Karl's mom went last and presented him his birthday gift--keys to his new Honda CRV:


Dang it June we already know you're hot stop posing like an import model already!


And then the entire family took a picture:

Poverty in the Philippines

The Philippines has a huge problem with not only poverty, but squatters, people living illegally on property they don't own. Such situations commonly arise when a landowner hires someone, usually someone from the provinces looking for better employment in the cities, to take care of their land. While the landowner is gone, the caretaker invites extended family members also looking for better employment in the cities to stay with him for a week or two. Filipinos are very hospitable, and what started as a week or two may turn into months and eventually years; the caretaker won't kick out his family from his own home. In the meantime, however, that extended family might tell more family and friends about where they're living and the opportunity available in the cities, who will set up a new home on this piece of land that no one living on it owns, and who in turn will tell more people. And that's how a squatter colony is born. (Source: Jerick, a fellow GK worker)

If the land is needed for development, then the landowner will kick out the squatters; this is why, at least in Manila, most squatter colonies are located near landfills, where no one wants to live or develop. The squatters find that opportunity in the cities is not as plentiful or as profitable as they thought, especially if they lack specialized skills or an advanced degree, so they turn to scavenging the nearby landfill or engaging in illicit activities. And because they are living where they are illegally, they are outside the sphere of government protection, which consequently means they are at the mercy of syndicates, i.e. organized crime, who use brute force to control the squatter colony's access to illegally-tapped power and water lines, meaning they can extort the squatters for prices double what other residents pay. The syndicates also control the sale of drugs, which squatters are more likely to use in order to escape their daily doldrums.

The economic cycle of poverty is clearly illustrated by these anecdotes: squatters are not making much money; they have a higher cost of living because they are extorted by syndicates; and they're abusing drugs, which decreases motivation and hence productivity. But psychologically, what is happening? Squatters are spit upon by Philippine society; they are the outcasts, the spurned, the forgotten. No one wants to touch them; they are modern-day lepers.

But that's where GK comes in, and this is the most difficult part to explain about the organization. GK focuses on squatter colonies and it addresses the economic aspects of Philippine poverty; its shelter and productivity programs enable squatters to buy back their land and develop specialized skills in order to make money. Yet it is the psychological, even spiritual, aspect, that is what makes GK special, and what most people don't see. The work of GK is to restore dignity to the poor; the idea is that once the impoverished can believe in themselves, then they will want to own their own home, get a better job, and kick off drugs.

According to University of the Philippines studies, the average income in GK villages has actually decreased because the men are busy building houses or engaged in legal activities that pay less than illegal ones; nonetheless, happiness in the village and a positive outlook for the future has increased.

Today (or last week--I'm really behind in my blog posts), I visited Citigroup Village in Malacanyang Dulo (yes Citigroup Village--like PBA teams, villages are named after their corporate sponsors). This is what the entire village used to look like:


Most of it still looks like that. The roads are unpaved; there's a lot of trash; and there's even more flies. The smell is terrible; a couple of people were urinating in the street. And children are busy sweeping rubble:


Now here's how the village is starting to look:


This part, although a small part, is a lot cleaner and brighter. Here's how the pre-school looks:


The people sitting there are part of the caretaker team. Every GK village needs a group of local volunteers to help implement the programs and make the transition from a slum to a community. It also ties into GK's philosophy of dignity restoration; these volunteers are not afraid to reach out and touch their neighbor, leper or not.

Most volunteers tend to come from an organization called Couples for Christ, which serves the volunteer backbone for GK. I'll get into GK and religion in a later post.

Here are the villagers hard at work:


Here's me trying to learn what I can:


On the left is Jerick. He's a recent graduate of Ateneo University who works fulltime in the GK National Office, and he's in charge of evaluating the progress of GK villages in southern Manila. Many people in the office are young.

Of course I make time to play with the kids: (the knight doesn't move that way!)


And here's a video of a caretaker team member interviewing a villager. It's in Tagalog, so ask your parents to translate, 'cause I sure as heck don't know what she's saying:

I know my explanations are not very scientific or precise right now; the topic is too broad and GK is too intricate to explain in one or several blog posts (which is why I'm writing a paper on the subject). The only real way to understand it all is to come to the Philippines and do a GK tour--so visit!

Enter Gawad Kalinga

I finally met with Gawad Kalinga (GK) today (Wednesday, June 13th). It took a while to find the place, and Karl, his tito, and I got lost a few times. Once we got there we had to wait a few hours for the person we were supposed to meet. But it was totally worth it, and I'm very excited to be working for them.

Gawad Kalinga is a poverty alleviation NGO (non-governmental organization) that helps the poor re-discover their self-worth and dignity through providing shelter, education, and healthcare with the aid of corporate and government sponsors. GK believes that poverty is behavioral, not economic. This is a holistic, psychological approach that makes the organizations different from other NGOs I've encountered. It is also a recipe for real social change in the Philippines. GK is not so much an organization as it is a movement.

The first person we met there was Bai. I want to interview her later, but from brief conversations with her, I learned that, before joining GK, she was a commander of one of the Muslim rebel groups in southern Mindanao. Her father was one of its founders. But after seeing the good work GK was doing in the south, particularly its ability to end fighting between Christian and Muslim families who had been killing each other for generations, she decided to join GK. I'm sure there's more to the story, but I just wanted to offer this tidbit as the tip of the iceberg of dramatic and life-changing stories behind the people who work for GK.

The next person we met was no other than--O'Hagan! O’Hagan was part of my Spring Break group who traveled to the Philippines to work with GK. During that trip, we met with Secretary Alvarez, the Director of Culture and Arts, and speaking with her changed O’Hagan’s life. O’Hagan is very involved with theater at Yale, but she’s also interested in politics, particularly how cultural movements impact national politics, and Secretary Alvarez spoke exactly to that. After our trip, O’Hagan planned to return to the Philippines to work with Secretary Alvarez and Gawad Kalinga. Right now, O’Hagan is still waiting to hear back from Secretary Alvarez, but in the meantime, she’s working for GK on a fledgling program that would bring theater to GK villages. She told me when she was getting her and her cell phone number, and I had tried text messaging her but she had not been responding. Fortunately, she had not been kidnapped; her cell phone just wasn’t working.

After a couple hours of waiting, Karl and I finally met Jaja, who is supervising me. She's very nice and extremely helpful. I explained to her what I want to do for GK: study the organization, evaluate its work, and then write a senior paper on it. She immediately introduced me to the Executive Director of the GK National Office, Tito Luis. The two of them explained to me the programs that GK provides for the poor.

When GK goes into an impoverished community, it offers one program before any others: Kapitbahayan, i.e. Community Association. Before GK builds any houses or provides any services, it wants the community to end any fighting, establish rules its members--also known as beneficiaries--will live by, and come together as one. All the houses and money in the world will be useless if the community cannot cooperate. Its members are building each other's houses and living beside one another as neighbors, but the community needs to realize that it is rising out of poverty together or not at all. More importantly, though, community organization is the first step in giving the poor a sense of ownership, and consequently self-worth and dignity. This is all part of a philosophy called "values formation;" it's not so much the materials and services that GK provides, but an opportunity to change how one thinks and thereby change how one lives. Again, the underlying belief of GK is that poverty is behavioral, not economic.

After community association, GK typically follows up with shelter, the actual house-building part of GK, but there's more to it than that. GK employs a concept of "sweat equity;" members are entitled to a house once they have put in enough hours helping the community, i.e. building someone else's house or teaching the community's children.

The programs that follow depend on the needs of the community. Usually, education is next. More-educated community members have the opportunity to teach schoolchildren for their sweat equity. Other programs that GK offers include healthcare, i.e. providing basic health services, and productivity, i.e. helping beneficiaries develop specialized skills and gain better employment.

There's a lot more to GK's programs, and to the organization itself; like Bai's story, this is just the tip of the iceberg. But there's more to come, and honestly, as of the time of this writing, I'm behind in my blog posts (yikes!) but here some pictures:

The GK top brass: the guy with the white hair is Tito Tony Meloto, founder of GK and a very inspirational figure.


We found O'Hagan!


There's a baby room at the GK office (awww):