Organizer: Kathy Nadeau, Arizona State University
Chair: Vincent G. Boudreau, City College of New York
Discussant: Toinette Raguiza, New School for Social Research
This panel focuses on the pivotal roles played by three major forces in the struggle to define social progress in the Philippines. While the Philippine churches and what may broadly be defined as the Philippine left by no means form internally monolithic ideological blocks, both Christian and left wing activists, sometimes with overlapping social agendas, have been identified as formidable opponents to state hegemony since the 1970s.
These three key social forces rival each other in scope as each is comprised of nationwide organized structures and networks. Furthermore, their ranges of influence stretch vertically from the national to village level where churches, the state, and organized left wing groups provide ideological reference points and a structral framework for everyday social, political, and economic struggles.
The papers in this panel are concerned with: (1) the ways in which the oppositional ideologies of the Philippine Christian activists groups and the Philippine left have been constructed historically through internal conflicts, through their relations to one another, and in opposition to state agendas and, (2) the ways in which the state, Christian activist organizations, and the organized left, seek to win converts among local populations in the arena of ideas, and to organize and mobilize local groups for social action.
Dr. Youngblood's paper deals broadly with developments and conflicts between the churches and the state under the Ramos administration. Dr. Coumans' and Dr. Nadeau's papers focus on two progressive Catholic movements that are attempting to organize and mobilize local peasants for social action.
Ramos Plays Cards Differently: Church-State Relations Since 1992
Robert L. Youngblood, Arizona State University
The paper will examine relations between the Philippine government and the Roman Catholic and major Protestant churches (namely those affiliated with the National Council of Churches of the Philippines) since the election of Fidel Ramos as president in 1992. Much of the paper will focus on church-state disagreement about social and economic policy. And among the most controversial issues is the Ramos administration's advocacy of an aggressive and comprehensive family planning program opposed by the Roman Catholic Church.
An analysis of church-state relations is important because the Philippines is at a crucial juncture in its economic and political development. Interest in such an analysis is heightened because Ramos is the first Protestant president of the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country.
Constructing BCC-CO Ideology in the Philippines: Intellectual, Cultural, and
Political "Bricolage"
Catherine Coumans, Cornell University
The Basic Christian Community-Community Organizing (BCC-CO) movement in the Philippines is a nationwide, top-down, Catholic progressive movement. The ultimate aim of the movement's leaders is to transform social, economic, and political relationships in the Philippines in favor of the poor by organizing and conscientizing local communities which will then mobilize to take social action on their own behalf.
In this paper I focus on BCC-CO ideology, which is constructed at the national level and is mediated to local target populations through the idiom of re-interpreted Catholic symbols, narratives, and practices. My discussion is aided through the use of Levi-Strauss's concept of "Bricolage" (1966).
I first identify the main historically rooted constituent elements of BCC-CO ideology. I then show how this particular "collection of oddments left over from human endeavors, that is, only a subset of the culture" (idem: 19) is braided together by BCC-CO activists and expressed in the common language of a liberational Christian exegesis in a way that is unique to this movement. Finally, I identify a number of key concepts that characterize BCC-CO ideology and reveal how BCC-CO activists are likely to approach the task of local level conscientization, organization and mobilization.
Local Development or Exploitation in a Scavenger Community, Cebu City,
Philippines: "Model or Muddle"
Kathy Nadeau, Arizona State University
A broad plan for the Philippines sustainable development is offered by the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC). BECs, also known as Basic Christian Communities, are called in the Philippines "theologies of struggle." Their development ideology entails a gradual process of social change that aims to transform Philippine society in its totality, including Churches and the world capitalist system, and to develop a post-capitalist society based on sustainable modes of production. In reality, the full success of the BEC movement is hindered by local government and Church leaders who operate with a top-down, Western and technocratic development paradigm.
This paper examines the development processes and effects within a Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) located in a scavenger community, in an urban dumpsite. The case provides an opportunity to describe and critique the systemic relationship between Cebu's development and Cebu's poverty. Cebu City appears to be both undergoing an economic boom and seeing a rapid increase in squatter settlements. The scavengers are divided (competitively individualistic, not community-oriented) due to the dominant capitalist mode, and they compete with each other in relation to the BEC. They have introjected the worldview and values of the capitalist referent instead of those of solidarity, resistance, community and collective organization of Philippine theologies of struggle. Outside BEC facilitators are using a latent concept of development, which derives from an outmoded modernization theory, the implementation of which leads to underdevelopment.