What lies behind the Esplanade

Written by Zherluck Shaen Rodriguez
Photographs by Vince Cheong

   Teamed up with an organization called Kadamay, the Malaysian travelers along with us student guides went to see different urban poor communities. I have never been to an urban poor community before, and so I didn’t know what I was going to experience. Led by Tracey, we were assigned to see the relocation sites. 

    As an unaware citizen of the Philippines, I was really shocked when I saw the state of the people who are relocated in the area. The local authorities have been telling us that "everything is fine", do not worry about the people who are relocated because they are in "good condition", but what I saw was the total opposite.

The people we don't see

    The experience was really emotionally moving, especially when the students started to ask questions, and everything was exposed. I was able to learn how they survive their daily battles. They have been fighting too hard; some don’t actually have a comfortable house to dwell in, and some are staying in a “temporary” house because they are still waiting for the government to give them a proper place to stay. Some have been waiting for four years already. It is really saddening to see my fellow citizens suffer in that kind of state. When asked why the local authorities transferred them to the site, most gave the same two answers: 

1) They were victims of the deadly Typhoon Frank, or 

2) They were victims of the Beautification project of the local authorities. 

    The organization that has been helping these people is Kadamay (which means “buddy” in English) and it has been doing a good job fighting for the rights of the people. But the thing that struck me the most is that they were fighting to increase the wages of the employees and to increase the employment rate in the country. In my own learning, the government cannot actually do that because if the government increases the employment rate in the Philippines, inevitably, the prices of the goods will also increase. It is simple logic taught by the Phillips curve: if unemployment decreases, inflation rate increases. What I am trying to highlight here is that what they are fighting for is really hard to fulfill. 

   The question now is this: What must the government do to solve the major problems in the Philippines? As Peter, my fellow student guide, said, ”Problems in the Philippines are really complex, and it boils down to the values that Filipinos have." But that is in stark contrast to what  Manang Luisa said, which is that the problem does not lie with the values of the Filipinos. Instead there is something wrong with the system. 

     After the talk, I actually came to a conclusion to myself: this problem should be acted upon by the government and by the people together. I agree with nanay that it is not about the people’s values towards hardship and labor, but it is about their attitude towards working with the government. I can actually say that as a Filipino, I rarely participate in government activities and I actually do not have a stand on issues that the government debates. I also agree with Peter that the blame should not be laid at the government’s door because the officials are actually doing a good job in improving the GDP of the country. But this is not the basis though, we should also have an in-depth perspective. We should consider the state of the poor, and so we should have to look about the economic welfare of the people. The question now is: Is there economic development in our country? 

    Whenever I saw these people before, I only said that they are settled in their way of living anyway. This is what I am actually thinking: Why would I help them- they won’t even help themselves. But as an ignorant Filipino I have learnt that I am the one who was settled in my way of thinking of them. At the end of the day, I learned that poverty is a complex problem that the government and the citizens should actively participate to solve for the sake of everyone involved. 

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Mabuhay! I’m Zherluck (pronounced as Sher-lak). But for the benefit of everybody, I can be called “Zhe”. I’m a second year student of BS Business Administration, majoring in Marketing.

As my friends say I am “loka-loka” (crazy in English) but actually I don’t know if it’s a compliment or an insult. I love sports such as Swimming, Softball, Table Tennis, and Volleyball but it seems that these sports hate me. I really want to be as active as possible because I want to burn the fat on my belly. I think I’m getting fatter and fatter as time goes because eating and tasting different varieties of food is one of my interests. The more exotic the food is, the more interested I am to taste it.

My idea of having a good time is trying out new things with new friends. Good food and a good place with good people, that’s what my idea of a good time is.