Poor, hungry Filipinos
The oligarchy has created a nation with many poor and hungry families. The official poverty rate is 15.5 percent of the population. This translates to about 17.54 million Filipinos living in dire poverty. But as many as 58.62 million Filipinos rate themselves as poor. They live in slums and shanty towns. They struggle to feed their children. This inequality is a great social injustice and indicates a failure of both the ruling elites controlling the government and of the Church that has failed in its mission to challenge the roots of poverty in the structural injustice that plagues the nation.
Do these rich families making up the oligarchy have a conscience, knowing right from wrong, good from bad, and are they always choosing what’s right and good? With 58.62 Filipinos going hungry every day, they are clearly choosing to ignore this dire situation.
Jesus said that unless the rich share their wealth with the poor, it would be extremely difficult for them to enter the Kingdom of God. That sharing has to go beyond handouts. It means working with honest people and social movements to change the structural injustice, inequality and corruption that allows the greedy rich to become even more so. It’s almost impossible for them to change, like putting a rope through the eye of a needle, Jesus said. We would need many miracles for that to happen. But faith in God and in Jesus tells us to work for good and oppose evil and bring justice to people. As Saint James once said, “faith without action is dead.”
Dedicated Christians are taking action, doing great deeds and protecting the environment and people from exploitation. The Haribon Foundation and World Wildlife Fund-Philippines have planted many native trees. These nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work directly with Indigenous people (IP) to secure land stewardship and sustainably map forests. Brave and committed Filipinos in these NGOs, including Alyansa Tigil Mina and Climate Rights International, record corporate violations, host protests, and demand a halt to mining in key biodiversity areas and island ecosystems. They are taking a stand and putting themselves at risk in their work against large-scale nickel, gold, and copper mining in sensitive ecological areas like Palawan and the Caraga region that cause massive soil erosion, severe river siltation, and toxic acid mine drainage. May their voices be heard and heeded.
Climate action networks, including Aksyon Klima Pilipinas and the Center for Environmental Concerns, strongly protest the government’s 2026 environmental budget cuts and push back against new fossil fuel plants. These NGOs deploy decentralized, off-grid solar and micro-hydro microgrids directly to remote island communities, bringing a new lease on life to them. They also run educational campaigns to accelerate the transition to localized renewable energy. Some install solar panels on buildings to help mitigate climate change. Coalitions like the EcoWaste Coalition and Greenpeace Philippines fiercely campaign against the construction of incinerators and advocate for a total ban on single-use plastics. We are all challenged to become involved to end poverty and injustice and make the Philippines a happier, more just and prosperous nation for its people./PN
