By Fr. Vincent Busch

On the island of Mindanao where I live I see signs all around me of how our generous and renewable planet is dying. Mindanao’s top soil is eroded, its forest stripped, its mangrove swamps uprooted and its rivers and seas are polluted. The people who suffer most from this ecological mess are those whose lives depend directly on the health of their habitat. I see the consequences so clearly in the town of Plaridel where the people of Barrio Danao go hungry in the wake of the destruction of their mangrove forest.

A few decades ago their mangrove forest was large and bountiful. It was the spawning and breeding ground for a rich variety of sea life; it was the permanent habitat for edible shellfish, crabs and fish; it was the home for trees and palms that provided free firewood. Thatching, lumber and food (fruit and nuts) and it was a natural buffer that checked coastal erosion and built up land mass by trapping sedimentation. This forest community fed, sheltered and adorned the barrio of Danao. Mrs. Pelic Cendenio recalls, “We had lots of good food then we could easily get fish, crab, shrimp shellfish and even lobster. Now, with the mangrove gone, we eat very poorly.”

During the 1960s and the 1970s the mangrove forest fell into the hands of a powerful family whose workers cut its trees to make charcoal. Hundreds of acres were destroyed and the charcoal sent to the Union Carbide factory in the city of Iligan.

The Mangroves left behind by the charcoal crews had to face another threat, fishponds. Once again, a few powerful individuals were allowed to reduce a bountiful public life-source into their small private resources by constructing fishponds. After years of abuse the coastal swamps of Danao was left in ruins, and the people were left to face a desolate future.

A tiny woman, Mrs. Nidia Tacang, took compassion on Danao. With the barrio people she began to restore their dying swamp. For over a year now she and her co-worker have been replanting the coastline. The group had no funding for seedlings and supplies. They collected seeds from the remaining forest. One day bringing their own food and water they trudge barefoot over the rough and muddy remains of the swamp to the planting area two miles from their homes. Their steady work has produced fruit. Over 70,000 seedlings now dot the mud flats.

In profit-minded world where self interest is the norm selfless labor is often viewed with suspicion. Nidia spoke of attempts to stop their work: "We were told to stop  planting because the government planned to develop the area commercially. We are poor people and have no political influence, we asked our parish priest, Fr. Fred Malais, to intercede for us. He represented us well and helped convince some officials to let us continue. But still we were told to limit our planting to this remote area of the swamp.”

The opposition that the people of Danao are facing grows from the pressure put on the Philippine government to create an economic order that will allow it to continue to service its massive foreign debt. Since the time of the corrupt Marcos regime the Philippines has borrowed millions of dollars from abroad. In many cases the borrowed funds were embezzled by corrupt officials, squandered on grandiose projects, or funneled into expanding the armed forces. Every year a huge position of the national budget goes into debts payments. Little money remains for public health, appropriate education, social services, renewable energy, urban renewal. Rural reconstruction or for maintaining the country’s ecological integrity.

To get funds to service this debt the international financial community demands that the Philippine government design economic policies that will make more money quickly for the people and from the land. They want policies to favor money-making enterprises, especially dollar-earning ones, even if those policies deprive people of basic needs – life, food, water, shelter, health and habitat. In effect the people of the Philippines are being told they must service the nation’s debt first before they can care for their land and their families.

Everywhere in the Philippines we can see the consequences of policies that favor the debt. More and more of the nation’s prime farm land is being uses for export crops or is in the hand of agribusiness. Its mangroves are being destroyed to make fishponds to produce fish and shrimp for export. Logging operations continue to strip its dwindling rain forests. Mining operations scar its landscape and spew toxic waste into its seas and rivers. The air and water in the major cities are filthy with domestic and industrial waste. The soil, sea and forest of the country are being scarified to pay the debt.

The cruelty of the Philippines debt came home to me in Danao. Eusebio Agan, his wife Dominga and their two sons Angilito and Dondon were among those replanting on the day I visited Danao. Eusebio told me of the tragic loss: “Last September our son, Ricardo, died with a severe fever. We took him to the doctor and to a government hospital but the hospital had no funds for medicine. We had to borrow 3, 000 pesos from a moneylender who charges 20 percent interest a months. The medicine was too late; Ricardo died. My wife gathers firewood and I sell the fish I catch to pay the 460 pesos we owe each month in the interest and other charges. We have already paid the moneylender over 3,600 pesos and we still owe him the 3,000 we borrowed.”

In the case of the Agan family the cruelty of the local moneylender was made possible by the prior cruelty of the international moneylenders who drain the Philippine government so much that it cannot afford to supply its hospitals with basic medicine. The crushing poverty of the Agan family need not have happened yet such imposed poverty is common in the Philippines. Yet, despite their suffering, the Agan Family has not let oppressive cruelty kill their generous spirit. Indeed, throughout the Philippines it is the poor people like then who are beginning to restore the habitats that were destroyed by the rich and powerful.

Both Agan Family and the Philippine nation are in debt to people who have no intention of forgiving their debts. The future looks grim for the nation so long as its economy is adjusted to serving the debt rather than serving the people and the land.

Far away from the Philippines, in handsomely furnished boardrooms, the policy makers of the international financial community do not see the dying swamp, the sick children and the historic people of Danao. But our God, who asks us to feed the hungry and to give drink to the thirsty, does see them and will welcome them in heaven because of their compassion for the earth and for each other.