Pope’s defence of the poor hits home
Francis takes his message to fight corruption from presidential palace to millions at mass
MANILA — Pope Francis has left the Philippines, though his message of compassion for the poor and the need to end the corruption that sustains their suffering will continue to resonate in a country where a quarter of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day.
The 78-year-old pontiff took his message from the halls of the presidential palace to the streets of stormbattered Tacloban and Palo in Leyte and again to an estimated six million people who joined his mass in downtown Manila Sunday. The Argentine Pope flew back to Rome Monday after spending four days in Asia’s most Catholic nation.
“Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart,” Francis told an audience including President Benigno Aquino Friday, his first public address in the country.
He urged the people “to reject every form of corruption which diverts resources from the poor, and to make concerted efforts to ensure the inclusion of every man and woman and child in the community.” He made a similar call Sunday. Poverty remains a critical issue in the Philippines, where about 24 million people, more than 24 per cent of the population, live below the poverty line even with economic growth averaging more than five per cent a year since 2012. Successive governments have made limited progress in the fight on poverty, which stood at 22.6 per cent in 2003, with corruption one of the biggest impediments to government action.
“The visit of Pope Francis is significant to the over 80 million Catholic Filipinos, but more importantly, to those who live below the poverty line and rely only on faith to get by,” Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada said.
Some of the faithful looked to the Pope for a miracle to end their suffering and took to the streets in hope of a chance encounter and a blessing.
Delia Santos brought her four-yearold son to wait outside the pontiff’s temporary home in Manila, hoping even the fleeting touch of Francis could cure her child’s hydrocephalus.
“I wanted Pope Francis to touch him so he might get healed,” the 35-year-old mother said.
In Tacloban, the city hardest hit by typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, the first visit by a pontiff meant the world to the region, Vice Mayor Jerry Yaokasin said. The typhoon killed more than 6,200 people and damaged more than a million homes.
“It’s like God sent him as a medicine to heal the festering spiritual wound in our hearts,” he said.
“The Pope obviously has made a huge impression on the country, especially with his tough language against corruption, his unequivocal statements on the need for social justice and care for the poor among our political elite, and the need to address man-made climate change,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, a political-science professor at Manila’s Dela Salle University.
The pontiff’s remarks could “rekindle efforts at political reform in the country.”
Aquino won the presidency in 2010 after a campaign in which he pledged to fight corruption rampant among officials since dictator Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country from 1965 to 1986. Aquino’s predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was arrested on charges of electoral fraud. Arroyo’s predecessor Joseph Estrada, now Manila’s mayor, was detained for 61/2 years on corruption charges and later pardoned by Arroyo.
Under Aquino, there has been some improvement with the country’s score on the Transparency International corruption index, rising to 38 out of 100 in 2014 from 34 in 2012. Still, the country ranks 85 on the index of the 175 nations surveyed, where a No. 1 ranking signals the least corruption.
The Aquino government embarked on one program to fight poverty that wasn’t welcomed by the Catholic Church — the distribution of birth control to the poor. The Pope didn’t directly criticize the effort, while defending the right to life.