13 – Nation Building

Back at work after 2 weeks in Manila followed by the MassKara festival weekend I was amazed at the progress on Handumanan village. Prior to going to Manila I had participated in the first build day where we laid out the first 8 houses and began digging the trenches for the footings. Every Saturday, volunteers from the St Johns alumni association build alongside the beneficiaries on site. It had only been a couple of weeks but already those first 8 houses had roof trusses and a further 8 houses had almost complete walls.

The village at Banago had also made great progress and met the deadline for handover of the first batch of 20 houses which occurred in a ceremony on Saturday 25th. Butch and I went to site at 7am to make sure the preparations for the 9am ceremony were on track. The stage was set, the sound system was being set up, as were the tents and chairs for the guests. I was approached by a man who had just pulled up in a truck, saying he had the lamb. I went to have a look in the back of his truck, thinking, oh yes, this must be the food for the lunch after the ceremony. But it was actually a live lamb with a pile of herbs next to him! They lead the poor beast across the site to an area behind the houses and I witnessed (along with all the curious children of the village) the slitting of its throat. The blood was used to mark signs of the cross over the doors of the 20 new houses (as in the Old Testament tale of the Passover), and then the lamb was prepared for the spit alongside the whole pig who was already roasting.

As this was the first 20 houses to be awarded on this site with many more to come, choosing who would be the first 20 beneficiaries was a very difficult job. This was undertaken by the Local Government Unit and based on criteria such as income, number of dependants etc but also attitude and sweat equity (or number of hours spent building). The first 20 beneficiaries were chosen but not allocated a particular house. The Mayor of Bacolod was the guest of honour and facilitated the lottery of the houses. 20 ping pong balls marked 1 to 20 were placed in a barrel and each beneficiary was asked to step up and pick a number.

As in every GK event, there was entertainment. A group of girls from the village entertained us with a dance and the beneficiaries all grouped together to sing the GK song. It was impossible to keep a dry eye when a representative of the beneficiaries gave a tearful thank you to all who had been involved in the project.

I’ve finally located an English translation of the GK song. It doesn’t sound quite as good as the Tagalog version but the sentiments are there. It goes a little something like this …

I am a poor child, at a young age I went astray
How long do I have to suffer like this?
I hope you will help me change
I am a rich child, all my desires are taken care of
However, I don’t want the country to suffer
I hope you will also help me
I am a true Filipino in thoughts, words and deeds
The blood flowing in my body I will offer to my beloved country

Giving love, giving care
This is needed to be united
The Filipino, when on the move, will bear it all
New home, new life, new country

I will strive to be true, to God and to the country of my birth
The youth today – hope of the future
Wake up and move for the country
Arms linked as neighbours
Let us move the suffering country
In the name of God everything is possible, poor and rich helping each other

Giving love, giving care
This is needed to be united
The Filipino, when on the move, will bear it all
New home, new life, new country

Help move forward, all of us should share
True love given to us by the Almighty One
I bring hammer and nails, let us build the nation
Poor or rich, the Filipino has dignity

Giving love, giving care
This is needed to be united
The Filipino, when on the move, will bear it all
New home, new life, new country x2

Gawad Kalinga (Giving Care)
Gawad Kalinga (Giving Care)
Gawad Kalinga (Giving Care)

Just this week I, along with some new volunteers, had a formal GK Orientation day. It would have been perfect 3 months ago! Better late than never though. While I had picked up most of it over the past 3 months, it was really useful in filling in the remaining gaps. It was delivered by a couple of young GK workers from the head office in Manila who are in the process of travelling throughout the Philippines to present this orientation. Bacolod was lucky enough to be the first. As GK is such a relatively young organisation, prior to this there hasn’t actually been a formal orientation in place. Now that the organisation is growing at a phenomenal rate, the need for an orientation was recognised. In fact, GK is the biggest movement in the Philippines right now.

The vision of GK is a slum free, squatter free Philippines. The mission is “Land for the landless, homes for the homeless and food for the hungry”. The main goal is known as GK777: 700,000 homes, in 7,000 communities, in 7 years (2003 – 2010)! So far, in the first 4 years 1,500 communities have been built. That’s an average of a village a day! To reach the target, within this year and the next 2, 5,500 villages need to be built. That’s an average of 5 villages a day!

GK doesn’t actively recruit/select workers or volunteers. The idea is “Build and they will come”. Anyone can be a GK volunteer or GK Bayani (Hero). But as I learned very early on, GK isn’t simply about building houses, it’s about building communities, and that is achieved collectively (the concept of Bayanihan). I was struck by something the presenter said “If you can do it alone, don’t do it. Bring everyone with you”. Regardless of whether you’re involved in the infrastructure team, the health team, the environment team etc advocacy is an expected part of your role also – to inspire more people to become involved. As such, I have just been informed that I will be presenting the orientation day to the next batch of volunteers arriving from Singapore next month! As someone I know likes to say: “See one, do one, teach one”!