Religious fanaticism grows along with worsening poverty

For 19 hours last Friday, a throng of 5.5 million painfully wound through the streets of Manila in what has become an annual massive show of veneration for – some say fanaticism over – a 300-year old burnt wooden figure of Jesus Christ called the Black Nazarene. This year’s toll of the centuries-old ritual: Two dead and hundreds seeking medical attention.

The Black Nazarene procession has been growing every year since it first started in Quiapo some 300 years ago; the one held last Friday was considered among the largest and many attributed this to the growing population of Manila and its environs, especially the poor.

The frenzy resulting from the yearly tradition attracts the participation of a cross section of the population, including politicians and screen and television personalities.

Even supposedly objective news anchors such as former Vice President Noli de Castro and TV5’s Erwin Tulfo are among the so-called devotees of the yearly ritual.

Tulfo, who even featured himself clambering up the “andas” or carriage of the Black Nazarene in TV5’s primetime news that he hosts, said he did this act for his daughter who has been cured of a disease.

Jamie Marfil, a University of the Philippines student who went to observe the ritual, said the desire to jump onto the “andas” seizes anybody who joins the procession in some form of a mass frenzy.

The procession pulls in mostly the poor who are hoping for some form of redemption as poverty grows amid a fast-growing population.

Which is ironic because the government has been boasting that the country is now approaching a demographic sweet spot as majority of the population reaches working age.

Government figures show that 60 percent of the population is of working age of between 15 and 64, a rate expected to continue increasing, which is not the case for many of its Asian neighbors, whose populations are aging.

Based on conventional economic theories, the Philippines will stand out with its young population.

This theory states that as other countries see their labor costs go up, the Philippines will remain competitive because of the sheer abundance of workers joining the labor force.

This year’s Black Nazarene devotees braved the scorching heat of the sun causing blood pressures to rise – scores, in fact, fainted- hoping for some miracle to happen in their lives as they neared the wooden image. In the intense shoving and pushing for vantage positions, many also were trampled upon, suffered lacerations, broken bones and other injuries.

Despite the physical dangers that the devotees face in this yearly ritual, the Philippine Catholic Church has remained silent on the “Quiapo phenomenon” over the years.

One observer said the annual procession is actually a disaster waiting to happen.

“I shudder to imagine what could happen if some deranged guy or prankster would shout something that could trigger a stampede. Is this what the authorities are waiting to happen before they put some controls on this phenomenon? The situation seems to get worse every year,” he said.

Some have also wryly observed that over the years, the Black Nazarene crowd has been growing parallel to the worsening economic state of most Filipinos.

Many are also saying the government is promoting the procession since it provides people with an object to redirect their sufferings as their situation worsens.

Nearly 81 percent of the population are Catholics and the Philippines Roman Catholic Church practically influences every aspect of the lives of Filipinos.

The propagation of traditions, while having little to do with the strengthening of faith but which is more of experiencing an adventure, enhances the belief that suffering is a necessary virtue and consequently being poor is favored by God.

Poverty has grown and that part of the population that is poor and can’t rely on both the government and the Church to get their daily bread turns to the Black Nazarene for deliverance.

In a contested figure, the government claims 3 million Filipinos were pulled out from extreme poverty based on National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) data comparing 2013 and 2012 data that showed 24.9 percent of the population was considered poor compared to 27.9 percent a year earlier.

The NSCB website, however, indicated that the latest poverty figures were computed using for the first time, “income data from the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS). Previous reports were based on the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) conducted triennially.”

Economists said the data using different formulas couldn’t be compared, as it would be like comparing apples and oranges.

The 24.9-percent poverty rate in the country is still among the worst in the region, with countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam, which have less-developed economies than the Philippines faring better.

Singapore has zero poverty, Indonesia, 12 percent; Malaysia, 1.7 percent; Thailand, 13.2 percent and Vietnam, 20.7 percent.

Still, the growing population had provided workers that strengthened the booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. The Philippines, which has English as a second language, surpassed India last year as the global hub for call centers.

Data from the Board of Investments (BoI) showed that offshore call centers employed nearly 1 million Filipinos and generated about $20 billion in revenue this year. The government expects to expand the industry to generate $25 billion in revenue by 2016.

The Philippines’s “growing prosperity” has also been driven by the 9.5 million Filipinos — almost 10 percent of the population — who work outside the country and sent home $12.7 billion just in the first half of the year that grew 6.2 percent from last year.

Economists said that while the economic fundamentals have been strengthened under President Aquino, the basic problems of the country on infrastructure remain.

The recent strong typhoons, which at one time submerged half of the capital Manila, have painfully revealed the shortage of modern infrastructure that makes the country highly vulnerable to disasters.

The frequent holidays associated with religious celebrations are also seen to contribute to the weakening of the economy that consequently sucks in more Filipinos into poverty.

The government, for instance, loses heavily from tax collections for each non-working holiday.

In relation to the holidays that the government declared during the visit this week of Pope Francis, Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) President Hans B. Sicat said the government will forego P150 million in taxes from stock trading alone as a result of the three days declared as national holidays during the papal visit.

Taxes worth P50 million daily are lost from P9 billion in foregone stock-market transactions for every holiday.

“The gov’t should stop adding holidays; holiday = BSP closed = P45 million lost in government taxes on P9-billion daily trading on the stock exchange,” Sicat said.

He said the declaration of special non-working holidays also pulls down the country’s competitiveness.

“The government should stop adding holidays which result in increased logistics challenges, higher firm costs and less competitive service industries,” Sicat said.

Sicat bewailed that 50 percent of the market is foreign-driven. “As an electronic exchange, we shouldn’t be subjected to local, ‘manual’ constraints. This is the point of using available technology,” Sicat said.

“Shutting a market in a highly interconnected world subjects stakeholders to higher risks when they cannot react or optimize portfolios. Global events happen 24/7, markets should be open as much as possible to service every one,” he added.

For the poorest lot, the government has provided dole outs called the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) program.

CCT, the flagship poverty-reduction project, which now covers 4.1 million households and homeless families provides P1,500 to the poorest Filipinos families but is a program fraught with allegations of irregularities.

The various irregularities that the Commission on Audit (CoA) identified in the program were the result of the CCT being expanded beyond the capability of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to monitor the project’s implementation and the beneficiaries’ compliance with the supposed conditions for the regular monthly doles.

The demographic sweet spot as an advantage will only be as good as the availability of jobs in the economy.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in a report, however, said the government might be blowing the opportunity. It said in a report that the emergence of young Filipino workers is not being exploited to the advantage of the economy.

“Favorable demographics are a missed opportunity if the economy cannot effectively absorb the growing working-age population,” the IMF said in its periodic report.

The rising number of new graduates is either unemployed or is quickly absorbed by economies overseas looking for skilled labor.

Many of the unemployed, however, are in that state by choice since the opportunity they are looking for, which is commensurate to the years they invested in school, can’t be found locally.

The IMF report said the inadequate use of labor resources is reflected not only in elevated unemployment but also in high underemployment, the IMF said.

The report, nonetheless, said that Filipinos seeking work abroad tend to accept less skilled jobs overseas in response to large wage differences and limited employment opportunities at home.

It noted the significant brain drain that results from the limited choices available to young Filipinos.

The country has the highest unemployment and poverty rates in progressing Asia, which negates all claims of the government about a fast expanding economy.

Also, the rising inflation rate is expected to negate whatever gains that majority of the Filipinos are deriving from the supposed economic growth as high prices eat up their income from work.

The biggest losers of a lethargic government are the pobreng masa that depend on the state for rescue from their marginalized condition.

Aquino has only the dole-out program that is increasingly taking up a huge portion of the yearly budget and his multifarious catch phrases as an anti-poverty program.

The result is that more than 25 percent of the population or about 25 million Filipinos continue to live in uncertainty each day.

With the jobless rate at 7 percent and the poverty rate at 25 percent, the condition of the majority of the population admittedly remains the worst in Asia, a situation that would continue to fuel the fanaticism of the Black Nazarene devotees with no immediate end in sight.

Luis Leoncio and Riza Lozada