Domination is not a
necessary fact of human life. Most analysis on human injustice focus on causal
links or the empirical without due regard for systemic wrong. This undermines
the human being who is the moral locus of attention in a philosophical
investigation. No human being has a pre-ordained destiny, and for this reason
it is truly important to examine the rootedness of oppression and other forms of exploitation in modern society. Enrique Dussel points to the egocentric logic of the Western mind. History, for him, is “the space of a world within the ontological horizon is
the space of a world center, of the organic, self-conscious state that brooks
no contradictions because it is an imperialist state.” (Dussel 1985, 2)
Fr. Vitaliano Gorospe,
SJ, in The Filipino Search for Meaning, writes that “the
fundamental purpose of economic development ought not to be production and
consumption, mere profit or domination, but the service of each person.”
(Gorospe 1974, 440) People are not economic objects. To use them in order to
benefit the upper echelons of society is an abominable crime against humanity.
Indeed, according to Fr. Gorospe, the reality of injustice “is caused in great
part by the imbalance of power between the rich few and the masses of the
people.” (Ibid) In the case of the Philippines, one can point to the reality of
colonial rule as reflective of the huge gap between those who has the favor of
the state and those who are pushed into the margins of society. It is the
bourgeois who run the economy who in turn run the weak state (White 2009, 283)
The modest aim of this
paper is to pay attention to the insufferable lives millions of children in the
Philippines. The subjection of our children is a scandal that all of us are a
party to. It goes without saying that the problem of child labor, for instance,
its reality, is reflective of the evil nature of social injustice. Fr. John
Carroll’s strong point that Philippine institutions are characterized as ineffective
in meeting expectations is still valid four decades thereafter. Fr. Carroll’s
assertion corroborates the judgment that something is wrong in this country or
in the Filipino people, because we have simply failed to live up to the idea,
according to Fr. Gorospe, of “what a nation is, what it can be, and what it
ought to be.” (Ibid, 456)
On Human
Poverty
Undeniably helpless in
their ordeal, a huge number of children are illegally trafficked. Child labor
victims have been thrown into decrepit factories, prostitution dens, dangerous mines, and in
other dehumanizing places of work. And in addition to the above, hundreds
of thousands of children also work in dumpsites, in the fishing industry, in
mines, in public markets, and other equally hazardous places while some have
been documented as child soldiers or peddled through online pornography. Many
children coming from IP (Indigenous People) communities, due to absolute
poverty, are child laborers.
The economist and
philosopher Amartya Sen describes child labor as that “barbarity of children
being forced to do things...made much beastlier still through its congruence with
bondage and effective slavery.” (Sen 1999, 115) But Sen also notes that
abolishing such exploitation without corresponding opportunity to enhance the
life situation of these children is equally problematic. Sen’s concern is
empirical and economic. However, there are deeper issues that need to be
thoroughly assessed in order to respond to this problem in a more holistic way.
The fact of the matter is that our children have become the faces of modern day
slavery. One of the most appalling examples we can mention is the trafficking
of young girls who are sent abroad as child prostitutes.
In Sen’s analysis, the
problem of child labor is often linked to human poverty, and for this reason,
economic progress is supposed to be the key to the freedom of enslaved
children. But the problem is more fundamental – the lack of respect for the
basic humanity of the poor. What is more disturbing, however, is the
indifference of our people to the malady of child labor. The children in the
margins live as non-existent beings. Their struggles and suffering, however, have remained unimaginable.
We are morally
responsible for this problem. Fr. Gorospe tells us that “the full exercise of
moral responsibility includes the citizen's concern for the common good of
society even when it conflicts with the individual's interest.” (Ibid, 419) But
the reality is that even the most affluent sectors of society, who have the
means to help those in disparate need, disregard the suffering of these
children. To most people who own businesses in Makati’s CBD, these young souls
do not have an essential stake in any economic configuration of their world.
The Philippine
government has been ineffective in fighting child trafficking and in stopping
child abuse. While the state is supposedly the bastion of the preservation and
promotion of the common good, what has happened is that the state today faces
the moral burden of failing to promote and protect the interest of our children
as some statistical figures show. Consider, for instance, the inability of
government agencies in protecting the welfare of street children in many urban
centers. In addition, most measures have become merely palliative and lack
policy direction. The lack of corresponding budget for child welfare programs
has not only exacerbated the situation of street children but is also reflected
of society’s lack of respect for their dignity as human beings.
The truism with regard
to the huge divide between very rich and the very poor provides the ink to the
merciless and often ruthless fact of life that children go through. Rich kids
play with expensive gadgets and waste most of their time online whereas poor
kids are busy looking for trash in order to survive. Pope Leo XIII admonishes
in Rerum Novarum that “the richer class have many ways of
shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas
the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must
chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that
wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be
specially cared for and protected by the government.”
Fr. Gorospe notes in his
critical analysis of Philippine society that our authorities have “for the most
part been misunderstood and functional as power to dominate and exploit others
for one's own personal interest.” (Gorospe 1974, 419) The cruel lives of those
children in the margins of Philippine society point to a triad of evil -
control, manipulation, and exploitation. This triad is undeniable in a society
that favors the elite and disregards the powerless poor. It is for this reason
that victims of child labor have been perpetually condemned to a hell-hole type
of existence – the ultimate altar of doom that human selfishness has created
for the children in the margins.
Poverty is the greatest
scandal to humanity. Since our government structures are defective, children
are the ones who suffer because of their vulnerability. So, the achievement of
the common good is not just about ending corruption. It also means knowing what
to do and how to do things in a complex world where power controls almost
everything, including what we think and how we come to rationalize things. The
poor must have access to and should enjoy equal opportunity.
Good schools cannot be
exclusive the playground for rich children. Education is something that every
child out there deserves. You cannot buy good education, for if you do,
somebody must have been paying it for you. Poor kids traverse kilometers of
dirt to reach their school. Thus, rich kids cannot waste their time in school
by spending more on trivial inanities. How can people say that they value
the lives of others when each and every single day the only interest that they
serve is their own? The mentality to brand something as “exclusive,” including
the kind of academic training that our children get, has contributed a lot to
the deterioration of the quality of life of the ordinary Filipino. While one
cannot really take away from any bright young man or woman the very fruits of
his hard work in emancipating himself or herself from the bondage of poverty,
the commercialization of education in the Philippines has hindered the huge and
average majority from realizing their basic freedom from non-interference,
thereby depriving them of opportunities for a dignified existence.
The Subjection of Our
Children
The common good must be
made apparent in its concrete term, which is not, as defined by Fr. Gorospe,
“the sum total of the social, political and economic goods in society; it is
the dynamic common good of persons, the total human development of each and
every person.” (Gorospe 1974, 419) Child labor, being a malignant social
cancer, is a prime example of how we have failed to promote the common good.
Children scavenging for trash are a painful symbol of the reality of
inequitable growth in the country. The non-inclusive nature of the country’s
economic development excludes the poor and favors only the children of the
rich. We can thus make this bold moral claim that our basic structure has
simply failed to promote the human rights of poor children. Systemic failures
in the re-distribution of social primary goods, notably in healthcare and
education, have all contributed to the worsening state of this social malady.
The world spends more
money on war than in making children happy. Since the government cannot carry
the full burden in educating the whole population the private sector must
recognize its role in solving the problem. But tuition fees in most private
schools have become prohibitively expensive. The education reform in the
country through the K-12 curriculum, which has been suggested to improve the
quality of education in the country, will not transform the lives of poor but
will exacerbate their already insufferable existence. This blunder comes from
the fact that this latest experiment on our poor kids closes its eyes to the
fact that drop outs come from the poorest families.
While universities
proclaim that they exist for the greater good of humankind, the price tag they
put on education utterly belie such a pronouncement. Education is a right, but
in this country, it has always been a matter of privilege since colonial times.
Rich kids get good education. Many poor kids don't. The end result is poor
children scavenging for trash. Many children simply end up becoming criminals,
drug dependents - indeed, a life so violent that one finds it not worth living.
The undeniable truth is thousands of children who deserve quality education
don't get it because they do not have the means to afford it. Opportunities
simply don't exist. Thus, the poor child is resigned to his fate, unhappy and
without a future.
Fr. Gorospe points out
the reason why many Filipinos live miserable lives: “So far the
socio-politico-economic power in Philippine society has been concentrated in
the hands of the few and therefore the task of justice is to enable the many
especially the masses to share equitably in that power.” (Ibid, 419) Millions
of children are condemned to a life of misery and cruelty because expensive
schools make quality education hopelessly impossible for the destitute. Any effort,
however hard, prayers included, to change one's life for many of these children
will simply be pointless and utterly futile. While it is apparent that many
victims of child labor also come from broken homes, they too are a product of
unjust systems and cultural hegemony, reduced to being mere instruments –
dehumanized no end, humiliated and stripped of their dignity, their childhood
stolen forever.
Young girls are often
sent off by parents to become house-helps to pay for family debts, and young
girls, more often than not, do not complain because our male-dominated culture
restricts them from exercising their desire to be free. Young boys are forced to
grow old faster as they carry heavy loads in piers and construction sites. But
the finger pointing must end somewhere. More importantly, perhaps, while we
have acknowledged that child labor is a moral problem, it is not enough that we
recognize our moral accountability. We need concrete steps in order to address
the widespread inequalities in the country in order to thwart social
disintegration brought forth by broadening income gaps.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Fundamentally, many among us too
are equally guilt by exclusively loving our own. Since child labor is a systemic wrong, establishing a society that
respects the dignity of each person is important to end the terrible
indifference against the poor. The thing is that we spend more on a new gadget
to feed our desires than to personally care for the sick, dying and needy child out there.
We cannot really be all too concerned about those saints who parade what they
give to charity. The bigger task, and even more dangerous, is to find those
sinners who have exploited the poor for their self-serving motives.
