Green and Red. Purple and Pink.

Christmas. It's most peoples' favorite time of the year. Sure, your wallet deflates faster than it inflates this season, but in most peoples' heads, the spending is worth it to celebrate the love and camaraderie that exists between all men. We celebrate our friends, our family, the fact that we're alive, and of course we celebrate the birth of Christ. He was born to save us. We're celebrating the fact that a child, born most innocent, would knowingly someday suffer and die for us. There's something wrong with that thought. It's barbaric.

Here we are, buying gifts for our friends, celebrating with our families, preparing lush feasts, decorating our houses with the brightest of lights, all in the name of a prophetic slaughtering of an innocent. Sure, the slaughter brings our salvation, but instead of celebrating the prophetic slaughter, shouldn't we be feeling ashamed of ourselves? What have we to celebrate anyway? That a child was born in a manger, in a stable, in the coldest of nights. We forget all too easily that Christ was not merely born to die for us, but rather he was born to show us who we could be. He chose to be born not in the humblest of settings, but rather under the most opressive of settings. Being born in a manger isn't simplicity, but rather the fact that he, being the child of a couple married in unlawful circumstances, mother pregnant even before the marriage, they weren't sent to the stable because there were no rooms available. If ever, the innkeeper could have offered his room to a laboring Mary. This was the effect of society looking down on these "sinners." They were opressed. The Christ chose to be born in opression. This would be the initial look at the life that would be lived out rallying against that same opression.

So all in all, I learned to see something differently this Christmas. If there is anything to celebrate, it isn't that Jesus was born to suffer and die for us, but rather, I celebrate that he gave us our life's meaning. I celebrate my capacity to do something for the world. I celebrate the fact that I can, and hopefully will bring about social justice and love in all men.

Imagined Poverty

Intro: Benedict Anderson explained in his article "Imagined Communities" that the difference between Imagined and Imaginary is that Imaginary means simply a construction purely in one's imagination. The thing imaginary is simply a figment of imagination without realistic grounding. Imagined on the other hand, at least in his defined social sense, simply entails a mental construction that has a realistic social grounding, although lacking in actual physical affinity.

Borrowing Ben Anderson's definition of Imagined, I would like to apply it to poverty, and thus defining a concept of imagined poverty. Imagined poverty is the feeling of poverty that has a social, even a pseudo physical basis, but in comparison to true poverty, it pales drastically.

Now, back to regular programming.

26% of our population live under conditions of gross malnutrition. That's a shy 3% difference from sub-saharan Africa. What's worse is that most of this gross malnutrition happens in the poorest of provinces, hidden from the eyes of the bourgeois. Really, the only people who can help the hungry are those who have food to spare. The problem is, either they don't know about the hungry, or they think themselves poor as well. Point one is that I myself was shocked to discover the above statistics for myself. I'm pretty sure the same goes to most of the members of the ABCs. Point two is that in these times of crises, and as the Philippines is always in a crisis, the people think to themselves that "hard times are coming," so they save up, conserve, panic buy, and other popular middle class defence mechanisms. This is precisely imagined poverty. The ABCs are too busy thinking of their shrinking wealth, and how times are getting harder, that they fail to discover a class yet below theirs. The Ds and Es are forgotten. Those who have had nothing to begin with are left to the periphery of some obscure province somewhere they don't care to tread. It's a sad case of out of sight, out of mind. This is precisely the problem with imagined poverty... We fail to realize that our dwindling wealth is not merely our own, but it was meant to be shared with those who have none. Instead of investing your savings in the stock market (another imagined institution) and wait for funds to theoretically grow, why don't we invest in people? Why don't we invest in infrastructure? Why not in new businesses? Why not in social enterprises? Jobs are created, wealth is shared, and a sense of community ensues. It is when we connect with the periphery, getting to know them, do we understand their needs, and with our resources and educated minds, we can bring about a sense of true community. Egalite. Fraternite. Liberte. It's not about our individual imagined poverty. It's about sustainable growth in the community. We may be as Anderson said, an imagined community, but the affinity does not necessarily need to be theoretical.

We Will. We Should. We Might.

The problem with poverty is that it is unsightly. It is families of ten, making most of two square meters worth of living space. It is small children in tears, shivering in the cold rain begging you to buy their flowers. It is an emaciated man; his ribs seen clear through his paled skin, expressions of pain carved onto his face. It is our country’s future, cognitively deficient due to nutritional deprivation. It is disgusting. It is uncomfortable. We, who consider ourselves the developed, the educated, cannot stand the reality of such lack. Something has to be done about it. That is why we build walls to hide the urban poor’s existence, and we call the police to send the transient beggars to jail. There. Now the metro is pretty again. This doesn’t do our educated status justice. Aesthetics is the norm. It was never the solution.

If aesthetics is the norm, then poverty is the disease. Maybe it’s time to realize that in our society, at least for 26 million of our countrymen, poverty is the norm, and our extravagance is the disease. Substantial steps must be taken to address this issue.

I was privileged to witness a landmark event in world history. In the year 2000, I along with a friend from my high school, and a few friends from my days as a student volunteer in Malate Church were in Remedios Circle in Manila for the Philippine launch of the Millennium Development Goals of The U.N. The two of us from my high school were only 12 then, and the other people with us were in their teens. Inspired by the wonderful display of hope and passion to eradicate world poverty, we promised each other to continue working for the good of our fellowman. We were determined, that with the U.N.’s guidance, and the determination in our hearts, the world would be rid of poverty by 2015, and we would be part of this great effort. Halfway through the program, it seems even the U.N. has lost hope. 7 years after our promise of service, I and my friend are in College; hopeless of our cause, on the brink of despair. We used to think our idealism could change the world. Now our greatest challenge is changing our social class’ minds. Our friends from Malate who had lived in the nearby squatter area had since been evicted. Of the five of them, only one had finished college. This is the reality of apathy and poverty. We fail to care, and the world sinks lower.

Ateneans: Public Schools Need You for a DAY.

The Ateneo Center for Educational Development need volunteers to help sort donated goods.

There are two container vans worth of goods, all donated by the people of Guam. We need volunteer workers to help us sort the goods into basic categories. It will take only a few hours, if not an hour of your time. You can volunteer by emailing me, or by emailing aced.admu@yahoo.com Sorting goes on from Dec. 1 to Dec. 20 There's also a gift pack packing (ano?) activity from the last week of November, to Dec. 11. This is for the Advent Recollection for public school teachers on Dec. 13. Oh, and ACED Volunteers get to sign up as OICs for the packing... ask ate Mai or anyone of us officers for details >.<

I'll post again in a week or so to remind you people.

First Post

Testing. Halo ACED volunteers!!! Please create your blog accounts immediately so I can all link you to this blog. Does anyone know how to make multiple writers for one blog? And that cross-functionality between Blogger and Multiply? We need techie people, 3 writers, 3 photo people! So don't hesitate to joint this blog project okay?!

Oh, and sorry for the delay.

- Eric (The Chief is not me. Well, I'm the chief for now) It's the account name I made for the next moderator of this blog. Any candidate?