The Gawad Kalinga Project: Re-creating the Subject of Poverty

Nel Coloma-Moya

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•+• Canada Abstract

Gawad Kalinga is a project developed by a faith-based organization whose aim is to help the poor in the Philippines. This research project examines the relationship between the middle-class administrators of the Gawad Kalinga village and the poor beneficiaries for whom the housing project has been constructed. Agency, compliance and resistance are exhibited by the poor as they are transformed through class processes and moral injunction in their attempt to take part in the village. Transformative processes are presented as discourses of the poor and the middle-class administrators as they attempt to re-define themselves through narration.

IV Acknowledgement

First, I would like to thank the organization Challenges of the Agrarian Transition in Southeast Asia (ChATSEA), and David Wurfel for the financial awards that made this research project possible.

There are many people to thank in relation to my research project. I am grateful to the Couples for Christ membership involved in Gawad Kalinga who helped me in many ways by making my research process efficient, productive and enjoyable. I must mention a few people especially Ricky Cuenca, Manette and Raymond Acero, and all the others, officers, chapter heads and administrators who I met during my fieldwork.

My two supervisors Dr. Philip Kelly and Dr. Elizabeth Lunstrum deserve a heartfelt thanks for patiently putting up with my creative process, of "fits and starts" that eventually culminated in this thesis. Thank you also to Steve Flusty who provided advice regarding Catholic historical influences. I would also like to thank my research team, Matthew Moya and Mariel Ranees, who patiently stood by and listened gathering data and analyzing events with me late into the night during our fieldwork.

The two people Vanna Schiralli and James Shaugnessy were the two professionals who provided both moral support and emotional support during the difficulties of continuing higher education. Yvonne Yim, friend and supporter deserves mention as the person who knew exactly what needed to be done and by what deadline.

Lastly I would like to thank my family Emmanuel, Matthew, Nicolas and Samantha for letting me disrupt their lives in order to get on with mine. Thank you all.

v Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction The Research Project: Gawad Kalinga 1 A Narrative 4 The "Village" as Metaphorical Space 6 The Organization of the Thesis 11

Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework Introduction 15 Agency and Resistance 15 Discursive Formations 21 Constructing Subjectivities/Identities 28 Conclusion 38

Chapter Three: Methodology Introduction 39 A Feminist Orientation 39 The First Phase: Pre-fieldwork 42 The Second Phase: Fieldwork 50 The Third Phase: Post-fieldwork 57 Specificity and Distance 59 Conclusion 66

Chapter Four: Christianity, the Capitalist Class and the Charismatic Movement in the Philippines Introduction 69 The Historical Context 70 The Capitalist Class 79 The Charismatic Movement in the Philippines 86 Conclusion 89

Chapter Five: The Discourse of the Poor Introduction 91 Development Discourse 93 Religious Discourse of the Poor 104 The Filipino Spirit is Rising 109 A Discourse Analysis 114 Description of Text 115 Conclusion 122

VI Chapter Six: Mobile Class Subjects- The tale of Two GK Villages Introduction 124 Classed Identities: Who is Middle-Class? 125 Profiles of the Villagers 132 The GK Build: a space of engagement 133 Entering into a Middle-Class Space 134 Livelihood Projects in the GK village 139 Being Property-less as being vulnerable 143 Conclusion 156

Chapter Seven: Patriarchy and Moral Conduct in the Gawad Kalinga Village Introduction 160 Patriarchy and the Evangelizing Mission 161 Agency and Resistance: The Immoral Subject 173 Agency and Compliance: The Moral Subject 179 Conclusion 188

Chapter Eight: Conclusion Gawad Kalinga: A Testament of Faith 190

Primary Text 200 References 200

vii Chapter ^Introduction

The Research Project: Gawad Kalinga

The focus of this study is on a faith-based project called Gawad Kalinga (also known as

GK), which, like other development projects, attempts to ameliorate poverty and material want among the Filipino poor. The study completed research on two GK sites in

Camarines Sur and Quezon provinces where poverty rates are high. The study has tried to understand how rural poverty is constituted, managed and addressed within a moral evangelical framework by a local, faith-based, non-profit organization with strong ties to the Catholic Church. The thesis explores discursive production as a process of self- creation by the subjects who participated in the GK project, both as administrators and as beneficiaries of the housing project.

Gawad Kalinga, a project of Couples for Christ (CFC), began as a youth intervention program in Bagong Silang, Caloocan City, Metro Manila in 1993. The rehabilitation of youth gang members was successful only up to the point where they remained within a youth camp run by the CFC members. The youth were unable to sustain the changes once they returned home. Consequently, the concept of a housing project with the continuous

1 support of the CFC membership within the community was developed. The housing project was funded by ANCOP Foundation (USA) Inc. a non-profit organization based in

California. The acronym stands for "Answering the Cry of the Poor." The initial project in Bagong Silang created 2,000 homes in 18 villages from US funding through Couples for Christ chapters and the volunteer work of locally based Filipinos. In 2003, "Gawad

Kalinga 111" was launched with the ambitious goal of building 700,000 homes in 7,000 villages in 7 years. Within four years GK was able to build 22,000 homes in 1,400 villages.

The ideal GK village presents a possibility for the subject of poverty to be redeemed. The focus of the discourse is the same 'poor' Filipino who, as a product of failed development projects may still have 'hope' instilled by faith in the religious programming and the support of the Catholic church and the evangelizing social structure of the Couples for

Christ organization. The thrust of the organization is a governmentalizing mission to remake the subject of poverty into a law-abiding, respectable and productive subject. The initial aim of this research study was to uncover the practices of governmentality by

Gawad Kalinga at the local village level which transforms the subject of poverty into an idealized model of respectability. However, the outcome of the project has become a

2 more interesting exploration of the subjects as they narrate and self-create their path to growth as a requirement of their acceptance into the housing project. What mechanisms have been implemented by GK to ensure moral compliance with established codes of behavior? What seems particularly interesting is how much impact a 'new house' in a well-organized village with amenities and livelihood projects can have on the poor?

What processes of transformation take place as the subject of poverty learns the codes of conduct required to participate and stay in the program?

This thesis explores two fundamental dimensions of the discursive construction of the subject, as a classed subject re-making itself, and as a moral subject discursively produced within the moral guidelines of the Gawad Kalinga project. The benefit of being given a house through the fundraising efforts of a faith-based organization presents the subject of poverty with the opportunity to decide how to fit in to the requirements of the program. I contend that various subjects, both administrators and beneficiaries alike, within the GK project narrate and self-create a subjectivity that through discourse receives purchase within the project. The administrators construct their subjectivity that becomes defined through their work within the GK village, as they interact and understand themselves in relation to the poor. The poor narrate and construct their

3 subjectivities accordingly with the understanding that only certain types of conduct and

class positioning are accepted for the housing project, as it is a program managed by a

faith-based organization.

The discursive production of the subject of poverty by the faith-based organization is

explored through discourse analysis. Empirical data obtained during fieldwork in two GK

villages will be used to explicate the findings that religious discourse shapes the

discursive self-presentation of GK beneficiaries in accordance to the aim of the project

but more importantly, that self-making is not limited to the moralistic rules governing the

GK project. The constraint of moralistic religious discourse within organizational and

systemic processes, class and gender, nevertheless is structured so fissures and cracks

allow for a discursive process that preserves some agency in self-production.

A Narrative

The tour through Quezon province to visit a number of Gawad Kalinga villages would prove to be exciting and exhausting. The opportunity to join the ANCOP Canada president on his bi-annual tour of Canadian GK village sites was a coup in itself The

4 privilege was in becoming an insider within a tightly-knit faith community whose objective for the tour was to make assessments and recommendations of the current status of various projects.

At each village, we would emerge from the van, with rumpled clothing and unsteady legs to be greeted by the village community like long-lost relatives. The warmth and welcome we received was sincere, heartfelt, speeches often accompanied by tearful voices thanking us and eager hands reaching out to clasp our own.

The president was the guest of honor and was treated accordingly, listening to complaints, complimenting good work that was done, observing for difficulties and irregularities. The analysis would come later on while sitting in the van discussing the difficulties and the promises of each site. His Manila assistant was ready to take notes. I was scribbling madly myself...

5 The "Village" as Metaphorical Space

Gawad Kalinga villages are constructed according to a model somewhat rigorously adhered to by the project coordinators. Depending on the expertise of the GK administrators, some villages may incorporate new designs to deal with structural problems that emerge during construction. For example, in one of the villages, the kitchen was built outside of the dwelling itself to accommodate problems with smoke in the house while cooking meals. Some beneficiaries built lean-tos, resembling their squatter dwellings of the past as an enclosure for the kitchen, now located at the back of the house. This particular adaptation to the original design was not well-received by the visiting tour from Canada, noticing immediately the make-shift resemblance to squatter dwellings. Not all administrators have the same level of expertise in construction consequently though a general design plan is followed the villages that are well-executed are the products of expert engineers, builders and developers.

The use of the word village to describe the housing project is problematic in that the idea of 'village' well-entrenched in popular imagination often conveys rudimentary, rural huts clustered around a common public space. The Gawad Kalinga village, designed like a

6 miniature housing subdivision is made up of rows of brightly colored houses constructed of hollow blocks, complete with wooden doors, glassed in windows and galvanized steel roofs. The contrast to the make-shift shacks that the squatters previously lived in would be immense. The value of a strong, well-built shelter, presided over by benevolent administrators who can be relied upon for moral guidance as well as help in seeking employment is difficult to measure. Overall, the relationship between the GK administrators and the beneficiaries is respectful.

Life in a GK village is not much different from the rest of the Philippines. Families rise early so children dressed in school uniforms make the long trek to public schools outside the village. The children too young to go to school are taught in a GK pre-school program, some dressed in uniforms and shoes while others are in tattered clothing and flip flops. Fathers and some mothers walk to, catch tricycles or jeepneys to their places of work. Others walk to the fields nearby to farm the land, often as tenants, sometimes as owners. Mothers go about their daily chores, washing clothes in deep soapy pans near the communal water pump or just outside their doors. Younger children run around or hang about close to their mothers. Village life is not much different from other towns in the

7 Philippines perhaps because order and comportment have already been established within the GK villages that we had visited.

What is interesting to geographers is the idea of space and what it might come to mean.

In this thesis, the village becomes a metaphorical space that comes to represent the space of interaction. In the GK village middle class administrators and lower class poor along with the occasional tourists from abroad collide. In a "GK Build," volunteers from different social classes and donors, both local residents and travelers from abroad come together in community to help build, materially and symbolically, the houses that make up the village itself.

Similar to how McClintock (1995) theorized the urban space of London during Victorian times, I have theorized the GK village as a locus of interaction for the mobile subjects who inhabit and those who manage the village space. McClintock envisaged the bustling city streets of London as a space of encounter where upper class, middle class and lower class meet, recognizing or misrecognizing themselves and coming to know the colonial

"other." The GK village has the same characteristics in that people who otherwise would

8 not meet have the opportunity to know each other and from this learn something about themselves.

The GK village serves another purpose as metaphorical space. The village represents both the material effects and the symbolic representation of the Couples for Christ mission of evangelization. In this space there is the opportunity and the challenge to understand discursive processes and their material manifestations. The GK village presents a space where the material and symbolic reside.

The problematic of this research has been to de-construct the governmentalizing process embedded within the project. As the thesis worked itself out I came to understand the importance of discourse, including my own discursive production and my relationship to the GK project. My relationship with the GK administrators was complex with my positionality deeply complicit within the governing structure of the project due to the regard afforded me by their leadership. I was perceived by the GK administrators and beneficiaries alike as having the power to influence the organization, whether or not I actually did seemed irrelevant at the time of my fieldwork. I was treated with respect due to the endorsement of Ricky Cuenca. I took that responsibility quite seriously and in my

9 desire to give back, produced a report of the tours that he had kindly allowed me to join.

The report was ethnographic in detail and critical presenting recommendations to the organization that would have benefited them had they chosen to implement any or all of it. It may not have received the interest that I would have wished providing the organization with more negative details than they would have wanted to hear, nevertheless, the report would have been useful in ascertaining the conditions that existed for some of the projects that we visited. The opportunity to present my findings and theorize in the exploratory format of narrative, theoretical analysis and feminist methodology became overwhelmingly important. I understand that the thesis has developed in the way that it did because of the experiences I had during my fieldwork. I myself became transformed during this process. Part of this transformation resulted from the personal experiences of seeing poverty for the first time quite extensively. The urban setting was overwhelmingly saturated with the lives of the squatters, a reality that the government from several decades ago with Imelda Marcos has tried to hide from view during state visits from various dignitaries. The campaign that I saw during the summer of last year razed the squatter dwellings sitting on public property like by the roads and the railroad tracks. But even as you moved outside of metro Manila, the level of poverty evidenced by squatter dwellings is enormous. By the pier in Lucena, Quezon province,

10 the squatters had overrun the sides of the roads and alleyways with the vision of humanity, thousands of people in a very small place encroaching on the roadway and preventing the safe passage of vehicles for fear of running people over is incomprehensible unless one has seen it. Subsequently, my reluctance to make it difficult for Gawad Kalinga to continue with their work is understandable. I feel that their work is more important than any product of knowledge that I could compellingly produce with regard to poverty that I would prefer to ensure the future of the project by approaching my research in this way.

The Organization of the Thesis

This chapter has provided the introduction to the research project. It includes a brief narrative and an analysis of the term village as a metaphorical space. The short narrative of our tour through a number of villages is a preview of how the rest of the thesis has been constructed.

The second chapter embarks on an extensive discussion of the theoretical framework which presents the themes of discourse, narrative and agency. This chapter also develops

11 the concept of mobile classed subjects as a preliminary discussion for the empirical

chapter on class processes. Moral conduct and patriarchy are key themes that are

explored towards the end of the chapter.

Chapter three presents the methodological framing of the thesis with emphasis on post-

structural feminism. It is important to note the concepts discussed during the latter section

of the chapter such as specificity and distance and oppositional consciousness. The

fieldwork process is presented in three sections as pre-fieldwork, fieldwork and post-

fieldwork phases. The discussion centers on the multiple processes that occur during the

research undertaking.

In chapter four, a historical framing of the Philippines is presented with a discussion of pre-colonial and colonial periods and a focus on the effects of Spanish colonization followed by the Americanization of the Philippines. The development of the Capitalist

Class is discussed in this chapter. The recent evangelization of the Philippines through the Christian charismatic renewal movement along with a brief historical sketch of the

Couples for Christ organization is discussed in the last section of the chapter.

12 Chapter five develops the themes of discursive formations regarding the subject of poverty. Mainstream discourses of development and the construction of the poor are discussed at the beginning of the chapter. The next section presents religious discourse and its treatment of the subject of poverty. The chapter concludes with a discourse analysis of the speech given by Tony Meloto one of the most important developers of the

Gawad Kalinga project.

Chapter six develops the theme of mobile classed subjects as interview participants narrate and self-create the subject of poverty as it best fits into the GK project. The space of interaction between the administrators, precariously located on the bottom rungs of the middle class, and the poor subjects, cautiously trying to find their way to the classed subjectivities of the poor, become enmeshed in a process of self-discovery and transformation.

Chapter seven outlines the moral positions of the subjectivities of the poor. The themes of choice, agency and resistance are presented by the interview participants through their discursive production or their experiences within the GK moralizing framework. Two transformative processes are discussed: the first contends with resistance within the

13 moralizing framework, featuring a story concerning a couple who cannot marry within the Catholic Church. The second contends with the compliance and transformation of a moral subject, who was previously "immoral", as he lives within the GK moralizing framework. Each empirical example presents the subject of poverty as exhibiting agency within the discursive production of self-creation and the narrative of self. Patriarchy and evangelization are key themes that are discussed with examples in the chapter.

In chapter eight, the conclusion briefly discusses the overall themes of the thesis outlining the important concepts of discursive production, agency and resistance.

14 Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

Introduction

This chapter seeks to justify and explain various theories that are used within the thesis.

Foucauldian theorizing is important to this thesis and therefore the section on discursive

formation, subjectivities and identities is key to understanding the concepts of agency and

resistance in relation to narration and self-creation. Class processes are explored by

theorizing status groups and credit as processes that present within the GK context.

Agency and Resistance

I am somewhat averse to any categorizing of any sort but in the instance of this thesis I

would mostly agree with poststructuralist feminists. I acknowledge my own situatedness

within a particular discourse and history and therefore admit my complicity in the

production of this narrative. Mostly, my claim in this thesis is to inflect this narrative with a broader notion of agency and acknowledge the "will to live" inherent in all beings.

The contingent nature of existence as historically specific, locally determined and

15 materially produced for individuals needs to be approached as emergent and shifting, there is no unitary or cohesive explanation for one's life. What most people claim and for which they should have the right to, like feminists who have fought for self-definition and self-determination, is agency. In the production of self-knowledge and self-creation the opportunity arises to exercise agency. There is no one way of determining self. There exist multiple claims and ways of expressing that understanding of self. My understanding of poststructuralist feminism allows for that opportunity to create one's own epistemology allowing for movement and change.

A poststructuralist feminist epistemology accepts that

knowledge is always provisional, open-ended and

relational. Our treks through language and master-

narratives on the way to this kind of knowing are located in

historical and cultural context. This contextual character of

all knowledge and knowing suggests that there can be no

finite and unitary truths. So, for instance, while we might

claim that male rule oppresses women in a near seamless

historical and global patriarchal regime, the specificity of

16 women's oppression as it intersects with class, color,

nationality, history and culture implies that one theory, one

method of analysis, or one concept of the subject cannot

un-problematically be applied to all women in all contexts

(Luke and Gore,1992:7).

Drawing mainly on Foucault, I theorize within the constraints of class and gender and explore research subjects in the act of self-creating through discourse. The self- knowledge that emerges from the subject provides the groundwork for an understanding of how discursive regimes constrain and limit the individual. The convergence of knowledge, power and subject is most acutely presented in this research project. What exists in this local and historically specific site are subjects for whom discourse is both constraining and productive. The outcome of an orderly and productive life is both an effect of control and discipline. The subjugated individual has submitted to such domination in order to attain a desired object, in this case a house in the GK village. The self-presentation or self-construction obtained through interviews is the narrative of self and the product of discourse.

17 What I have tried to do is to explore subjectivity within the constraint of class, in chapter six and gender, in chapter seven; the two processes of domination interpellate, like leaves in a book layered one upon the other creating multiple levels of rule, for both men and women in the Gawad Kalinga village. I have sought out the understanding of the subject, their own self-construction and explanation of the transformative processes clearly embedded in the disciplinary practice of the GK evangelizing mission. My claim is the importance of self-narration, self-creation where subjects can "make sense" of their experience within existing limitations and constraints. I understand growth to be part of the process of resolving or not resolving but at least engaging in the difficulties of self- production. I follow Judith Butler's theorizing more closely where she draws on Foucault to explicate the relationship of power between subject and regimes of truth. Where regimes of truth offer up the terms of self-recognition, it is the normalizing process structured by regimes of truth that allows for this recognition to take place. "The regime of truth decides in advance what form recognition can take, but it does not constrain this form fully" (Davies, 2008 ;29).

A place of rupture and the possibility of agency exist within any constraining structure and as I understand it to be, the occasion where such ruptures exist is within self-

18 narration. The opportunity to discursively present one's self, to create and express change or difference or non-compliance is within the very mechanism of language itself. Butler's theorizing allows for just such an opportunity to 'become' even within the constraining structure of class or gender; to present one's self in one's own words within a previously existing history and locality and accept a 'becoming' at that point in time. Self-making is contingent upon the circumstance, the situation when subjects are called upon to present who they understand themselves to be, what they recognize themselves to have become.

The norms by which I recognize another or, indeed, myself,

are not mine alone; they function to the extent that they are

social, exceeding every dyadic exchange that they

condition. Their sociality however, can be understood

neither as a structuralist totality nor as a transcendental or

quasi-transcendental invariability. Although some would

argue that norms must already be in place for recognition to

become possible, and there is doubtless truth to such a

claim, it is also true that new norms are brought into being

when unanticipated forms of recognition take place

19 (Davies, 2008 ;31).

Ultimately, embedded within a system where constraint is made manifest by governmentalizing processes that are inherent in organizations and everyday practices, self-narration provides an opportunity to choose acceptance or denial of whatever rule exists within one's life, in the re-telling and re-making of one's own history. How the subject is produced in the broader discursive regime of development and religion will be explored in the rest of the thesis. An understanding of how "the poor" are discursively produced for different purposes by the various discursive power regimes will be useful in understanding the limitations of the possibilities of agency. So, where agency is vastly important and possible in the re-telling of personal subjectivity, the subjectivization of people is better understood through the discursive regimes that function in places of power, an endeavour that I will not be dealing directly with in this thesis.

The next section looks at Foucauldian notions of discourse and discursive formations with an emphasis on knowledge and power. The development of governmentalizing processes during the mid-nineteenth century is discussed with the example of popular education and the discourse on Poor Relief introduced in the Victorian era. The linkage

20 between class processes and identity formation is made in this chapter to be further explored in chapter six.

Discursive Formations

Discursive formations as outlined by Foucault consists of four basic elements: the first consists of the object or objects that make up the discourse; the second element, consists of the authority and cognitive status conferred on those uttering the discourse; the third, relates to the concepts that emerge from the formulation of the discourse; and the fourth are the themes or theoretical viewpoints that are developed from the discourse (Gutting,

1989; 222). Gutting, in Michel Foucault's Archeology of Scientific Reason, explains it thus:

Foucault does not regard a discursive formation as

distinguished by any unity (of e.g., objects, concepts,

method) provided by its elements. Rather a discursive

formation is a "system of dispersion" for its elements: it

defines a field within which a variety of different, even

21 conflicting, sets of elements can be deployed (Gutting,

1989; 232).

Foucault presents the idea that discursive formations are deployed independently whilst in relation to each other within a specific historical social field. Discursive formations as objects that emerge from a social field come into effect through the authority or the "right of certain people to use a given mode of speech" (Gutting, 1989; 235). The concepts that develop inform and link with the policies or interventions that are planned, developed and instituted. Eventually, they comprise a theoretical framework or theme that outlines the rules of thought regarding the object of discourse.

Knowledge and power are linked within this conception of discursive formations since the deployment of discourse within a social field is controlled and limited by those authorized to produce knowledge. The production of knowledge is not limited to the proliferation of a discursive regime but more importantly becomes part of a system of practices or in Foucault's words, "a regime of practices" where "what is said and what is done, rules imposed and reasons given, the planned and the taken for granted meet and interconnect" (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991; 75). To analyze "regimes of practice"

22 means to analyze "programmes of conduct which have both prescriptive effects regarding what is to be done (effects of 'juridiction') and codifying effects, regarding what is to be known (effects of 'veridiction')" (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991; 75). For Foucault, what is interesting and worth studying is the 'interplay' between the 'code' (the code of conducts) which sets the rules of doing things and the "production of true discourses which serve to found, justify and provide reasons and principles for those ways of doing things" (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991;79).

In Foucault's The Birth of the Clinic, a discourse of the poor comes into play as the new definition of a clinic and the intensified medical gaze of the doctor intersect with the state burden of medical care. The French government of that time period, the 1800s, distributed a series of circulars presenting moral and economic criticisms regarding hospitalization including comments on the "increased cost of an illness treated in a hospital, the lazy habits it induces, the financial distress and moral penury of a family deprived of a father and mother" (Foucault, 1989; 99). The proposal was for a return to home treatment. But poverty had become widespread with over 60,000 poor people in

Paris at that time, with the numbers steadily increasing.

23 A structure had to be found, for the preservation of both

the hospitals and the privileges of medicine, that was

compatible with the principles of liberation and the need

for social protection- the latter understood somewhat

ambiguously as the protection of the poor by the rich and

the protection of the rich against the poor (Foucault,

1989;100).

The discourse of poverty was proliferating and becoming commonplace. In London, the

1880s and 1890s produced a number of threats to the social order in the form of strikes by dockers, mass demonstrations and anarchist attacks against the government, women marching the streets of London demanding education reform, suffrage and work opportunities. Trade union membership grew as an Independent Labour Party came into being. The ruling class, anxious about popular resistance, increased and tightened the policing of militant working class districts (McClintock, 1995; 119). The urban crowd comprising of the poor, the unemployed, the criminal set, women, particularly prostitutes and alcoholics, orphaned children and the "primitives," the colonized who had found

24 their way to the metropole, became the symbol and the embodiment of deviant agency, a

force to be controlled and subdued.

It was in these urban spaces that the middle and upper class were confronted with

difference, the lower class, the poor. It was here in this space of interaction that the

middle class understood what they were not and indeed, what they wanted to be. The

production of identity and difference occurred in confrontation with the Other, the

degenerate other, the poor. Strategies started to come into play to control the unruly lot of

poor people. Similarly, the Gawad Kalinga project presented a space where the middle

class and the lower class encountered each other as benefactor and as beneficiary.

Strategies were already in place that could orchestrate a number of effects from the

donation of large amounts of money and land for the development of villages and homes

for the poor to the discursive framework from which moral conduct could be derived.

The specificity of location and time seemingly limiting to the theorizing of discursive formations is instead transported through the conceptualization of theorists like

McClintock who recognize the importance of the convergence of class dynamics, capital flows and moral discourse in the historical past. The conceptual tools provided by the theorizing of the Victorian middle class provides an understanding of how classed

25 subjects become defined and in the instance of the empirical interviews, how subjects define themselves.

A discourse of social control began in the early nineteenth century with popular education, specifically monitorial schools meant to address the need for education of the broader public. Popular education was instituted "as a means of securing public morality and preventing crime, as a means for forming a population with useful habits through the instrument of good principles in order to secure a moral foundation for governmental and religious authority" (Jones and Williamson, 1979;60). The biopolitics of the population required a strategy that would address the need to help the poor in times of extreme hardship with the reduction in the expense of Poor Relief, subvert criminality among the youth and inculcate moral authority and discipline of conduct so as to increase the productivity of the populace. Similar to the initial project of the Couples for Christ in

Bagong Silang, Metro Manila, the presence of a criminal younger set needing moral instruction and control were the reasons that started the project of Gawad Kalinga.

The discourse of the time also contained within it the developing identities that would delineate the different classes, from the profligate upper class, to the productive and

26 prosperous middle class and the poor, degenerate lower class. Add to this confusion, the movement of people from the rural to urban settings in search of work, and even from the metropole to the colonies in search of fortune and adventure as part of England's imperial project of nation building. According to Stoler, nationalist discourses gave way to exclusionary politics discernable through the binaries of bourgeois/ proletariat, colonizer/ colonized and middle/ lower class. Identity markers were buried in cultural competencies discerned by sexual choices and marriage opportunities, psychological dispositions and refined habits. "This, in turn defined the hidden fault lines - both fixed and fluid - along which gendered assessments of class and racial membership were drawn. Within the lexicon of bourgeois civility, self-control, self-discipline and self-determination were defining features of the bourgeois selves in the colonies" (Stoler, 2000; 8). Whether in the colonies or the metropole, my contention is that the middle class was constantly creating itself against its assumptions and notions of the lower class. This same mechanism of defining oneself in relation to an Other exists in the interaction between classed subjects in the Gawad Kalinga village. I assert therefore, that discursive formations have constancy in spite of the movement of time and space within different historical and social spaces.

27 As this thesis unfolds, what will become surprising is the repetition of tropes, images, descriptions of the poor in contrast to the middle class, the wealthy. The middle class has been creating its identity since the Victorian era and in this self-creation comes the recognition of what they are not or no longer wish to be. In this recognition, the poor move into being discursively produced whether in development discourse or religious discourse to perform the function of symbolizing the Other in class dynamics, in the same way that woman takes the place of the Other in gendered dynamics.

Constructing Subj ectivities/Identities

Subjectivities, as opposed to identities, are produced within particular discursive processes, what I consider discursive frameworks. The production of subjects is a concept that has marked relevance for the Gawad Kalinga project. It is my contention that individuals who take part in the GK project manifest transformations which occur through their relationships with each other and their exposure to the discourse proscribed by the faith organization, Couples for Christ. Therefore, it is important to understand how the concept of subjectivities and subjectivization occur in both the middle-class and the poor within the GK village.

28 The new conception of the subject involves two

separate aspects. The first aspect is the status of the

subject, as subjugated by or dependent on another or

others. The second aspect is the experience of

subjectivity, not in the sense of sheer sentience, but in

the sense of being defined as an intentional being by

one's self-knowledge, by one's awareness of or image

of who and what one is (C.G. Prado, 1995:53).

This awareness of self is expressed discursively in the individuals' explanation and rationalizations of life choices and actions. As agents, the subject moves within the limits or constraints of a stratified social order already predicated on the life chances of their parents a generation before. Bourdieu elaborates on the concept of habitus to explain the cultural limits imposed by economic, educational and social constraints.

I contend that habitus is not as decisively determined as it used to be. Capital accumulation has been beset by the figure of credit whereby the need for accumulated

29 capital is deferred until such a time as it has been earned yet through credit, the ability to purchase goods and accumulate material symbols of wealth is accelerated. Therefore lifestyle and consumption patterns have more flexibility. The lower class can more easily emulate the lifestyle choices of the middle class through the availability of credit; the implication towards the possibilities of class mobility is immense. For example, if education can be had through credit and the habitus as learned and prescribed by middle- class institutions can be more broadly disseminated, then the lower-class can more easily move upward with the ability to pay later after the lifestyle and consumption patterns have been attained and internalized. The idea that credit is a mechanism that creates this opportunity for those not in the middle-class is interesting for my project. Class, as a fixed category may have certain criteria of belonging that is most easily accounted for by accumulated capital. As it is converted into social capital, cultural capital or educational capital, credit allows for this hard capital to be veiled, to be less important and to have the flexibility of being accumulated over longer periods of time without limiting the subject or constraining the subject from the outset.

To understand credit in this way means being able to see how the symbol of credit has implications for the Gawad Kalinga process. The house, as material benefit is obtained

30 through a credit process as "sweat equity"(sweat equity in business implies the exchange of labour for actual monetary value, as in an investor's capitalization of a venture).Each beneficiary is required to invest in the building of the village and their own home, as well as the expected values formation and transformation, in exchange for entry and permanent residency in the village. More importantly, credit is the mechanism that allows for this exchange to occur without the actual exchange of money. So the beneficiary is given a home, not just as a handout, unlike government housing programs in the past that had failed, because the investment required also includes the investment of "self, the subject reconstructed, re-made to fit into the discursive framework of a GK village and therefore having been given the flexibility of time and effort to become "middle-class."

Todd May uses practice theory to elaborate the production of subjects through practice.

"Practices are what people live. They determine who we are not by imposing a set of conducts from above but through historically given norms through which we think and act" (2006:18). There is a propensity to impose the limits of this constraint as if individuals do not or would not actively choose to be subjectivized in any way. A strong

Foucauldian tendency to recognize that as subjects within particular local, cultural and historical contexts, individuals often find themselves in deforming and debilitating,

31 limiting and constituting processes that provides only a narrow sense of possibility keeping most individuals in their place (Dirks, Eley, Ortner,1994). I think that there are different motivating factors, aside from hegemony or force, that motivate subjects to acquiesce to constraining processes depending on particular needs, desires and fears tied to particular local and historical contexts. A narrow sense of self is mediated within the larger context of community or group belonging. Weber's concept of status groups and stratification provides the best explanatory device in understanding how this process occurs.

In the context of discursive formations relating to the GK project explicated in the previous section as middle-class identity formation and differentiation from other classes, class concepts can also be understood by using Weber's theory of status groups and stratification.

Man does not strive for power only in order to enrich

himself economically. Power including economic

power, may be valued 'for it's own sake.' Very

32 frequently, the striving for power is also conditioned by

the social 'honor' it entails (Weber, 2005: 147).

Weber has tried to disentangle the motivations that people may have to amass wealth, power and prestige. He used both the American society and the German society of the late 1800s and early 1900s to illustrate his point. Class, he defined as a group of people that is found in the same class situation with class situation being further elaborated on as

"the typical chance for a supply of goods, external living conditions, and personal life experiences, in so far as this chance is determined by the amount and kind of power, or lack of such, to dispose of goods or skills for the sake of income in a given economic order" (Joseph, 2005:166). The distinction Weber clearly makes between class and status groups is important to understand for this project. Although I have used class to introduce the topic, I would like to point out that at similar junctures, status groups may have more relevance for what I am trying to understand in the project.

A status group appears when persons share a lifestyle,

consumption patterns, common conventions, specific

notions of honor and conceivably, economic and

33 particular status monopolies. Stratification by status

always implies monopolization by some groups of

"ideal material goods or opportunities" as well as, to the

same extent, social distance and exclusiveness (Weber,

2005: 147).

I identify two particular classes in this thesis, the middle-class and the lower-class also understood to be "the poor." Although the two classes are not caught up in a conflict situation, in fact it would be considered as more of a co-operative, collaborative relationship that they take part in, nevertheless, two groups collide within a discursive framework. What I consider to be at play in the GK villages is a space where communities are being built, not just materially but discursively as well.

Weber identifies status groups as "amorphous communities" from which emerge

"positive or negative estimations of honor. This honor may be connected with any quality shared by a plurality and, of course, it can be knit to a class situation: class distinctions are linked in the most varied way with status distinctions" (Joseph, 2005:170). What

Weber understood was the entanglement between wealth, power and prestige given

34 expression through status distinctions. Within the research context of the Gawad Kalinga village, traditional Marxist views about class are not relevant although they are embedded in the social relations between the two groups. The field of encounter has sophistication and complexity where conflict is not the outcome but what I would consider to be the result instead is the normalization of the subject. The middle class have the power to effect material benefits such as a housing projetct by virtue of their economic capital, social capital and educational capital. They have the money, connections to money and know people of influence, and they have the expertise to build a village from the ground up with very little help from the government. However, the middle-class, the propertied in this instance, are not operating in a typically exploitative manner with the lower-class, or "the poor." As well, the "poor" are no longer property less, even as the property that they are awarded, small as it is, inhabits a fluctuating space where the control and power over the property does not necessarily belong to them. For instance, poor conduct or transgression of the rules laid down by the organization may result in expulsion from the village. In Foucauldian terms, the space of encounter produces the subjectivization of the

"poor" through the governmentalizing effect of discourse hence, my interest in discursive formations and the transformative effects on the poor.

35 The middle class discourse of the GK organization has both material effects and transformative effects. The production of organized, well-constructed villages providing housing for the poor, the preparatory educational programs for their children and the values formation and maintenance of religious doctrine presents in this combination in the GK village. Constraints to a discourse are identified by Foucault to be 1) the limit of its powers, 2) the control of its appearance, and 3) the selection of its speaking subjects

(Foucault, 1993:451). Discourse as outlined by Foucault encompasses different forms within the social field. Such discourses are circulated and are disseminated through various means in texts. Once constituted as discourse, the implementation of discourse becomes practice wherein its transformative effects are made manifest. Todd May, in The

Philosophy of Foucault, presents Foucauldian notions of subjectivization into the arena of practice, whereby everyday activities constitute practice which produces the subject.

Practices are what people live. They determine who we

are not by imposing a set of constraints from above, but

through historically given norms through which we

think and act. These historically given norms are, once

again, neither divorceable from nor reducible to what

36 people often consider their larger historical context...It

is a practice or a group of practices that interact with

other practices, both economic and non-economic, and

that share or borrow or cross-fertilize or reinforce

important themes, all in complex ways (May, 2006:18).

Such normative constraints are derived from cultural processes generally found in educational institutions and religious institutions. In the Philippine context, education and religion are intimately connected where religious orders were and continue to be in control of parts of educational systems. More acute is the perception that religion is deeply embedded in the GK organization as it strives to define and disseminate a particular classed subject within a specific religious discourse. There are different mechanisms that produce classed subjects in the GK village including the agreement that the couple sign that prescribes their mandatory attendance for the values formation workshop as well as attendance at Sunday mass. To begin with, discursive frameworks are the most discernable mechanisms that constrain subjects and their conduct.

Transformative processes are also linked to mechanisms of credit whereby credit is obtained through actual labor, "sweat equity," and the accompanying values

37 transformations entailed in the contractual agreement between the GK organization and the beneficiary. These are the more concrete manifestations of the transformation of the subject; the more intrinsic and internal changes that occur within the "poor Subject" is the feeling of a change in status as the poor villager becomes a homeowner and the ensuing change in class position.

Conclusion

This chapter on the theoretical framework of the thesis attempted to explicate the importance of discursive formations in relation to subject and self-creation. The main point is that within discursive formations, normalization and constraints limit the possibilities for self-creation. However, the possibility for agency exists as it is proposed by Butler within the normalizing process. I contend that it is within the discursive process of self-creation and narration that the opportunity for resistance and change occurs. In this chapter subjectivities and identities were discussed in relation to class processes.

Status groups and habitus are concepts that are explored in relation to the GK context and middle-class identity formation.

38 Chapter 3: Methodology

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the methodological decisions that were made at various stages of the research project. What is important to understand is that the decisions were made to embrace feminist methodology as part of the preparation to do the research as well as have those decisions validated during the research process. The chapter is divided into three sections: the pre-fieldwork phase, the fieldwork phase and the post-fieldwork phase. Feminist concepts of specificity, distance and oppositional consciousness are used as strategies to think through my experiences within the research process. The chapter makes use of narratives from fieldwork notes.

A Feminist Orientation

I spent two months in the Philippines completing my fieldwork after being gone from that from that country for more than twenty years. The Gawad Kalinga project was a small part of what I had to learn regarding my complex relationship with the country of origin I had not been familiar with and a people I was not used to. My experiences were varied,

39 exposing me to relatives I had never met, friends I made within that short period of time and people I had known through other contexts in Canada with whom I had moved into closer relationships. I had trusted many, of whom I knew very little, the only link being our similar interest in the Gawad Kalinga project. I have hoped to write a thesis that captures the contradictions, reversals and conflicts I experienced during my fieldwork. I can best capture this by not presenting an account that seemingly coheres into one or even several themes that depicts an orderly and measured movement to a culmination of a product of knowledge, recognizable in all of its logical maneuvering. I have written in multiple methods the ways that I have experienced the fieldwork sites and the interactions with the people within them in short narratives meant to bring the reader to that same experience. The vignettes, drawn from my journal, are identifiable because of the use of an italicized font. They are differentiated from the analysis that follows. I ground this method of writing in a feminist poststructuralist perspective.

Feminist theory inspired by poststructuralist concepts is breaking new ground in its attempts to combine nuanced readings of specific situations which means its pronouncements regarding generalizations may not always be definitive. According to

Tamsin Lorraine

40 Some of the most exciting work in poststructuralist

feminism at the moment attempts to combine the location

of subjects and local struggles within the broader context of

social fields of political struggle with accounts of lived

experience that attempt to give voice to embodied

differences rendered invisible by dominant norms

(Lorraine,2007;269).

Both Lorraine and Moss (2005) call for new ways of looking at feminist methodology that combines the commitment of feminists to more than the feminism of the past but incorporates new understandings and strategies of the present in anticipation of the future. It takes courage to go beyond normalized expectations and both Lorraine and

Moss call for such courage in order to bring innovation to the research process.

This chapter of my thesis Gawad Kalinga was conceived in just such a manner as analysis interspersed with narrative written at different points in time comprising of three phases: the pre-fieldwork phase, the fieldwork phase itself and the post-fieldwork phase.

41 The first phase outlines the methodology that I became committed to as part of developing the research project prior to the actual fieldwork. It outlines a direction I had anticipated taking but does not address the actual situation that emerged. In this section a narrative is used as a bridge to the second phase which explains how access was eventually obtained into the fieldwork sites. The second phase, the fieldwork itself, is primarily a description of the fieldwork sites, the research methods used and the participants who were recruited for interviews and the data that emerged. The third phase, considered primarily post-fieldwork, explores the dilemmas and the negotiations that slowly emerged as I experienced them after leaving the fieldwork site.

The First Phase: Pre-fieldwork

As a woman married to a man for over twenty-five years in an oppressively patriarchal relationship, worth keeping despite its difficulties, reversals and paradoxes, I remain a feminist. My position shifts between acceptance and resistance to patriarchic relations at different points in time, knowing full well when patriarchy presents itself as a problem. I negotiate my position with feminism on a daily basis in different debates and discussions, and sometimes in conversation within my own head as I try to make sense of my

42 experience. The only effective tool or strategy amidst such chaos is the ability to frame

and reframe my understanding knowing that complexities and oppositions make up this

existence. Hence, my understanding of my lived experience as fragmented, partial,

multiple and paradoxical helps me to frame my epistemology; I am a post-structural

feminist in this particular reading of my life.

Knowing what to ask and how to ask questions that would shape a particular enquiry is

important in the framing of a research project. Feminist geography has addressed these

questions through the concept of reflexivity as it is related to one's position as researcher

(England, 1994; Moss, 1995). In questioning the claim that reflexivity can yield full and

transparent knowledge, Rose (1997) contends that another type of reflexivity performed

as an uncertain piece of interpretive authority should hold the role of feminist researcher

in question, emerging from the partial and uncertain understandings between the

researcher and researched. Knowing that I experience the world as complex, varied,

multiple and contradictory helps me in locating my research in the tradition of feminist

geographers and post-modern and/or poststructuralist feminists who present a complex,

multiple layered ontology that exists for those who experience life in this way. Feminist post-structural theorizing has the capability of moving beyond essentialist paradigms and

43 positionality in order to unsettle power relations embedded in discursive systems of rule

(Strega,2005). By decentering the subject, post-structuralism avoids essentializing paradigms that would make differences problematic (Ramazonoglu, 2002). In focusing on discourse, language and practices, post-structuralism presents a method of analysis that avoids universalizing principles as the only way to create a unified subject. In avoiding a unified subject, the focus is on the discourse, practice or rule that affects all

subjects in a similar way, as normalization and subjectivization.

Feminist methodology promotes ethical research practice that focus on gender issues, power relations and the activism inherent in making women's issues, women's voice and women's rights to equal power, paramount. Having chosen feminist methodology, how have I employed its methods? Three primary elements that interpellate in complex ways in feminist methodology must be addressed: 1) reflexivity and positionality; 2) power relations and 3) ethics. Reflexivity will be most easily accessed through journal writing.

Reflexivity implies a drawing in of the researcher into the research project (England,

1994). It implies that a relationship exists between the researcher and the researched that, even as it is fraught with differential power relations posits awareness, on behalf of the researcher, of the implications and the nuances that make up this relationship. It means

44 that assumptions about this relationship between the two can be questioned implying an openness to the probing of analysis not only focused on the researched but also on the researcher. An internal reflexive mechanism that allows for the questioning of pre-given assumptions dismantles the protective layer and the objective distance that keeps the researcher safe from self-scrutiny. Positionality as it is understood through reflexivity posits an awareness of self-location in relation to the research project and its participants.

But the positionality of researchers although needing to be noticed, questioned, and taken up, ought not to be the purpose of the work, because it may not contribute to political change (Strega, 2005). To go the distance in feminist methodology implies going beyond the self to the broader concept of community through action. The commitment to action is what differentiates feminist methodology from others requiring not only a constant reflexivity but also an ethics of care (Collins, 1991).

The Gawad Kalinga project gave me the opportunity to explore reflexively my discomfort and complicity with patriarchal relations as presented in Church doctrine and its institutional foundation the tradition of marriage and family. The research will allow the exploration of the ambivalence I have towards organizations that provide development aid for the benefit of target populations.

45 Differential power relations are inherent in a research project where the researcher has ownership of the concept, design, execution and knowledge production of a research imperative. As a researcher positioned as indigenous/outsider, class relations emerge even as I strongly identify with Filipinos (Acker, 2000; Carty, 1996; Collins, 1991). Class relations are important to understand in this project as they are the central dimension which undergirds the middle class project to "help the poor." My interest, as an academic from abroad puts me at a privileged level difficult to conceive of from within the viewpoint of a slum or village dweller. Power relations are embedded in this relationship not only during the interview process but also in my productive output when the fieldwork has been completed and the analysis comes into play and produces knowledge which will have implications regarding a deeper understanding of the GK project and the organization called Couples for Christ.

Ethical conduct becomes primary in how the research is approached in developing the relations that will prove useful in promoting access to field sites and participants.

Respect and sensitivity to the differences in experience and power must be conveyed at every point of the interaction in all research activities. "Primary" in this understanding is

46 acknowledgement of the contribution being made by the researched as knowledge of their daily life is shared with the researcher. Ethical considerations will be instrumental in how the representation of the products of knowledge is developed whether in the form of journal articles or book chapters (Patai, 1991). It is also important to ensure that the knowledge produced is shared by the researcher with the participants by making books or articles available to the research participants without them incurring a financial cost. The relationship between the researcher and the researched need not end at the conclusion of the interview; even as friendships may not be fully feasible, nevertheless an acquaintanceship carried on over time may be possible. At any rate, openness to such a possibility is desirable if only in acknowledgement of the human value of the research contact and their impact on the researcher's life. To conclude, the relationship between the researcher and the researched is of paramount importance in feminist methodology.

Even as a research project has much broader implications, in this case beyond the walls of the Gawad Kalinga village, feminist methodology presents an opportunity to be reflexive, empowered and ethical in research practice. The following vignette presents the originary moment when the Gawad Kalinga project became of interest to me. It is embedded in a history that my family and my husband have known spanning generations.

47 Our families prior to emigration to Canada were familiar with the poverty of the

Philippines. Our wish to help our compatriots brought us to the group.

The research process in the case of Gawad Kalinga began prior to my entering the

Master's program in geography at York University. My interest in the subject developed

when my husband and I were introduced to the organization during a particular fundraising initiative aimed at the broader Filipino community in Toronto to address poverty in the Philippines. A spokesperson had presented to a small audience of

community representatives at the Philippine consulate. The concept was intriguing and at first we were critical, questioning motives, mechanisms and the product itself, houses

comprising a village, built for the poor voluntarily by those who were better off in

Filipino society. It seemed difficult if not impossible; it was during this time that I became

interested in the subject as a research project.

My interest developed as my husband became more and more involved in their fundraising efforts. He was compelled to take part as he acutely understood the

organization's efforts to transform the lives of the poor in the Philippines through

improved housing and livelihood projects. At the time of the introduction, the discourse

48 on religion was well managed. It was only as we moved deeper into the organization that

the roots into the Catholic faith became more apparent. My husband, a devout Catholic

himself easily adapted to the group and its culture. I took a step back and kept more

distance.

I started to talk to the organizers about the possibility of doing research. I discussed it

with my supervisor and the Gawad Kalinga project started to take shape. On my own

initiative and with the help of another woman I developed a plan to help align the Gawad

Kalinga fundraising effort with the Canadian landscape. It was a bid that was

unsuccessful due in part to their fiscal constraints. As well I presume that an initiative from two women was unappreciated. As I moved into the Couples for Christ organization further I began to recognize a religious discourse where traditional roles between men

and women were promoted and families were the central focus.

We were invited to a number of GK events honoring volunteers and were introduced to

the charismatic head of the Gawad Kalinga project for the Couples for Christ

organization, Tony Meloto and had the opportunity to inquire about research initiatives.

Another event came up where I spoke with the ANCOP Canada CEO himself Ricky

49 Cuenca and again queried about research opportunities. It so happened that he would be

in the Philippines at the same time as myself during June and July of 2008 and he offered

to bring me along during his tour of GK villages as arranged by the GK program

coordinator in Manila. To my good luck we arrived within days of each other and with further good fortune began the fleldwork process.

The Second Phase: Fieldwork

I was lucky enough to have had the help of the Couples for Christ organization. They

were able to prepare many of the research sites for our visits of up to three days, making

sure that there was a family in attendance and ready to help with our needs. The Gawad

Kalinga project is well-run and organized so that communication and co-operation from

different parties, many of whom I had never met prior to the research endeavor, could be

relied upon at short notice; our hosts were hospitable in many ways. The following

narrative is an example of the care extended to us.

Hurtling through Southern Luzon in a bus traveling from Manila to Naga, I was amazed

that we had not yet found ourselves in a ditch in the past few hours since we boarded the

50 bus. My son, a young man was accompanying me on this journey and had proven already stalwart in his efforts to stay by my side. He could not sleep for fear of an accident. We

were both nervous and nauseous, as much from the swaying movement of the bus as the

anxiety to arrive at our destination. Our Couples for Christ contact, very kindly arranged

by the Manila coordinator would be picking us up from the Naga bus station to bring us

to the first village site for our fieldwork We arrived at the bus station at four thirty in the

very early morning with no one waiting to pick us up. We were two hours ahead of schedule and I was reluctant to wake our host for this trip. I sooner wanted to leave the

bus station, populated this early morning by mostly men already up and sitting around than be stared at by strangers. He soon arrived and after a few hours rest in his lovely home complete with air conditioning in the guest room provided for us we picked up our research assistant waiting at the bus station and drove to Abangayon, San Fernando,

Bicol.

Gawad Kalinga Village, Abangayon, San Fernando in the southern Luzon province of

Camarines Sur, Bicol Region was the first of two village sites chosen by the ANCOP

Canada president and CEO Ricky Cuenca and the program coordinator based in Manila who organized his village tours. This particular village was chosen because it fit two

51 main criteria; 1) it was located in a rural setting and 2) it was built three years ago and had an established village community of seventy five families to date with more expected to arrive as the houses are built. The arrangement was for myself and my son Matthew and Mariel, the research assistant who I hired for the project, to stay at the village over a period of four to five days and immerse ourselves in village life. The research methods to be undertaken were participant observation and interviews. A guest house was provided in the village; it was most regularly used as a classroom to accommodate the increasing population of preschool children. There was no running water or electricity. We stayed for two nights and three days. During our stay we participated in village life, we took part in the children's school activities and held meetings with the various caretaker teams who administered the village livelihood, education and values programs. In all, six interviews were conducted with couples who were the beneficiaries of the houses. Their participation for the interview was obtained with the assistance of the caretaker team.

They were chosen because of their standing in the village as well because of their role in the community. Others were chosen because of their perceived resistance to the programs being instituted in the village. We visited each couple at their home and conducted the interview in their living room. The interviews took about an hour. Twenty-five interview questions were prepared and adhered to quite closely by the interview team, myself and

52 my research assistant in this village. Although I speak Tagalog fluently, we were in an

area of the Philippines where another dialect is spoken. She provided the translation when

necessary. Research conducted in the village will be discussed at further length in

subsequent chapters. A focus group which was taped was conducted with the caretaker

team and the teachers. Two tapes containing a debriefing session from the research team

was conducted at the end of the day regarding our impressions of the day's events.

We were reluctant to stay for longer than the three days and two nights that we had

already endured. I had been bitten by ants or fleas or some sort of insect that had left a

trail of bites up and down both my legs that had become too itchy. We traveled to Naga, a

thirty minute drive from the village with the help of the caretaker couple who had managed to borrow ajeepney-like vehicle from a friend. We purchased an antibiotic and ointment to minimize the effects of the bites. The research assistant who had joined our team offered for us to stay the weekend at her house in Legazpi City and have the opportunity to tour the area and see the Mayon volcano. We gratefully accepted her offer and soon made ready to leave contacting our host to pick us up and drop us off at the bus station.

53 From Legazpi, we made our way north by bus to Pagbilao in Quezon province where we were to meet up with a tour organized for Ricky Cuenca to visit GK villages in the central

Luzon area. There were eleven of us in a van. We toured three villages in Quezon, one on the island of Alabat, a site by the Lucena pier and a third in Mulanay. After the tour which had taken place over two days we were dropped off at the Gawad Kalinga village in Sariaya.

The second Gawad Kalinga village that was chosen for us to stay in was in Sariaya,

Quezon Province. The village also in a rural setting had been built three years ago and had an established community. Well planned and well constructed, the village surpassed our expectations with both running water and electricity and a well organized village structure. The caretaker teams have been involved in its running from its inception and to this day were actively involved in weekly activities. Ten couples were interviewed at this village with a caretaker team recruiting the participants for us. Several of the men were requested to come home from their work in the field over the lunch hour to participate in the interview. Most of the women stayed at home and took care of the housework and the children. The interviews took about an hour long although the interview questions were not followed as closely since the interview team was more familiar with the interview

54 process and the data we were trying to capture. The caretaker teams were also

interviewed. Several debriefing discussions amongst the researcher team were conducted and taped at the end of each day.

During our last week in Manila, an opportunity came up to take part in a "GK Youth

Build" in Molave, an area in Manila where a squatter community had developed. In its efforts to aid in the Gawad Kalinga project in alleviating poverty, the upper class university called Ateneo de Manila had instituted not only curricular programs for its students from elementary to high-school but also included regular visits to the GK

Molave sites for youth builds for its university students. The purpose was to encourage hands- on experience for the well-to-do students in understanding the plight of the poor as well to actually help in constructing the new homes that were being built on the site.

The day that we were there several groups were in attendance despite the inclement weather. A group of Japanese students who had traveled to Manila for the express purpose of taking part in the youth build were scattered throughout the crowd. The

Ateneo students who were organizing the event were attentive to the newcomers. We were greeted warmly and extended a home to visit and have lunch in. Different events had been planned and some construction took place but the heavy rains in the afternoon

55 curtailed much of the construction. There were two white Caucasian women who looked

like academics who I eventually spoke with. They were also interested in the Gawad

Kalinga phenomenon and were there also to conduct research. My husband met R., a former resident of Canada who was eager to introduce us to his group in Regala, a

squatter community looking for sponsorship that would eventually help them in building

their own GK village. We met with his group at the University of the Philippines the next

morning.

A focus group was conducted at the University of the Philippines campus with several

members representing the Regala group who were looking for sponsors for their project.

There were no interview questions prepared for this focus group since it happened

spontaneously. I obtained their permission to record the discussion and they were

agreeable. The discussion proved to be very fruitful with the head of the homeowners

association able to articulate not only their needs but the process that had brought them to

the table in discussion with the rest of the group. He was well supported by experts in the

field who were strongly affiliated with the academic community. Again the orientation of

the group was with Couples for Christ. The mentoring process that they were describing

and that had taken place over the period of almost five years was primarily under the

56 values formation program of the Couples for Christ organization. Again further

discussion will ensue in subsequent chapters of the thesis.

The Third Phase: Post-fieldwork

The return to Canada provided an almost immediate relief from the visceral effect of poverty on the psyche. Even as the daily travel from the suburban home where we stayed

in Manila entailed a drive through a densely populated squatter district encroaching on

the main thoroughfare compelled myself along with my children, unused to such images

of poverty to ask, how do they survive in this environment? There was a family living in a

makeshift home under the bridge with its clothesline visible from the main road with

clothing hung out to dry on a daily basis. Eventually, I was led to accept and to surmise

that there is no other way but to lay down one's head and submit to sleep only to rise the

next day to the same stench and the same want and not hope for change. The desperate existence many are forced to live seems incomprehensible. It was in many moments like this during my travels in the Philippines, and even as I sit in a well-lit library feeling comfortably full and able to focus that I understand what drives Tony Meloto and Ricky

Cuenca to mobilize their organization's vision of a better world for the Filipino poor.

57 Of the three phases that I have outlined in this methodology chapter, the most difficult to

write and the one I was most reluctant to tackle has been the post-fieldwork phase. It took

a few months to divest myself of the emotions coloring my vision of what transpired

during my fieldwork, and I was anxious to present my thoughts as clearly as was possible. It is only now that I understand this particular difficulty even as I recall Prof.

Giri's (a visiting professor whose work was situated in India) question to me during a

conversation about my fieldwork, "Did you not find yourself also transformed during this process?" To understand this experience I have decided to use Pamela Moss' concept of

specificity, isolated experiences of multiple events, as I recall the different moments and events as I experienced them 'there' and now in recalling them 'here.' What do I choose to recount and how do I represent the organization Couples for Christ and its project

Gawad Kalinga? How have I benefited from this experience? What do they stand to gain

in allowing my entrance into their organization and its process? How did my gaze produce knowledge; was it on their behalf or for my benefit alone? I will try to unravel these questions with as much fairness as I can muster but similar to other researchers who inhabit the first world and do research in the third world, I already understand that there is only so much that I can do (Patai,1991). Ultimately, I have come to realize that I

58 cannot make things 'right' for those who are left behind, I can only make it a little

'better'. Making it right implies injustice and reparation and making it better implies compensation, perhaps financial as the West has been beguiled into "giving" but my own promise and will to do either lessens with the distance both temporally and spatially that has transpired since I left the fieldwork site. Mostly, I am conflicted about where I stand and what should be done about people living under such difficult circumstances. Unlike others who find it unproblematic to help, my own instinct is to be more careful of what is being reproduced in relationships of aid. This thesis is an attempt to come to terms with the shape of aid that helps without intruding on existing compensatory mechanisms of survival. People have to make sense of their world and their production of self is the discourse that often makes it harder to live through the present that cannot be so easily changed.

Specificity and Distance

Isabel Dyck (2002) looks at the issue of context, both personal and historical, in research from her experiences through disciplines and her movement between geographical locations. The movement through knowledge and space, intellectual and geographical, in

59 her life has led her to understand the fluidity of places and people, the layering of contexts within geographical scales and the shifting, malleable subjectivities and identities within global movements of people. She states that geography matters in its national and regional scales and socio-political contexts as well in people's day-to-day lives. Geography matters at the scale of the everyday, in the spaces in which people carry on their daily lives; identities are experienced through bodily processes, within the spaces in which the body moves over the course of a day (Dyck, 2002). This specific context and embodied relation as experienced by the researcher and the researched is the space I want to explore in this section.

Context becomes more acute as it moves into the concept called specificity. Specificity as explicated by Pamela Moss (2005) is site of

Specific bodies- actively produced concrete entities

constitutive of subjectivity, emotion, pain and body parts

textured through/ by/ in everyday life. Spaces that bodies

inhabit are material and temporal juncture points, dripping

with the minutiae of the immediate environment, the

60 mediation of power through multiscale processes and the

culmination of historical moments. So, like bodies, spaces

are specific, at any scale- the local, the regional, the

national, the global. Specificity then describes the process

through which bodies come to be made specific through

interactions with other bodies and spaces. Through

constitutive interaction of bodily events, specific bodies

come into being (Moss,2002; 257).

The significance of contexts and specificity can be explored at multiple sites during the

research process. In this section I am employing the concept of specificity as the starting

point for my explanation of proximity and distance. Specificity can be seen as a

multifocal and multilocal plurality of singular events. If viewed in a spatial and temporal

manner, every movement through space in time becomes a specific event. In the research

context, the specific space and time where a research process takes place is for me an

interesting moment to explore. In this space and time an encounter takes place between the researcher and the researched where position, identity and subjectivities are shared and data transferred. The experience of this specific space by these specific bodies may

61 be transformative. Power permeates the space and manipulations are mechanisms where the objective, research data for the researcher, and reward, reinforcement or simply

affirmation for the researched, are actively sought. It is in just such a space that an

exchange takes place, an interchange that may be life altering and at the very least, an encounter that cannot ethically be dismissed or denied. Such an encounter may be predicated on the research imperative undertaken by the researcher to engage the researched. The power to initiate and to disengage remains with the researcher although refusal on the part of the researched is built into the ethical process (Nagar, 2003).

The concept of proximity and distance lies in relation to the researcher because ultimately once the research object has been obtained, the researcher and the researched leave the space of interaction and move back or away to other spaces. It is this movement away in terms of time and space that may be fruitful in understanding how knowledge becomes produced and in whose interest they are made relevant to (Gatenby & Humphries, 2000;

Spalter-Roth & Hartmann, 1996). The post-fieldwork phase contains the most significance in terms of the production of knowledge because of the distance in space and time that necessarily ensues once the fieldwork site and specific interview space is left behind. Investments in the relationship between the researcher and the researched are

62 always in flux resulting in the closeness and the distance that occurs between the two. In

a fieldwork setting where the researcher is immersed in the field and by necessity is with

the researched over a prolonged period of time, encounters take place at different

magnitudes and flows in and out of closeness for that specific space. Distance may result

in a disinvestment of emotion or closeness perhaps both for the researcher and the

researched but more is at stake for the researcher and mobility, class positioning, personal

motivations and career projections become elements that make up the production of

knowledge affecting the researcher differentially. The researched, unless they inhabit

similar mobile positioning do not necessarily inhabit these same fluctuating conditions.

This flux I can best identify as a postmodern condition is one as suggested by Chela

Sandoval (1991) where an oppositional consciousness is organized and mobilized as an effective means of changing the dominant order of power for feminist researchers.

My interest in the concept of oppositional consciousness is primarily in how critical points become spaces, not only of resistance, mediation or production of knowledge but also how they become spaces where subjectivities can take refuge, re-strategize only to be deployed again into spaces of contestation by subordinated classes. Sandoval (1991) states that:

63 These points are orientations deployed by those

subordinated classes which have sought subjective forms of

resistance other than those forms determined by the social

order itself. They provide repositories within which

subjugated citizens can either occupy or throw off

subjectivities in a process that at once both enacts and yet

decolonizes their various relations to their real conditions

of existence. This kind of kinetic and self-conscious

mobility of consciousness is utilized by US third world

feminists as they identify oppositional subject positions and

enact them differentially (Sandoval, 1991; ).

Differential consciousness represents the emergent, the subject momentarily caught in a moment-in-flux whose conditions, assumptions or ideas are waiting to materialize. The fluidity of such a consciousness within a moment gives power to oppositional consciousness to produce knowledge, if you will, that is fully dependent on that moment.

The specificity of that subject within a specific space makes it difficult to affix

64 preconditions and proscriptions to actions. It makes activism difficult although not

impossible because it does not allow for the fixing of an idea, a thought or a subject

beyond that specific moment. Inevitable multiple moments will produce multiple subjects

that may or may not fall in line and conform to preconceived notions or conclusions. The

purpose of exploring this concept is to come to terms with a moment, a space in time

distant from the fieldwork site where it becomes difficult to affix certain hegemonic

notions of patriarchy or class, regardless of their existence in discursive practice, to particular moments. Subjectivities within the research space obscure or reveal themselves

in movement where fixing becomes irrelevant. The point of such a conjecture is to allow

for the subjectivities to enter into a dialectical relationship with those in power. In the

case of this project, the administrators in control of research opportunities and the

researcher, may bracket for a time the points of conflict that may emerge and prevent the

research interaction from happening. Not that instances would not occur to block

information from flowing but that the relationship invested into by both parties have the

opportunity to reach its full potential. The emergent situation and the subjectivities in flux

allow for such a specificity of an event to happen regardless of power dynamics and

anticipated results.

65 Conclusion

Ricky Cuenca goes to church everyday. I met him in the lobby of his condominium in

Makati early one morning just in time to attend the eight o 'clock mass at his parish

church. He had been attending this mass for years whenever he is in Manila. I joined him

in prayer after the mass at a small chapel within the church grounds. We knelt, prayed

and sat in contemplation for almost an hour prior to leaving for a meeting. We did not

talk much; the moment was solemn. I was unprepared for such an event but knew enough

what to do. I had a small prayer book in my bag that I always carried and prayed with

that. I was curious looking at the other devout Catholics in the small chamber. Ricky was seated behind me and I could not see him. I fell into a reverie, meditating on the purpose

of my research project, a questioning mode befell me as I wondered what was expected of me. I knew that both this mass and this visit to the chapel were tests of my belongingness

in Ricky's world. Would he find me prayerful enough; would I be able to conduct myself appropriately? What knowledge of me did he seek that he had brought me here?

This encounter was a specific research moment that had produced the relationship of trust between Ricky and me. The trust that developed helped me in obtaining access to the

66 fieldwork sites as well the wholehearted cooperation of the research participants. Power

lay with Ricky as the gatekeeper to the organization I wanted to research. Perhaps a link

was forged that is now being tested in the aftermath, post-fieldwork phase where I can

view this instance in multiple ways, most strategically to help myself or to help him.

Perhaps in this instance we are caught in an oppositional relationship. It is these multiple

moments in a research context that any number of conclusions can be derived from

analyses that will have salience for the researcher and/or the researched.

This chapter identified three phases of research as an attempt to grapple with the ways in

which feminist methodology has shaped my project. The first phase was the pre-

fieldwork phase, the second being the fieldwork phase itself and the third being the post-

fieldwork phase. The purpose of developing the chapter in this way was to depict three

different moments in time and space to illustrate the fluidity and the multiplicity of research events during the research process. Concepts were discussed like reflexivity and positionality, power relations in multiple contexts, ethical considerations; as well specificity and oppositional consciousness were introduced as a way to explicate the differences in each of these specific moments. The introduction of these concepts in this chapter will serve to lay the groundwork for subsequent chapters where the specific

67 research space will be further discussed in relation to the data that was gathered and the relationships that were entered into.

Feminist research aims to produce knowledge that can be mobilized to transform injustice or subordination. At best you can be as aware as possible that interpretation is your exercise of power, that your decisions have consequences and that you are accountable for your conclusions (Ramazonoglu with Holland, 2002). The choices that I have made post-fieldwork in opening up specific sites of research and specific encounters emerged from the conviction that reflexivity, specificity and oppositional consciousness are concepts valuable to feminist methodologies that can move the research project to new ground.

68 Chapter Four: Christianity, the Capitalist Class and the Charismatic Movement in the Philippines

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to present a historical background of the Philippines that focuses on the changes wrought by colonization. "Contemporary Philippine culture is profoundly and intimately the product of the colonial experience, one of whose underlying threads is the transformation of cultures" (Javellana, 1999; 418). The pre- colonial history presented briefly in this chapter indicates the level of transformation that conversion to Christianity had on the Filipino people. This chapter attempts to deal with the colonizing factors of both Spanish conquest and American annexation of the

Philippines. The subsequent development of a Capitalist class reiterates the importance of a class divide that emerged from the time period of American colonization. The arrival of the Christian charismatic movement in the Philippines resulted in the development of the

Couples for Christ organization.

69 The Historical Context

Prior to Spanish colonization, the Philippines was closely linked with South East Asia, specifically India, China and Arabia (Nadeau, 2002). Settlements along the shores of the rivers and seas allowed for a thriving maritime trade economy (Dery, 2006). The pre- colonial peoples of the Philippines were mostly traders, merchants, fish harvesters, cultivators and craftspeople (Nadeau, 2002). Lowlanders were trading with upland hunters and gatherers, and fanners to buy goods for personal use or for trade.

Filipinos were found to have inhabited mainly the waterways near coastal rivers and the coasts. The only means of transport were boats or rafts. Communication and interactions were primarily maintained through river traffic.

Traders and raiders, friends and foes crossed from one side

of a river to the other by boat, from island to island, and

between distant ports on the same island. Communities

were connected, not separated by water; it was by water

70 that they exchanged foodstuffs, manufactured wares and

foreign imports (Scott, 1994; 5).

Kinship networks played an important part in the development of authority and social hierarchy as it was traced through male and female lines. The interest to extend kinship

lines laterally was predominant. The emphasis on horizontal kinship ties presumed that

leaders emerged through social relations rather than ancestry and property relations.

Political stability was preserved through inter-marriage establishing alliances between contending groups as well, through sanduguan, a ritual practice with the co-mingling of blood indicating brotherhood and the swearing in or oath-taking ritualized to seal agreements (Dery, 2006).

The arrival of Spanish conquistadors precipitated change in the social dynamics of the islands. Although Filipinos were familiar with outsiders who were either peaceful traders or aggressive marauders extorting tribute for protection, they were unable to gauge the intentions of the Spanish conquistadors. Conquistadors and missionaries were convinced that the ultimate goal of all of their conquests was religious conversion.

71 Both believed that the diverse inhabitants of the world were

fated to the universal claims of Catholicism. Yet all

attempts to realize this fated-ness hinged on the secular

intervention of a colonial state apparatus. Colonial

hegemony, however, could be legitimized and regulated

only as a function of the crown's Christianizing mission

(Rafael, 1988; 17).

The conquistadors arrived with pre-conceptions of paganism and conquest and a mission to transform the indigenous society to suit their purposes. The key to this systematic conversion and colonization was the role of the Church as institution in its relationship of royal patronage, in its role as policy developer in Spain for the missionary work undertaken by its colonizing mechanism and by the priests as colonial administrators in its new place of conquest, the Philippines (Rafael, 1988). Having experienced the problems of conversion in the Americas, the Spaniards had already developed procedures and programs to efficiently effect religious conversion. Conditions were different in the

Philippines compared to the Americas. With a smaller group of soldiers staying behind to enforce change, the colonial imperative had to rely on the work of the missionaries to

72 evangelize the local populations. The result was the standard practice of preaching to the

locals in their own dialects, precipitating a need for translation books and dictionaries

meant to facilitate the acquisition of the native vernacular for the newly arrived clergy.

Translation, by making conceivable the transfer of meaning

and intention between colonizer and colonized, laid the

basis for articulating the general outlines of subjugation

prescribed by conversion; but it also resulted in the

ineluctable separation between the original message of

Christianity (which was itself about the proper nature of

origins as such) and its rhetorical formulation in the

vernacular (Rafael, 1988; 21).

Religious discourse has played a role since the beginning of the forming of a Filipino identity in its relationship to a conqueror. Language, in the indeterminate space between the meaning of words and the understanding of the same presents opportunities not just merely for misunderstandings to take place but also for the formation of a different interpretation to happen, one that does not fully accept the intended message.

73 Spain used the same strategy that they used in the Americas to colonize the Philippines

by using the local leadership to convert their following. The Spaniards favored male

leadership roles and displaced female lineages and leadership roles. The colonial system

of governance placed local leaders in positions of power authorized by Spain (Nadeau,

2002).

There were many factors brought in to play by the Spanish colonizing machinery that

served to transform the inhabitants of the Philippines such as the "economic dislocations brought by the enforcement of many colonial impositions, the growth of many

inhabitants in the hinterlands who refused to submit to Spanish rule, the miseries of those who were cowed into subjection, and the beginnings of the centuries of wars between the

Moros and the Spaniards, the deepening divisions between the inhabitants of the different regions of the country" (Dery, 2006:20). The profound impact of Spanish rule in the

Philippines helped to shape the Philippines resulting in what Dery contends as the "fall and decline of the Filipino people, a fall that they have not recovered from until now"

(Dery, 2006: 2). Though melo-dramatic in tone, I would agree that to a certain extent, the

Spanish conquest transformed the Philippines into a country colonized and subjectivized

74 not just by Spanish rule but more importantly, the constraining clutch of religious discourse. The Spanish colonizing mechanism disrupted traditional values in the

Philippines by constructing a new class structure that served the needs of the colonial masters and undermined the previous harmonious functioning of a leader-follower economy. Capitalism was activated as land became increasingly privately owned creating a growing group of landless peasants (Nadeau, 2002).

During the nineteenth century, sugar and tobacco became cash crops allowing for a small number of wealthy elite families to become landowners able to expropriate the labor power of a growing landless lower class (Nadeau 2002).

By the 1890s the wealthier and more ambitious families, of the new multi-ethnic elite, were sending their sons to Manila and Europe for higher education. As a result, nationalism erupted with European influences near Manila where the political impact of

Spanish rule was the greatest (Wurfel, 2001). The Philippine Revolution of 1896, led by priests and nationalist intellectuals culminated in a Spanish defeat in 1898.Helped by the support of the United States navy, self-interest and duplicity placed the United States in an advantageous position during the rebellion with the result of Spain ceding the

75 Philippines to the United States during the Treaty of Paris (Nadeau, 2002). American colonization brought its own problems to the Philippines, accelerating the capitalist penetration of the economy through the acquisition of large tracts of land by American corporations. American corporations bought up land, developed plantations of coconuts, sugar, timber, rubber, abaca and pineapple, expanded mining operations of copper, gold and chromate for U.S. industries, rendering the native populations landless, forced to work at sub-minimal wages (Nadeau, 2002).

Filipinos submitted to American colonial rule during a period of social stability. Local self-government provided Filipinos with the ideas of eventually being independent. By

1907, a national legislature complete with nationalist parties was developed. The common experience of Filipinos regarding American governance was the installation of an educational system with English as the method of instruction. A nationalist rhetoric of the Revolution, and the development of inter-island activity, permitted the gradual development of a Filipino identity (Nadeau, 2002).

American policy intended social change that could bring about "greater equality of opportunity, by building more public schools, opening up public land to homesteading,

76 promoting cooperatives, and establishing a public university," encouraging the widespread "belief that there was a chance to move from "rags to riches"(Wurfel,

1988:11). The result was the growth of an "urban middle-class, both salaried and propertied" who soon began to occupy the various levels of bureaucracy from governmental and educational institutions. But as Wurfel observes, "the primary beneficiaries of American educational, commercial, and agrarian policies were those who already had superior wealth and education, men whose political power grew rapidly under American tutelage" (Wurfel, 1988: 12).

Even after Philippine independence was achieved in 1946, the U.S. government maintained economic control by making the Philippines a supplier of cheap raw materials and labor while becoming the market for U.S. goods. The Marcos dictatorship in the seventies further extended U.S. dominance in the economy by the maintenance of an ideology of export-led growth through foreign investment. The Green Revolution was used by the Marcos government as a model for poverty alleviation by projecting an increase in productivity through the use of new high-yield varieties of rice and the sale of pesticides and fertilizers. The cost was shouldered by poor farmers who fell into bankruptcy as the cost of farming became exorbitant. The collusion between government,

77 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund drove the country into deepening debt as development loans poured into the Philippines.

In short, the illusion of development is based on the false

premise that economic growth will someday trickle down

to diminish the difference in living standards between the

rich and the poor...The Philippine government neglects to

promote basic social services, land reform, and agriculture

to improve conditions of life for the vast majority of local

people who are poor (Nadeau, 2002:12).

The purpose of this introduction was to uncover the deeply embedded colonial relationship that the Philippines had with its first colonial conqueror, Spain and its colonizing arm, the Catholic Church. The importance of this attempt, no matter how briefly sketched, was to understand the "special effects of colonialism on the forms of life of the colonized" (Scott,1999:39), in effect to historicize Spanish rule and bring into focus its long-term effects. The historical background sought to establish the "target of colonial power, "the Filipino people and the "discursive and non-discursive field it

78 sought to encompass" (Scott, 1999;39). through the implementation of a colonial ruling machinery, the Catholic Church and its mission of religious conversion. This discursive field provides the terrain within which the discourse of Gawad Kalinga exists.

What can be gained by such an understanding is, in the case of the Philippines, a realization that the target of colonial rule was not just the native Filipinos themselves, but more importantly, their souls. The religious conversion sought by the Spaniards in their colonial conquer, maintained in over three hundred years of domination provided a deeply embedded mechanism for the continuous inscription of religious rule. The discursive and non-discursive fields, the terrain of religious discourse continues on to this day with a number of transformations as other religious groups enter the field, primarily

Protestant missionaries and American religious clergy who arrived with the transfer of power to the United States.

The Capitalist Class

The hegemony of a dominant bloc of social forces in the Philippines is constituted by a capitalist class, aided by the Catholic Church and the US government. "The hegemony of

79 this bloc has deep roots in the history of the archipelago, with the very nature of both the state and the private sphere in the archipelago shaped first by the church, later by

American colonial rule, and increasingly by the capitalist class nurtured under both of their auspices" (Hedman, 2006;20).

The capitalist class in the Philippines came into being in the mid-1800s when foreign trade became the policy of the Spanish colony of that time period, reducing the monopoly of trade by the existing Spanish elite. A compradore class emerged of mixed parentage, largely Chinese fathers with Filipina mothers, able to navigate the growing trade opportunities with European counterparts.

Thanks to Spanish Catholics eagerness to promote

conversion, the small Chinese immigrant mercantile

minority in the archipelago had long been encouraged in

the direction of assimilation and integration through

intermarriage with native women, their unions consecrated

in churches and their officially designated mestizo offspring

freed from the restrictions on mobility and the onerous

80 (cash) tax burdens weighing upon their Chinese fathers,

creating a "mixed" official racial category unique in the

plural societies of colonial Southeast Asia (Hedman, 2006;

35).

This group of Chinese mestizo traders became landowners, gaining power in local politics and becoming well-traveled and having the opportunity to be educated in Europe. They were known as "Filipinos", previously a term reserved for Philippine-born Spaniards, and ilustrados, a term indicating their education outside of the country as men of the

Enlightenment whose attempts to further empower their families continued to be limited by existing Spanish colonial rule.

The arrival of the Americans with the ceding of the Philippines to the US during the

Treaty of Paris signaled the opportunity for this commercial and landowning class to begin their ascendancy. They started to occupy local government offices as mayors and provincial governors. Large sugar plantations moved into the development of sugar mills resulting in the industrialization of agricultural products like sugar and coconut, further enriching this class while tying the Philippine economy even more closely with that of

81 the United States. By the time of Independence in 1946, a pattern of class differentiation was becoming entrenched with opportunities for capital accumulation developing around local "Filipino" products and brands, like San Miguel Beer, monopolized by the same capitalist class. The turn of the twentieth century marked this business class as retaining the holdings of "diversified, professionally managed and financially 'securitized' conglomerates and the extension of production and marketing circuitries throughout the country" (Hedman, 2006; 37). A "properly Filipino Capitalist class" emerged aided by

American colonial rule and the existing church hierarchy and monopoly of educational systems.

The Catholic Church's educational institutions had a similar effect in the development of a Filipino ruling class from the capitalist landowning families. Under Spanish rule, the religious orders had built a number of colegios whose purpose was to "give the sons of the native ruling families an education which would not only make Christians of them, but fit them for the magistracy; for as town governors and village headmen they could exercise a profound and salutary influence on their own people" (Hedman, 2006;28). The

Catholic Church was able to retain its hegemony in the elite schools of the Philippines having had the continuous control of the elite schools.

82 The promotion of elite Catholic education was most intentional and effectively promoted by the Jesuits in the Philippines. After their expulsion from Spain and its dominions in the eighteenth century, the Jesuits returned to the Philippines in 1859, establishing

Ateneo de Manila, a Catholic school system spanning junior kindergarten to university

(Hedman, 2006;29). As articulated by a Jesuit historian and long-time director of Ateneo de Manila, Horatio de la Costa, S.J.: "the formation of an elite or leadership group among the Catholic laity which will act as an intellectual and moral leaven on the society in which it is embedded has always been a prime objective of the Jesuit apostolate"

(Hedman, 2006;29). American Jesuits arrived as part of the U.S. contingent to colonize the Philippines, taking up positions in the different levels of the existing educational systems run by the Jesuit order. The Jesuits being the least cloistered and the most progressive in their ideological and intellectual pursuits were well suited to serve as

"midwives in the reproduction of 'intellectual leaders' of civil society" (Hedman,

2006;30).

Beyond the realm of educational institutions, the Catholic Church has provided direction and opportunity to further exercise Catholic faith in the development of lay associational

83 groups. Embedded in local parish activities as in fiestas and religious holidays, are the community organizations serving the church in its daily and weekly operations and broader community activities like the Catholic Action of the Philippines, the Knights of

Columbus, the Catholic Women's League and the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines. Membership in lay associations provides opportunities for the accumulation of cultural, social and symbolic capital with the resulting increase in the chances of career advancement (Hedman,2006).

In the Philippines, NGOs work hand in hand with other associational formations arising from religious structures, both Catholic and Protestant sects, as well as various social advocacy groups from grassroots organizations. It is important to distinguish between

NGOs and grassroots organizations since they emerge from different foundations. I will use the term NGO as Siliman and Noble have defined it reserving the label non­ government organizations for citizen groups in general (1998). They further distinguish between grassroots organizations or people's organizations (POs), and grassroots support organizations as development NGOs.

84 Grassroots organizations are typically "non-profit associations pursuing collective goals through the initiative of their members" ( Siliman and Noble, 1995:11). They constitute the core of the NGO community organized along sector lines with market members, taxi- drivers, farmers, teachers, etc. linked through a system forming distinct groups in villages, towns and cities throughout the Philippines. Many more members belong to various labor unions. Marginalized groups comprising of women, the urban poor, students and indigenous populations also belong to their own groups. Cause-oriented POs or grassroots organizations have also formed in response to initiatives by a group of citizens seeking redress of their rights or to advocate for injustices to their communities.

Grassroots support organizations constitute another level of NGO activity whose purpose is to promote and work for the interests and demands of grassroots organizations, POs.

"Like grassroots structures, support groups are private, non-profit entities that pursue public welfare goals, In contrast to grassroots structures, they more often than not function with a paid staff (Siliman& Noble, 1995:11). Funding typically comes from international sources. International funding for development is generally distributed through private voluntary organizations rather than the state primarily because of the perception that NGOs are more effective and efficient at implementing development

85 strategies. Gawad Kalinga is a grassroots project initiated by a religious organization called Couples for Christ integrating two religious principles of evangelization, considered necessary for the propagation of the faith, and helping the poor. These two discursive formations provide the foundation on which the Couples for Christ provide aid to the poor.

The Charismatic Movement in the Philippines

Couples for Christ originated in the Philippines as a family life outreach program of Ang

Ligaya Ng Panginoon (LNP), a faith-based organization with its roots in the Catholic charismatic renewal movement. The Catholic charismatic renewal movement developed during a retreat held at Duqesne University, Pittsburgh U.S.A. in 1967. The faculty and students experienced a renewal of their faith through a "baptism of the Holy Spirit"

(Ugnayan,2008;5). The renewal of faith which came to be known as charismatic is a term

"used to describe Christians who believe that the manifestations of the gifts of the Holy

Spirit seen in the first century Christian Church are available to contemporary Christians and may be experienced and practiced today" (Ugnayan, 2008; 5). The charismatic movement spread rapidly through other university campuses in the United States. By

86 2003, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement exists in over two hundred and thirty countries with a membership of over one hundred and nineteen million people led by

David Barrett, head of Global Evangelization Movement in Richmond, Virginia

(Ugnayan, 2008).

The Catholic charismatic renewal movement reached the Philippines in July 19, 1975 when the Ligaya Ng Panginoon community was founded as a simple prayer group held every Friday evening presided over by Fr. Herb Schneider S.J. By 1979 the prayer group was held twice a week drawing a crowd of over twelve thousand in two locations, one in

Makati and the other in Quezon City. Of the people in attendance at these meetings, over

80 percent were women. Men were loath to attend because of the loud prayers and the singing. Fr. Herb Schneider, having encountered another style of worship primarily targeting men was motivated to form another prayer group. With the help of the men from the Ligaya Ng Panginoon community he started a breakfast meeting for businessmen which resulted in the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and

Professionals (BCBP). Another prayer group comprising of students became the movement called Christ Youth in Action (CYA) (Ugnayan,2008).

87 In 1980, a concerted effort to attract married couples to a renewed Catholic faith and the

evangelization of Filipino families was initiated by the Ligaya Ng Panginoon coordinator

Vic Gutierrez under the direction of Fr. Herb Schneider. The initiative was called the Life

in the Spirit Seminars (LSS) incorporating a new evangelization method. The strategy

was to invite married couples to a social evening at the home of LNP members where

small group discussions would take place to talk about the challenges of bringing up

children in the current society. Light snacks and drinks were served with a final prayer

and singing with an invitation to return the following week. The process of

evangelization in this format was successful. The LNP coordinators developed a formal

program based on "The Word of God," a pioneer covenant community in Ann Arbor,

Michigan, with additional components which became known as the Christian Life

program or CLP. The Christian Life program became the initiation course for all Couples

for Christ membership, which officially began in June 1981. The program comprised a twelve week seminar course culminating in a covenant of completion on the thirteenth

week. Personal relationships developed over the weekly meetings, aided by the relaxed

and friendly ambience in a home setting, helped the Christian Life program to grow in popularity. As the charismatic movement gained followers, so did the Couples for Christ community grow in size and power. The charismatic movement needs, however to be

88 viewed within the broader context of the Philippine history of Spanish and American colonization.

From the ranks of the Couples for Christ hierarchy have emerged the leaders of the

Gawad Kalinga project. Having risen through the Couples for Christ organization Tony

Meloto and Frank Padilla had envisaged a Philippines that could be improved, the poor helped by their fellow Filipinos to improve the conditions of their lives. The inculcation of Catholic doctrine on the faithful through unified teachings and practices has helped to maintain unity within the Church amongst its adherents historically and beyond to post-

Vatican II. I contend that Catholic lay organizations like Ligaya Ng Panginoon and

Couples for Christ, in their newly styled charismatic worship are further examples of the

Church's maintenance of hegemony in the Philippines today.

Conclusion

This chapter presented a brief history of pre-colonial Philippines and the conquest of

Spain followed by the colonization of the United States. It elaborated on the development of a capitalist class through the influence of American governance. The development of a

89 capitalist class was aided by the Catholic Church, more specifically the Jesuit order through their educational institutions. The Jesuit order was effective in its goal to promote a Catholic elite educated within their Catholic school system. Associational groups and their impact in Philippine society was discussed. The Catholic charismatic movement along with a brief historical sketch about the Couples for Christ organization was presented.

90 Chapter Five: The Discourse of the Poor

Introduction

Discourses of the poor have been in existence since biblical times. Christianity has addressed the uneven distribution of resources through moral teachings that expound upon renouncing the material world for the spiritual world along with various methods to achieve this end. The primary method to inculcate moral lessons is through the Ten

Commandments which exhorts the care and love of others defining the relationship with

God in relation to one's fellow human being. This chapter acknowledges the long history of a discourse of the poor but in this thesis will address religious and secular discourses of the poor that date back to post- World War II.

A Review of Relevant Discourses of the Poor

The two discursive regimes to be reviewed are development discourse and religious discourse after the Second Vatican Council. Laying out the two literatures in this manner will provide the opportunity to contrast two discourses of the poor that emerge from two

91 different traditions, one secular in nature and the other Catholic and religious. Binaries tend to efface meaningful analysis in most discussions but I hope to employ this strategy not to simplify the relationship between development discourse and religious discourse but instead, to draw on the similarities of moral discourse that emerge from two seemingly oppositional edicts such as religious and secular. Therefore development discourse makes use of moral conduct to effect a change in the moral subject of development while religious discourse similarly employs religious discourse to effect change in the moral conduct of religious subjects. Gawad Kalinga is a project that straddles the boundaries of development discourse, the "poor", in the traditional Christian way as requiring help. The act of "helping" one's brother is the act of a Good Samaritan paving the way to salvation, following the teachings of Jesus as a morally fulfilling act of

Christian fellowship and love. At the same time, Gawad Kalinga moves within the territory of development, soliciting aid through donations, instantiating corporate responsibility, making use of external capital flows and the use of resources as philanthropic ends able to employ the discourses of development to their purpose. The end result of this chapter would be an enhanced understanding of the complexity of discursive regimes making up the production of the subject of poverty.

92 The strength of this thesis comes from the recognition that discursive patterns, processes and convergences provide structural formations within which subjectivities are produced.

These patterns and convergences may be recognized at different time periods. What I consider to be the "moralizing missionary complex" that characterized the bourgeois mentality of the Victorian period preserved in discursive formations can also be found in the missionary work of the Spanish friars as they colonized the Philippines. The same discursive formations emerge from the moralizing discourse of the Couples for Christ organization as expressed through the Gawad Kalinga project. The relationship linking the three processes through time is the discursive production of subjects.

Development Discourse

The realization of the limits of discourse and the risk of

losing sight of the materiality of life and the agency of

nature haunt the authors of the more hostile linguistic

exegesis of developmental texts. As the dust settles from

yet another deconstruction, "what now?" the battered

modernist might be heard to mutter and also "so what?" Of

93 course, the hard skeptic will reply it is not their business

to fill the void with yet another meta-narrative- except with

the meta-narrative of relativity itself.

(Blaikie, 2000:1034)

Upon stumbling on this account by Piers Blaikie, "Development, Post-, anti-, and

Populist-: a critical review," I was surprised and found myself pausing, for once understanding the dilemma I continually face. The tendency towards post-modernist critiques of meta-narratives and structural processes leads one to an abstraction that seems distant from the needs of those who continue to suffer from hunger, disease and death. The dilemma faced by post-modernists is the charge of producing help only through texts and not in actual material means (Blaikie, 2000). Gawad Kalinga has been able to produce through discourse the possibility of alleviating poverty in the Philippines with the voluntary effort and philanthropic means of those who have material wealth in the West and the elite who have wealth in the Philippines. Such a process as the mobilization of resources has been persuasive in the production of houses in the GK villages and in livelihood programs for some areas.

94 Blaikie's notion is about an "epistemic community," a group of professionals held together by a shared set of normative principles, shared causal and epistemic beliefs, and a common policy enterprise: which forms around different development paradigms or fields and subsequently become agents in a process of "cognitive evolution." These networks or alliances may eventually converge around specific strategies and form a community signaling change. The development industry is also aided by narratives, simple and elegant with broad appeal and claims for the ease of use in its general and universal concepts. The primary purpose of these discourses is to reduce the bureaucratic anxiousness that is concomitant with decision-making regarding resources and personnel.

Mainstream discourses of development present a problematic linking poverty to development quite broadly in geographical terms from Africa, South America to Asia.

The Gawad Kalinga project is located in the Philippines and therefore to exemplify this approach I will be specifically reviewing the book from the Asian Development Bank titled Hardship and Poverty in the Pacific as it looks at Asian development programs.

The Asian Development Bank problematizes poverty in three different ways as: first, absolute poverty, when "an individual or family is unable to meet basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, health care or education and have an income of less that $1 per capita

95 per day;" second, destitution is considered a form of poverty describing 'the poorest of the poor' who are unable to meet the costs of even a basic diet and shelter; and third, as relative poverty considering those whose income are just sufficient to meet basic needs but are still below the national average or the norm (Asian Development Bank, 2004). In providing these three definitions the Asian Development Bank is able to capture multiple facets of need and a broad swath of population that can effectively be considered as poor.

As poverty and hardship become identified as a development problem, the solution becomes a need for fighting poverty and improving the living standards of poor people in the region. The classic development paradigm is congruent with the Asian Development

Bank and the discourse they provide regarding poverty in Asia Pacific. Informed by notions of a European colonial past, the projects that were rolled out comprised mainly of rural development, population policy and control, and environmental management.

Modernization was the main thrust with top-down management focused on technology transfer, state-controlled and sponsored by scientific institutions (Blaikie, 2000). This classic paradigm has attracted critiques from liberal, neo-Marxists to post-modernists alike.

96 The development paradigm outlined by Anil Hira and Trevor Parfitt's conceptualization of development programs and the transformation required to make development projects

'functional' contains elements of a critique of classic development at the same time as espousing belief in its possibilities. Hira and Parfitt developed a concept of development that presents a political analysis of the role of the United States in conceiving and providing development programs world wide. Their analysis begins with the idea that

'the development of nations' and in that context the idea of 'aiding another region to progressively change economic, political and/or social systems' is really a product of the post World War II era. Prior to World War II, relations between countries were predicated on colonial relationships of rule or in the form of industrialized countries seeking investments in the developing world. Hindsight had afforded the victorious countries after World War II to promote stability and to further resource gain by providing economic aid to war torn countries. To prevent a resurgence of international conflict, victorious countries sought to control the manufacture of arms and reconstruct ravaged economies with the establishment of the United Nations and key economic institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for

Reconstruction and Development or World Bank as it is more commonly known. The purpose was for reconstruction and reward for colonized countries loyal to their European

97 colonizers. The emerging Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States became further incentive for the United States in providing aid to underdeveloped countries in different parts of the world in order to frustrate and slow the spread of Communism.

The neo-liberal development paradigm has emerged throughout the twentieth century at different points in time. Economists from the West, who allocate importance to market processes without intervention from any state, is associated with the World Bank and the

International Monetary Fund. The neo-liberal paradigm, totalizing and universalizing to an extreme, is indifferent to localness and indigenous knowledge. According to Blaikie, the dominance of the neo-liberal paradigm is driven by the need of global capital to restructure itself. "In the simplest terms, global capital and its various fractions at different junctures appropriate, frame and promote particular aspects of classical and

(later) neo-liberal economics for particular strategic ends" (Blaikie, 2000:1043).

The neo-populist development paradigm evolved from different sources and converged during the late 1970s espousing a "rejection of the classic, top-down, technocentric and state-led model of technology transfer along with more reflective literature reappraising previous development experience" (Blaikie, 2000:1043). Alternative approaches were

98 sought along with a return to populist sentiments. By 1980, more and more NGOs practices encompassed community-based research, decentralized government programs, empowered farmers, environmentalism and included indigenous knowledge. Post­ modernist critiques of classic and neo-liberal development presented both a pessimistic view and a hands-off approach to development practice.

Development discourses range from critiques of mainstream development practices to the development and presentation of alternative models for "doing development". They function in this section as examples of the range of discourses available. They represent not only what proponents of development presume to be truths but also the accompanying critiques of those who would do development differently or perhaps not at all. Introduced in the manner that I have chosen to present them, they may be regarded as discourses at play in the field of development discourse, displayed on equal footing with other discursive regimes.

Post-development as presented by Rahnema with Bawtree is adamantly non- interventionist. The Post-Development Reader edited by Majid Rahnema with Victoria

Bawtree was initially produced from a course taught by Rahnema at University of

99 California, Berkeley. This Reader has similar characteristics in that it is subversive, human-centered and radical. Of the different chapters in The Reader, the concluding

Afterword "Towards Post-Development: Searching for Signposts, A New Language and

New Paradigms" will be discussed. Though flowery and somewhat prescriptive,

Rahnema provides striking insight into the seldom acknowledged hubris of the modern individual-"A first condition for such a search is to look at things as they are, rather than as what we want them to be; to overcome our fears of the unknown and, instead of claiming to be able to change the world and to save 'humanity'; to try saving ourselves from our own compelling need for comforting illusions."(1997:392) The theme of reflexivity calls into question the reasons for and the need for intervention, the purpose it serves and the "target groups" it metes such service to. It is the idea of reflecting from within that distinguishes not only the conclusion to the Reader but also the different chapters written by a variety of authors that gives the book its cogency.

Arturo Escobar's Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of The Third

World presents post-structuralist theorizing at its most decisive calling on Foucauldian concepts of discourse analysis to disentangle the problematics of development as conceived historically. Chapter three in the book Encountering Development examines

100 how development discourse was initiated within economic discourse as a whole; how it was articulated in the domain of institutions; how it produced its own historical narrative; and how it gave rise to techniques of planning. His aim was "not to decide whether the early development economists were right or wrong but to develop a historical, epistemological, and cultural awareness of the conditions under which they made their choices even if the economists operated in a domain of discourse that had been created not as a result of individual cognition but through the active participation of many in a historical context..." (Escobar, 1995:58).

He calls into question development discourse and the power relations that underpin how poverty is constructed and how solutions become developed to address the discovery of such a problem. In sum, the system of relations (power) establishes a discursive practice that sets the rules of the game: who can speak, from what points of view, with what authority and according to what criteria of expertise; it sets the rules that must be followed for this or that problem, theory or object to emerge and be named, analyzed and eventually transformed into a policy or a plan (Escobar, 1995).

101 Whether they are examples of neo-populist development paradigms able to critique current practices of development, or merely discursive critiques of current economic development practices, the development literature shows a wide array of strategies and discernment as to what works and what does not. Each development strategy and its countervailing criticism serve two communities of professionals, those who practice and those who critique. Each group is supported economically by a funding flow of capital that takes a wide turn as it circles over the needy "Third World" and heads back to the

"First World."

Thematically, the three important points to elucidate from the previous section are 1) the importance of political change and instability or conversely, stability and growth as expounded upon by Hira and Parfitt. Their recognition of policy change negatively impacting the distribution of aid to the Third World is important. I would not go so far as to lay all the blame at the feet of US political instruments although they play a big role, however the significant impact of diverting flows of capital to mid-level growth countries have had severe repercussions for countries such as the Philippines. In this instance the country's deepening poverty has led to the hemorrhage of its peoples in search of a living wage in Western and European countries. The second theme that emerges most

102 significantly from the literature is the role of discourse in the production of subjects of poverty as they emerge from developing countries and the characteristics that limit their potential. Discursive formations impact class processes and although one may wish, as

Escobar does, to effect resistance against this, broader strategies are at play limiting both movement and growth of already displaced Third World migrants. The third important theme emerging from the literature is the nature of aid that becomes available to developing countries. The roles of theoretical debates and academic studies have produced different perspectives on interventionist programs. Critics of development, though primarily analytical in their work nevertheless have significant purchase in the academic world. Their analysis which pinpoints managerial processes, expert opinions and external intervention as problematic may still have little effect on existing practices where the production of aid and discourse means the preservation of livelihood of

Western workers. Sometimes, poor people just need a way to make a living in order to have food and the theoretical debate that underlies such needs is immaterial. That is not to say that the materiality of poverty outweighs the cultural or ideological aspects of subjectivities. A theme that underlies this whole thesis is the space where the material and the cultural converge. I understand the Gawad Kalinga project as providing the opportunity to look at this convergence in terms of the materiality of housing at the same

103 time the transformation of subjects encapsulated in the production of discourse from

multiple aspects.

Religious Discourse of the Poor

A discourse of the "poor" and the marginalized has been in evidence in a Christian

context since Biblical times. The Roman Catholic Church exhorts care for the poor in

conjunction with belief and faith in Jesus Christ and his teachings. This aspect of

Catholic faith was brought into focus during the Second Vatican Council in 1962. During

the four year Council which comprised a strong representation from South American

bishops, clergy and advisors, the concern for the poor in South America came to light

along with its colonial past (Cleary, 1985). Pope John XXIII in a speech during the

beginning of the council stated, "Where the underdeveloped countries are concerned, the

Church presents herself as she is, and wishes to be regarded as the Church of all, and

specially as the Church of the poor" (Gutierrez, 1990). Two other events in Latin America the Medellin and Puebla Conference of Bishops, provided the impetus for further

developing a discourse of the poor (Eagleson and Scharper,1979). Liberation theology, the struggle of the Latin American poor for land reform and social justice as it was

104 advanced by Latin American theologians and social scientists provides a rich background material to draw on to understand the discourse of the poor as it is produced by the

Gawad Kalinga project.

The most important process of adaptation for the church was the decentralization of power. Changes were at the most fundamental levels, from the mass being spoken in the native language rather than in Latin, to the inclusion of lay ministers at the different levels of church service. An ideological shift occurred at a theoretical level where the church began to question its role in the political and social conditions of the various contexts of its ministries. This came most prominently during the decolonizing time period in Latin America where the stress was placed on the people of God rather than the institutional church. Already, the condition of the Church in Latin America was proving to be a contentious one where opportunity to question the authority of the state proved problematic. The Church stressed a "preferential option for the poor" where it must live with the people and witness their suffering. This ideological shift heralded the shift in the church's role "from accepting the social and political status quo to working for social change" (Casper, 1995:21). As a result, the Church legitimized the different roles of the church participants from religious officials to lay people, allowing for greater interaction

105 between them; incorporated a concern for social justice within the expanded role of the

Church in society; encouraged freedom and voluntary commitment from its lay members; and envisioned a stronger participatory interaction between the Church and the world

(Smith, 1982:191). Liberation theology emerged from Latin America as Latin American priests began to question accepted views that economic development was benign. The

Church, which from colonial times had enjoyed significant material privileges resulting from a close association with the established order, officially and publicly went on record condemning the injustices inherent in existing social and economic structures and placed its moral weight on the side of those seeking major reforms to benefit the poor

(Smith,1975:8).

The Latin American Bishops' meetings held in Medellin (1968) and Puebla (1979) outlined four main points to structure change in the Church. The first was a closer reading of the Bible and a move away from sacrament-based work. The second was to make the

Bible relevant in the poor's everyday life. The third was to espouse evangelization even at the cost of conflict with state power. The fourth main thrust of the initiative was evangelization via grassroots groups attached to the church which would work towards

106 social justice, pastoral action and the "preferential option for the poor" (Levine, 1981:

190-191).

The discourse constructed by the Couples for Christ organization towards the Filipino poor emerged from the bourgeois project of respectability. The Filipino laity, steeped in

Catholic discourses and practices functions in a dynamic relationship with the Church, at once following and reacting to changes in the institution as well as to the social environment. Gawad Kalinga is thus positioned as a movement throughout the Filipino nation and its diaspora as an opportunity for the 'nation' to come together to address the historical and current context of poverty.

In the case of the Philippines, whose loyalty to the Church has not wavered despite the proliferation of new Protestant sects and alternative church structures, change has come about through internal processes as well as external ones. Internal processes of transformation have been dramatic with the introduction of a new ideology in the 1960s through the Second Vatican Council. Prior to this Council, the Church understood its ultimate goal to be one of saving souls and teaching religious doctrine (Mainwaring,

1986). "It saw its work as grounded in pastoral activities; saying mass, conducting charity

107 work and teaching....Thus the Church was to instill proper values in the laity so that lay people would correctly conduct themselves in the political world" (Casper, 1995:19). In order to fulfill its mission, the Church had traditionally allied itself with the state and the

Conservative elite supporting colonialism and post-colonial governments. It was supported, protected and given special privileges. In return, it served colonial purposes by providing a means of expansion, an administrative and economic organization and as a key institution of social control" (Vallier, 1967: 154). It promoted society's obedience through its influence and authority in the educational systems it built, the institutions such as hospitals and clinics in helping the poor as well as its Sunday sermon to the laity. But the Catholic Church would undergo another transformation as the Christian charismatic movement began to grow and proliferate though Catholic communities. As a movement that came out of the United States, it reached the Philippines in the late seventies.

108 "The Filipino Spirit is Rising" Antonio Meloto 2007 Commencement Exercises Ateneo de Davao University

Today, I feel intelligent. Not only am I addressing some of the brightest minds in Mindanao, but I am also being honored by this prestigious university with a Doctorate in Humanities, Honoris Causa. This is the first doctorate that I have received and I am accepting it in all humility and pride as a recognition of the nobility of the cause and the heroism of the thousands of Gawad Kalinga workers that I represent. Thank you Fr. Ting Samson and Ateneo de Davao for bestowing the highest academic degree on a man who was born without a pedigree- the "askal" (asong kalye) who went to Ateneo and came back to the slums to help those he left behind.

To a person like myself who did not excel in Ateneo in my pursuit of a college degree, receiving this PhD is extremely flattering being fully conscious that my principal role in this movement is to be the storyteller of the many who put in the sacrifice and the hard work and yet have remained mostly unrecognized. It is also exhilarating because it builds on the growing global awareness, triggered by Gawad Kalinga and other movements that have not given up on our country, that the Filipinos can and will build a squatter-free, slum- free and hunger- free Philippines by committing their collective genius, passion and strength towards restoring the dignity and the potential for excellence of the poor, the weak and the powerless.

The Filipino spirit today is rising wherever he is in the world. He is starting to discover that he has the power to liberate himself from being a slave of the past, that he can remove the label stuck to his soul as a second class people from a third world country, that he can correct the scandal of history of being the most corrupt in Asia despite being the only Christian nation, until East Timor, in the region.

In the right setting the Filipino has proven that he can be law- abiding, hardworking, honest and excellent. Over the years, I have not met a Filipino beggar in my travel to the US, Canada and Australia... not a single beggar that I have seen or have heard of out of more than 2 million Filipinos in the US; many Caucasians, Afro Americans and Latinos- yes- but no Filipinos. Clearly, it is not the nature of Filipinos to beg if he is in the right home and community environment. The mendicant culture in his native land is man-

109 made and artificial and can therefore be unmade and corrected if we give him back his dignity which is his birthright as a son of God.

In the same vein, we know that the Filipino is not lazy. Time Magazine in its 2006 article on Happiness identifies the Filipino as one of the ethnic groups in America least likely to go on welfare. How many of us know of friends and relatives who would take on two or even three jobs in pursuit of their dreams for a better life. Hardworking when motivated, resilient when tested- that is the Filipino...that is us. It is no surprise therefore that the average income of the Filipino- Americans is higher that the US national average; the former slave is now richer than the master in his master's home country.

We must believe that we were designed for excellence. World- class Filipino doctors and nurses are healing the sick of America and Europe. Our sailors dominate the seas in every mode of marine transport for commerce and pleasure providing every imaginable form of service- and often always, they are the best navigators, the best chefs, the best entertainers. Thriving economies in Asia carry the mark of Filipino managerial expertise in their start-up stage. Filipino CEOs, CFOs, COOs captain top multinational corporations carrying on the proud expat tradition of SGV's Washington Sycip, PLDT- SMART's Manny Pagnilinan, P&G's Manny Pacis and many others.

Sadly, we are top of the line, creme de la creme, the best of the best elsewhere in the world except in our homeland. While the Jews and the Arabs were busy building abundance out of their desert, we were busy creating a desert out of our abundance.

Let us put a stop to our inanity and hypocrisy. Let us stop cracking jokes about our shame and misery. Instead let us celebrate with our hard work and integrity the return of our honor and pride as a gifted people, blessed by God with this beautiful land. Let us honor every great deed, every sacrifice, and every kindness that we extend to our disadvantaged and needy countrymen.

Let us put an end to our lamentation. We have suffered long enough. For 400 years, we have been gnashing our teeth, blaming one another, stepping on each other and yet have the temerity at the end of the day to ask God why this is happening as if it was His fault. It is now time to hope, to care, to work together and to rejoice.

110 Yes, we will rise as a nation if we nurture this emerging beautiful spirit of the Filipino and cultivate an intelligent heart. How? When we show our love for God by being our brother's keeper- giving land to the landless, homes to the homeless and food to the hungry. This is about love and justice in a country where the majority of our people are landless, millions of them living in shanties and slums and 17% of them experiencing hunger in a rich and fertile land. This is not about charity but about authentic Christian stewardship and nation- building

We will rise as a nation when rich Filipinos will consider the poor as an heir, like our youngest child, equal in worth and dignity with our own children, deserving an equal share in our children's inheritance. A beautiful spirit and an intelligent heart consider the poor as family, see the face of Christ in them, and see the paradise that every slum community can become. That is why every GK home is beautifully painted and the standard of landscaping of every GK village is Ayala Alabang or Ladislawa in the case of Davao.

When we build first world communities for the poorest Filipino, we give them dignity and first world aspirations that will motivate them to dream bigger and work harder with support and nurturing. A recent study of GK Brookside, Payatas conducted by the UP Diliman College of Economics revealed an amazing result - the confidence and self- respect of the residents, many of them former scavengers, rose from 17% before GK to 99% after GK; 93% consider themselves better off in terms of quality of life and 96%) believe that their economic situation will improve in the future. Clearly the spirit of the poor is rising because those with the most share their best with the least.

This nation will rise if her sons and daughters abroad will see wisdom in helping not just their relatives, which is an admirable Filipino trait, but also the poor they do not know who need help the most.

Last night, I arrived from a 1- week trip to the U.S. for the world premiere in Chicago of "Paraiso", the Gawad Kalinga movie, and to attend GK events in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The movie was a big hit but the bigger hit for me was the phenomenal response of our patriots in America to help the motherland by building self-reliant and sustainable GK communities. The UST Medical Alumni Association of America Board was planning not just building more houses but also hospitals and community health programs through Gawad Kalusugan. USTMAA president Dr. Primo Andres is building a beautiful GK

111 Village for his wife, Sylvia in Panabo, Davao where she comes from as an expression of his deep affection for her. Another Davaoeno, former Cabinet Secretary Cito Lorenzo, joined me in booming Las Vegas to honor Filipino entertainers and realtors who are investing in the rebuilding of their home country.

Passion for the Philippines was evident everywhere I went. From successful young San Diego businessman Tony Olaes who spoke about sleepless nights in his excitement to help fund 20 new GK villages with his Filipino business partners to the SouthCal Ancop Sikad Bikers pedaling to build Sibol Schools and the Bayanihan Builders who are retired professionals in Los Angeles repairing homes of neighbors to raise resources to build homes in Bicol, to the 8 nurses in NorCal working extra shifts to fund their individual GK villages. The Filipino exile is waking up and starting to unleash a stream of Patriot Funds that will augment the OFW flow in fuelling the Philippine economy.

Today, I am here to salute the beautiful spirit and the intelligent heart of the people of Mindanao. Many of our volunteers here, like many in other parts of the country, build homes for the poor when they themselves do not own land or home. Christians here starting with caretakers from Couples for Christ set aside fear and comfort to serve our fellow Filipinos in Camp Abubakar and other Moslem GK communities. Your students are going out of the classrooms to learn about life and love of God and country by serving in poor communities. The LGU of Davao led by Mayor Duterte and many throughout Mindanao are doing massive land banking in solidarity with our conviction that no Filipino deserves to be a squatter in his own country. And many families here are starting to understand that giving a part of their land to give dignity and security to the landless and homeless poor is not only right with God but also builds peace, triggers economic activity, improves land values- creates a win- win situation for all.

And to you my dear graduates, what can I say? Congratulations of course for finishing what you began and for joining the ranks of the elite few of the Filipinos with a college degree. I thank your parents for their sacrifice and for giving us sons and daughters who will steward this country better than us.

You are entering adult life equipped with a degree from a respected university at an auspicious time in the life of our country. It is your destiny to reach maturity during this

112 great season of hope, this exciting time of awakening, this period of great challenge and heroism.

You have the choice and the opportunity to correct the mistakes of our generation and build a future full of hope in this country. You can be the new breed of political leaders who will gain your mandate through visible and quantifiable performance, rather than mastery of the art of winning elections through cheating and corruption. You can be the new captains of business and industry who will work for profit with a conscience, expanding the market base by wisely investing in developing the potential of the poor for productivity. You can be the new elite of this country who will not be happy to send your children to exclusive schools and live in exclusive subdivisions if out of school street children are ignored and Lazarus continues to live as a squatter outside your gates.

Who can stop us from claiming our Promised Land? Spain is not our master anymore. America is not our master anymore. Japan is not our master anymore. Our enemies are not the corrupt politicians, the greedy rich, the lazy poor, the religious hypocrites and other convenient scapegoats. Our enemies are not out there anymore. Our enemies are now within us.

We have compromised our values and tolerated corruption. We have lowered our standard and tolerated poverty. We have sacrificed the truth for hypocrisy. We have chosen convenience for vision, popularity for leadership...and have chosen despair over hope.

Do we fight or do we run? Is there a King Leonides among you who will fight for honor and freedom? Are there 300 Spartans among you who will confront our enemies with extraordinary courage and love? Can you be the army who will lead our people to victory following the path of peace? Are you the generation of patriots who can shout to the world that no Filipino will remain poor because you will not allow it; that no Filipino will remain a squatter because you will not allow it; that no politician will remain corrupt because you will not allow it?

If you are, then join us in Gawad Kalinga. Together, we can build a great nation, first world in the eyes of God and respected by other great nations.

Godspeed to you our patriots and heroes. God bless our beloved Philippines.

113 A Discourse Analysis

A discourse analysis of a speech given by a leader within the Couples for Christ organization follows the section on development discourse and religious discourse. The speech contains similar discursive elements. In this speech, the object of analysis is the poor characterized as the immoral and unproductive citizens of the nation requiring both remedial intervention in their work habits, and moral and material uplift. The speech draws on the responsibilities, not of the state, but on the poor's "brothers and sisters", fellow citizens of the nation to help in the moral reconstruction of their lives and the actual construction of their homes. Unlike development discourse, where funding sources are organized through international channels of monetary aid controlled by Western organizations, The Gawad Kalinga project relies on a funding source within its religious network, through its membership. The Couples for Christ organization is wide-ranging, international and able to reach a wide audience through its well-organized structure. The structure has the inherent power of mobilizing its religious constituents through centuries of religious indoctrination. Members of the Couples for Christ organization have an obligation to help their fellow man as a service to God. This service takes many shapes, the key manifestation, during the past few years, being the Gawad Kalinga project.

114 Description of Text

The text is presented from a website. Each line has been numbered to facilitate this descriptive section. The overall tone of the text is conciliatory. It is an invitation from the author of the text to the graduates of the university to join him in a mission to help build the nation and ameliorate poverty in the Philippines. In the first twelve lines, the author locates himself within academia, as "addressing some of the brightest minds" at a prestigious university (lines 1-2). To a person like himself who had attended the university but "did not excel" (line 9) and considers himself "as/cal" (asong kalye){\mt

7), roughly translated as stray dog, he nevertheless associates himself in the same class as his audience in contrast to the slums and slum dwellers who he helps. In the next six lines, he names the Gawad Kalinga project as a movement among Filipinos "to build a squatter-free, slum-free and hunger-free Philippines" through collective action (lines 13-

18). It is here that the intervention is presented as the restoration of the dignity of "the poor, the weak and the powerless" (lines 17-18). The next section develops the idea of the

Filipino as a product of history with the "power to liberate himself from being a slave of the past" (line 20). The construction of the Filipino as law-abiding, hardworking, honest

115 and excellent (lines 25-26) continues, with examples of doctors, nurses and sailors (lines

41-49) with a culminating statement of creating a desert out of our abundance within our homeland (line 52).

It is at this juncture in recalling the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East that the text takes on religious imagery and biblical overtones, "blessed by God in this beautiful land"

(line 55). The next four lines is a metaphor to the Jewish exodus out of oppression as in calling out in lamentation, suffering and gnashing of teeth over four hundred years of oppression (lines 58-60). The text concludes this section with hope and a beckoning to care and work together (line 61). In the next section (lines 65-75) contrast is made between the landless, homeless and hungry poor to the rich Filipino living in Ayala

Alabang or Ladislawa in Davao which are exclusive gated communities.

The next paragraph lines-76-84 speaks to the transformation of the poor who are helped through the program with research results that seem to quantify their self-esteem (lines

79-82) The next section provides a transition to GK fundraising efforts abroad with examples of the outpouring of donations from Filipinos residing inn the United States

116 (lines 88-108). Acknowledgement is given to the GK work accomplished in the local setting of Mindanao where the university is located (lines 109-121).

The following paragraphs return the focus to the graduates for their achievement and the promise of their future (lines 122-129). The graduates are defined as the new upcoming elites of the country who will take the place and "correct the mistakes of our generation"

(line 130). A mandate is given to the graduates to live more ethically with the Christian directive to "not be happy to send your children to exclusive schools and live in exclusive subdivisions if out of school street children are ignored and Lazarus continues to live as a squatter outside your gates" (lines 136-138).

The next paragraph presents self-reflection as the impetus to stop looking outside of the country to blame others, "Our enemies are not out there anymore. Our enemies are now within us" (lines 142-143). Again invoking Christian values, the underlying statement speaks to greed, competition and capitalist values. The ending is far more forthright as a call to arms for the graduates to join in the fight for honor and freedom (lines 148-149), freedom from poverty, homelessness and corruption and a call for nation building (line

151).

117 Analysis

This section of the discourse analysis is divided into the three strategies outlined above.

The first section will examine the text for a coherent system of meanings, discourses that are invoked intricately to produce subjects (subjectivities). The second section looks at the specific subjects produced within the text and the third section links instances of power/knowledge to the discourses invoked.

At the outset, it is helpful to review Foucault's particular method of discourse analysis which functions to "help us analyze cultural texts, discourses and representations as sources of power and discipline...This Foucauldian analysis locates ideology both in doctrinal texts and in discursive practices that transform ideological admonitions and recommendations into lived experience..." (Agger, 2006; Rojek, 2007). Fundamentally,

Meloto's text consists of admonitions and recommendations to address the problematic he outlines as the crisis of poverty of the Philippines. His approach in this matter combines multiple discourses to exhort and entreat the new graduates to co-operate in this endeavour, the GK project. Three discourses are employed most consistently throughout the text, religious discourse which calls on Biblical imagery and doctrine, a

118 nationalist discourse that contributes to the imagery and recalls a colonial history, and a discourse of capitalism, bringing class dynamics into focus within the production of subjects.

Religious discourse comes into play as a specific discourse of poverty. Different from a development discourse of poverty, the identification of a triad of "the poor, the weak and the powerless" (line 18) brings religious imagery immediately into view. The most striking imagery emerging from the religious discourses deployed from lines 55-75, where "Filipinos blessed by God with this beautiful land" confront their dilemma. Four hundred years of colonial subjugation though stated implicitly, is invoked as lamentation, suffering and gnashing of teeth similar to the liberation of Jews from Egypt to the

"Promised Land" (line 139). This deliverance can only be achieved in the act of

"showing our love for God by being our brother's keeper" (line 63-64), through

"authentic Christian stewardship and nation building." It is at this juncture that the discourses of religion and nationalism align. As seen in the previous section of the paper,

Filipino nationalist identity was slow to develop, and it was not until the American colonial apparatus of compulsory education under an American system did a national identity become cohesive and systematically deployed. The purpose, though nefarious

119 and advantageous for the United States nevertheless produced a Filipino national identity

recognizable to the outside world.

The Filipino identity discursively produced in this text as law-abiding, hardworking when

motivated, honest and excellent is deployed as universal Filipino characteristics. A very

interesting maneuver takes place in the discursive development of the Filipino identity.

The Filipino is situated within the nation as both and at once a part of the poor working

class, the mobile expatriate middle class and the young, elite upper-class graduates. What

I understand from this discursive framing is the idea that what situates each person in one

class or the other is circumstance. Social structures and birthright are the defining

circumstance for each individual. Nation building becomes a project for the whole

society to take part in even for those Filipinos who have left the country.

Class structure is subtly embedded in the text through specific imagery of travels abroad

in America and Europe, through specific upper-class locales in Ayala Alabang and

Ladislawa, as well through the presentation of this speech act at a prestigious university,

Ateneo de Davao. The naming of professional expatriates, doctors, nurses, businessman

also attest to the class framework that exists in the Philippines with the recognition of the

120 enormous gap between the rich upper-class and the poverty stricken lower- class. These

particular discourses of religion, nation and class presents an image of the Philippines as

a nation rising "when rich Filipinos will consider the poor as an heir, like our youngest

child equal in worth and dignity with our own children, deserving an equal share in our

children's inheritance." What is striking is the movement from nation to family as Meloto exhorts that "A beautiful spirit and an intelligent heart consider the poor as family" (lines

71-72).

For Foucault, the notion that identity and practice are organized through discourse makes this passage particularly salient ( Rojek, 2007). The text in producing its own discourse is constructing the Filipino identity into accepting the Christian responsibility of stewardship, of being his brother's keeper and of sharing wealth in a fairly pragmatic way through participating in the Gawad Kalinga project. Clearly, this reconstruction of the

Filipino identity targets multiple groups. First, the poor are being reconstructed as deserving of help from their brothers, exhorted to become law-abiding, hardworking, honest and excellent like the Filipinos who are known all over the world. The second group, the graduates being the newly minted elites of the country, many who belong to prominent families who have profited from colonial rule, are expected to change their

121 trajectories of power, wealth accumulation and corruption to become part of the rebirth of a new nation. The discourse, though implicit is critical of the power that rests within the political elite, the families who have been reluctant to share either power or resources.

The nationalist discourse though solicitous nevertheless appears to have wider consequences as nation-building becomes a societal project encompassing the participation and the resources of Filipinos outside the country. Class dynamics has implications within and outside of the country in the confrontation between subjectivities.

The next chapter discusses classed subjectivities more broadly with empirical data from the interviews at both research sites.

Conclusion

This chapter provided the opportunity to understand the contrast between development discourse and religious discourse. It outlined the effect of the Second Vatican Council as an ideological shift in the Catholic Church's treatment of the poor. The section on development discourse also presented the mainstream discourses of the poor within the development paradigm along with the critiques of development. The chapter went on to provide a brief history of the charismatic movement in the Philippines within the Couples

122 for Christ organization. The last section of the chapter was a discourse analysis of a speech by a Gawad Kalinga leader. The discourse within the speech contained elements found in development and religious discourse. All of the discourses presented the poor as the object of analysis requiring remedial intervention. The main difference between the discourses was the secular or religious orientation of each one which meant that they had access to different funding processes. Development programs being secular are able to make use of international channels of monetary aid with its attendant consequences.

Gawad Kalinga, as a project of a faith-based organization circulates within the channels of its religious networks and has access to the resources within its religious constituents.

123 Chapter Six: Mobile Class Subjects: The Tale of Two GK Villages

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to explicate how mobile class subjects arrive at a self- definition within their experiences in the Gawad Kalinga village. Through the theoretical understanding of discourse, empirical data is presented that illustrates the narratives of self-creation within the interview process. My contention is that discourse provides opportunities for agency and resistance within the narratives of the interview participants.

In this chapter, what is embedded in the discourse of the interviewees is a class process that provides, in the first case, self-definition and in the subsequent cases, self- categorization. In recounting their narratives, the PDII's wife defines herself as a member of a middle-class faith organization with whom she is associated. In the cases of the couples at the village, their narratives of self-creation classify them as among the needy poor eligible for a house in the village despite the difficulty of categorizing them as such.

Definitions of self are influenced by spatial dimensions. In this chapter, the materiality of the built environment, the GK village itself and the houses within it, present opportunities to align a classed self-definition with the middle-class. In entering the middle-class space

124 of the village, "poor" subjects are able to redefine and therefore transform into the required middle-class subject of the village exhibiting both productive and moral changes in their conduct.

Classed Identities: Who is Middle-Class?

My son and I arrived at the Naga bus station tired from an eight hour long overnight journey from Manila. We would be meeting Mariel, the research assistant later in the day. The Couples for Christ member who came to pick us up brought us to his large home surrounded by a fence. As we drove up to his house the front gates were opened by a man, perhaps his driver or a guard, who opened the door to the garage in which three other cars were parked. Our host brought us to an air-conditioned room with its own bathroom, which was his mother's room; she was currently visiting relatives in the

States.

After a short rest, our host provided us breakfast and brought us to a grocery store to buy our provisions for the three day stay. We were advised to purchase candy for the children

125 of the village who would be expecting treats. We picked up Mariel, the research assistant at the bus station and we were on our way. The drive from the city to the village was about thirty minutes, easily covered by his SUV. The dirt road, full of pot holes and stones was five kilometers from the main highway. This was the daily trek the villagers had to make to get to the main road and ride a jeepney into town. We drove up to the village with a view of a field on each side of the road, one side with a patch of dried up corn and the other side, a patch of dried up beanstalks, the wooden supports holding up the stalks still standing upright. Further down the road and to the left was an enclosure.

We were told it held a pool of small fish, the beginnings of a fish pond despite the fact that most of the fish had died weeks ago due to the heat.

Our arrival at the village was greeted with enthusiasm and curiosity. We were made welcome. Our host did not stay long, leaving shortly after handing out candy and greeting the GK administrators of the village. My research team was treated as the guests of honor, attended to by several families of the village to take care of daily needs.

One of the wives cooked our meals and her husband gathered water for us early in the morning. Others could be called upon for help and direction as we strolled about in the

126 village. My function it turned out was to provide voice for the administrators of the village and somehow bring their concerns to the places of power in MetroManila.

Our host and his wife were prominent members of the Couples for Christ organization.

They were the identifiable upper middle-class whose capital accumulation places them above the norm in that area. His family had a transport business. His position in the organization was fairly high up at the regional level.

Within the Couples for Christ hierarchy and immediately below the regional level of our host was the PD I (Program Director of GK Village I). He was a supervisor at the Coca

Cola Bottling plant. His means of transportation to get from his home to the GK village was a motorcycle. His wife, close to sixty years of age with helmet on her head hung onto his waist as he navigated the dirt road leading out to the main road. At a level below the program director was the education director, who was a teacher at a local school, walked from her school located behind the village holding an umbrella over her head as protection from the heat of the afternoon sun. At a similar level was the livelihood director, a widow who wore a straw hat on her head as she arrived in a tricycle. The

127 mushroom farmer, newly appointed and preparing to take over the livelihood director, had walked from the main road. Although they were all gainfully employed, it seemed clear that not all could afford to help in the same way as others, financial well-being not having been distributed evenly though the expectation to help is equally distributed throughout.

Similarly, the group in Sariaya displayed uneven capabilities in giving help. To illustrate, the PD II (Program Director of Village II) worked at a local copra factory as a supervisor, but his wife was not working and they had two sons, one in high-school the other in college. The education director, gainfully employed in the government whose wife was a teacher nevertheless had four children of varying ages. The livelihood director, a businessman whose wife was the optician of the optical store in the city had a van and could be relied upon to give everyone rides during trips for meetings in places further away than nearby Lucena. They were all stalwart in their acceptance of their roles in helping the poor, not complaining very much about the amount of time, effort and resources that the volunteer job extracted from them. One of the most interesting interviews of the group was with the PD II's wife.

128 Her husband had been on the evening shift and was not available for the interview. We sat down and began the interview with her recounting their start in the Couples for

Christ organization. They had been invited several times to join the group by a good friend but both agreed, especially her husband that CFC was only for the "rich. " They gave in to their friend who had invited them but it wasn 't until the fourth "talk" that they became interested in the teachings. The following are excerpts of my interview with her:

PDII's wife: "The way that I used to be, I had a big mouth. Before when my money dropped to below 500 I became hotheaded (ang init nang ulo ko no-on). Truthfully, my

God. Now I say God will provide for our needs. My children were saying just a few days ago what a big change has come over our Mom. Just a small amount of pay (kita nang asawa) but she did not get upset. That was just ok. "

Nel: "What kind of work did you do before? "

129 PDII's wife: "Before I used to work for a short while in the government. Only six months.

But I was business minded and when I got into Avon I had a lot of people working for me. "

According to her, it took Gawad Kalinga to change her and her family's life. For her in particular, her outlook changed with Gawad Kalinga. She states that:

PDII's wife: "I complained and complained about my life (about not having enough money) when there were others worse off. That is what changed me. Really, I complained a lot because you know I consider myself 'advanced.' For instance, at the beginning of the week I would already be thinking that there would not be enough food for the next week. Because I did not believe that I could leave it up to God. I still complained a lot

(mareklamo pa rin); I asked their Dad, "Is this going to be our life?" It was in the beginning of Gawad Kalinga when we were doing the 'profiles' that I saw the children and it was ok with them whatever there was to eat. I said to myself look at how needy these people were and what little they had to eat and here I am complaining and

130 complaining. What a difference. It was then that I realized that prayer is not enough, there should also be service. "

For the PDII's wife, Gawad Kalinga presented an opportunity for her to come to terms with her life as it was, by letting go of her desire to be "better off' and have more money.

She came to recognize the difference between herself and the poor families she met through visiting the squatter homes and completing the 'profiles' of the poor families.

She came to the conclusion that she was still better off and had little to complain about compared to the really poor squatters that they were meeting. In this interview, which is akin to a confessional, our participant talks about having to continually contain her ambitions, limit her materialistic desires and remind herself of the value and the honor of spiritual aspirations as opposed to economic wealth and in these various ways subjugate herself to the doctrine that circulates within this middle-class group.

131 Profiles of the Villagers

In order to be eligible for a house in a GK village, the family applying for such an opportunity is first assessed by a government official, through the Department of Social

Work and Development, and a Couples for Christ administrator. The "profiling" is often the first opportunity for the middle-class administrator to come in contact with a beneficiary, the poor. A form is filled out and the family's picture is taken. The form contains pertinent information regarding education, family income and the picture, taken in front of the family's home displays the state of their family dwelling. The records are compiled and an assessment is made regarding who is deserving of a house in the GK village and who is in the most urgent need of housing. Once a list is completed, the beneficiaries are informed of the mandatory values formation course that they must enroll in and the village site in which to serve their fifteen hundred hours of "sweat equity".

132 The GK Build: a space of engagement

The next opportunity for the middle-class and the poor to interact is during the long process of a GK build. Depending on the equipment available and the engineering and construction expertise at hand, a GK build can commence and reach completion within months or years. Some villages are supported well by the Couples for Christ organization in the area along with the assistance of the local governance structure. Uneven development occurs when the GK administrators who are managing the site lack social capital and are poorly regarded by the local governing structure. The co-operation of powerful political actors in the local setting is seldom seen as a barrier to the development of the village but merits consideration. Couples for Christ chapters with a strong middle-class base and has the support of local politicians on the whole proceed more swiftly and function more successfully under such tutelage.

The GK build takes place over the span of several months during construction with various family members, whether the husband alone or with older children, participates by providing the requisite fifteen hundred hours of "sweat equity" as manual labor in

133 which they dig ditches or plant gardens to fulfill their duty. In this setting, where there is a lively atmosphere of optimism and co-operation, celebrities who are looking for photo opportunities, politicians looking for votes and prominent government officials looking on as well as foreigners looking to broaden their horizon come together to help the poor.

Entering into a Middle-Class Space

The GK build provides the poor the opportunity to meet members of society who previously they would not have come in contact with, other than anonymously in urban spaces. In the GK build, the poor are treated with "respect and dignity". The middle-class and the poor work together painting the outside walls of houses, putting up fences and roofs and they talk to each other amidst the bustle. During these few hours in a build when different people from different positions and locales come together to help each other, a space of safety, hope and optimism is built. Prayer and music suffuse the atmosphere of co-operation and goodwill. The poor are already being transformed within the setting of newly constructed houses, they are regarded differently and in turn they behave differently. As I was told, they now are able to look others in the eye, they display

134 pride in their accomplishments, in taking part in the GK project and in the way that they have become productive citizens already just in having been chosen to become a resident in the village.

The GK village is constructed in a very orderly way, houses built in rows with space for a garden in front and space all around. The houses are sturdily made of hollow-blocks with a galvanized tin roof, glass-slatted windows and a wooden door. The exterior of the houses are brightly painted. The paths between the homes are to be kept free of litter and the gardens at the front expected to be well-maintained.

The houses are small, only about two hundred and fifty square feet. The rooms are separated into a public space with a living room at the front and a kitchen and bathroom at back. There is a wall that separates the private sleeping area. (Photographs of the two

GK village sites where the fieldwork was conducted are located on page 137-138).

135 The homes were furnished according to income in the villages that we visited where the beneficiaries had been in residence for a number of years. Some families possessed a radio, television or electric stoves depending on the availability of electricity and the family's income level. The transformation from a flimsy house made of wood to a well- made house in a setting that resembled a subdivision would have been felt immediately by the recipient and his family upon taking up residence in the GK village. That is not to say that housing developments have not been previously attempted by the Philippine government to address the needs of the squatter population. In the first village we stayed at, visible in the distance was an abandoned housing project with the roofs of the houses caving in from the effects of the last monsoon season. The houses in that subdivision had never been occupied by the people for whom it was intended. When asked about the reason why, the response from the GK administrators of that village was that the distance to the highway was too far for most people and there was no interest in taking up residency. There may have been other reasons but that was immaterial. The GK village I stood in was the same distance away from the local highway but the squatter group for whom it was intended was in residence and consequently making the daily trek to the main highway five kilometers away. The difference between the two housing projects I

136 could surmise could have been the relationship between the GK administrators and the

GK beneficiaries.

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138 Livelihood Projects in the GK village

The Couples for Christ organization acknowledges the need for sustainable settlements and one of the integral programs in the GK village is the livelihood program. Livelihood programs are run by directors who may or may not have experience in the job. The education directors, in both the villages we visited were teachers with the requisite understanding of what was required to make an education program successful. Again depending on the expertise of the individual, livelihood directors did not necessarily have the skills required to make the program work.

139 The livelihood director in the first village we visited was the widow of the deceased director and was therefore ineffective in her role. The Department of Social Work and

Development, in an effort to provide a livelihood project to the village had given seeds to grow corn and beans, but we saw the evidence of failed agricultural attempts in the dried remains of beanstalks and corn in the fields at the front of the village (photo on page

138). As one administrator commented, they had planted the seeds in the middle of the summer and therefore how could they have expected them to grow. The water pump was a long way to walk and with no irrigation system or running water, how could they have expected the plants to thrive. A third project that was initiated was a fish pond for which the Department of Social Work and Development had provided five hundred minnows.

Unfortunately, no one had taught the residents to build a covered fish pond to prevent the fish from dying in the heat and as a consequence very few were still alive when we visited. The work of replenishing the water, heated by the noon day sun fell on the shoulders of one male resident and he did not show interest in furthering the project. The fourth project they were about to embark on was a mushroom cultivation project. The role of director had been taken over from the widow and the new director, a mushroom grower himself seemed to have both the expertise and the commitment to make it work.

140 With very little funding required, he had the plan and the process ready to put in place.

He was just waiting for support from the local Couples for Christ chapter to provide the funds to purchase the initial equipment required. The group had already started though, with a team of women, the wives usually left in the village to look after their children already learning the work process itself (photo of the nursery school program on page

139).

In the second GK village that we stayed at the program director was also the supervisor at a local copra plant. He was able to recruit a number of men and women from the GK village to work at the plant. Although the work depended on the copra harvest and production, many of them had fairly regular employment, although increasing casualization at the plant was an issue. Many of the women who worked there were called only for temporary work. Other families coped with livelihood requirements by working as day laborers or as tenant farmers working the surrounding land for produce.

Two families had family members abroad as overseas foreign workers, one woman in

Japan and a man in the Middle East.

141 The GK village provided an opportunity for the poor to live in a safe, orderly and stable environment. In this setting, a normative lifestyle following the rules of conduct expected by the GK administration is possible. The houses, a major improvement from the ramshackle dwellings that the poor had previously occupied, provide a strong incentive to transform and conform to the agreements laid out for the beneficiaries. Primarily, the rules that the beneficiaries were obliged to follow were: to attend the values formation workshops; to attend weekly mass; and to, behave accordingly with the proper decorum.

To that effect there was supposed to be no fighting between couples, no mistreatment of children who are supervised in an educational setting during the day and most importantly, to become productive citizens and provide for their children; along with that there was to ne consumption of alcohol, no gambling or the vices that would have been perceived as immoral behavior by the organization.

The subjectivization of the poor, the beneficiaries who have to construct themselves in a particular way in order to deserve a house in the GK village occurs in multiple ways.

There was no attempt to ascertain the psychological changes that may have been experienced by the beneficiaries during the interviews. The focus of the research was on the transformative changes that emerged from their discourse without verifying the

142 veracity of the truth-claims that they had made; hence the narratives were taken at face value. The data, as it stood was not extensive and had not explored their reaction to the new setting other than their narratives of behavioural adaptations and compliance to the rules of the GK village. The relationship between doctrinal teachings and discourse and the constitution of the individual poor can be understood empirically in the following participant interviews. Three couples are discussed in the interviews below. Each couple does not fit the typical image of the poor having inhabited different locations on the class continuum than the discourse has allowed. All three examples come from the GK Village

I, the first research site that we stayed at in Abangayon.

Being Property-less as being vulnerable

Couple #5 did not belong to the same squatter community as the target group. The target group belonged to a squatter community located at the side of the national highway beside a river near Baracca. Their primary means of livelihood was fishing in the river, which depending on the season provided abundant fish to sell at the side of the road or in the local market. A number of fatalities from children who were run over by jeepneys and trucks as they played at the side of the highway had caused the local mayor to look for

143 alternative housing for this group. Seasonal monsoons also produced havoc in the homes of the squatter community as their houses, flimsy and made of scavenged material were destroyed each time monsoon weather hit the area. The wife of Couple #5 lived in town and had a dwelling that was more sturdily built. She happened to be outside of her house when government officials came by looking for her neighbor. Her neighbor, nowhere to be found, was the target beneficiary for a house in the GK village under construction. She was asked to inform her neighbor and at the same time received an invitation herself which she at first rejected.

Mariel(researcher): Where did you used to live?

Couple#5 wife: At Santa Anna, not far from here.

Mariel: What kind of dwelling did you live in? Was it a rental ?

Couplers wife: We asked permission from the godfather of my husband.

Mariel: What was that for? To rent the house to you?

144 Couple#5 wife: No, they just let us use the property since it belonged to the grandmother.

Mariel: Was it because no one had lived there in the house of your husband's godfather?

Couple#5 wife: No not really. The house actually belonged to us. It was just the land that we...

Mariel: Oh, you mean you built your own house on that piece of land.

Nel: So you were like a tenant?

Couple#5 wife: No, not at all. We just asked permission to use their land because we had no property to put up a house on.

Nel: So how did you get in the GK program?

145 Couple#5 wife: It was my neighbor who was picked to get in. It was our barangay captain who told me about it. He was looking for my neighbor and he asked me to let my neighbor know that he was looking for him. The he asked me if I wanted to join the orientation session. I asked him where it was, since I didn 't know and he told me it was here behind the Rehab building. I could not answer him right away since my husband was not around but I said I would see.

When my husband arrived home I told him about it. I asked him if he wanted me to attend the orientation, he asked, where is it? Even before we were married I wanted to have our own house because of what I experienced when I was young. Every time there was a typhoon (bagyo) (monsoon is habagat) our house would be destroyed and we would have to move to another location, my father would have to ask permission from landowner for us to build our house on his property. I don't know how many times we moved due to a monsoon. This is what I experienced and I am hoping my children wouldn 't experience the same thing. But unfortunately, we had no money when we got married, we also asked permission to build (nakiusap din kami) Then when this opportunity arrived I thought this must be it. Therefore during the interviews, when they were looking at the requirements and we really have absolutely nothing...so when my husband came home and I asked him

146 if he wanted me to enter the program, he said, well why not if it would benefit us. I asked my oldest son also if he wanted to move to the village and he asked if there was running water and electricity (she laughs, there hasn 't been any running water or electricity in the three years since the village was built).

For Couple#5 the desire to own her own house and lot was provided through a chance encounter with the barangay captain. Completing the profiling process, the sweat equity required to be a homeowner and the values formation course that was mandatory were only a small measure to help her achieve her dream of home ownership. She was happy to comply with all the requirements even though her family did not fit the profile of poverty in the way that others did because to begin with they were not residents of the target area, Baracca. They also had built a home of solid foundation albeit on property that they did not own but was owned by her husband's godfather who gave them permission to build on it. Also they did not easily fit the eligibility requirements since her husband had been known to be working as a "trimobile driver." Shortly after being accepted into the program, the husband gave up his "trimobile territory" and became only a day labourer often going further afield to look for work than their area. In order to fit the eligibility criteria, she had to present not only her family's positioning as needy, her

147 husband's work as contingent but also draw on her personal experiences recalled from her childhood as vulnerable and emphasize their lack of accumulated wealth. What I have pointed out in this example is the problematic related to the definition of "need" How is this estimation made? Who decides who is needy or not? How strictly is this enforced?

By this example, the question of neediness can be presented in many ways but the

Philippines is primarily made up of poor people; who decides and by what parameters are used especially when flexibility is preferred rather than strictness. This family was an exemplar in the village; helpful to the research team and relied upon by the GK administrators to comply. The wife was quiet and reserved, soft-voiced and shy. They had attended all the requisite orientation courses and the CLP (Christian Life Program) as initiation into the Couples for Christ community. Their home was well-kept and the children looked after and attended to, not running around the village disheveled and unkempt. As instructed, the wife attended to us, providing us with our meals and providing us with the water for our bathroom, drawn from the well and carried up to the guest house. They surely deserved to benefit and more since they were the ideal in terms of docile subjects even if they were not typical of the poor, their class location clearly in a state of flux being more malleable than even I would have expected.

148 We were asked by the GK administrators specifically to interview Couple #4 in Village 1 because they were included in the second group of beneficiaries who were admitted into the village and have had the most complaints. They had not become compliant or ideal subjects as they were known to fight and not attend the mandatory weekly prayer meetings that the other couples were encouraged to go to. They were among those who resisted conversion into the Couples for Christ doctrine.

The husband got up at five o'clock every morning to start work. He sells (lako) taho, a soy based product sold door-to-door in a specified area. His area was at a subdivision nearby; he walked shouting out his wares with the taho contained in two baskets slung across a pole that he carries on his shoulders. He has usually finished his rounds by ten o'clock in the morning. I asked him what he did after finishing so early in the day. After he finished selling, because by then it would be too hot to walk around, he would go to the rice field (palayari) and tend to their rice seedlings. He would work the two jobs until the harvest.

Couple #4 wife: He looks after it from lunchtime until 2 p.m.; he goes to the rice field.

149 Last year, she states, they were not able to harvest since there was too much rain and the water flowed through the field too quickly and washed all the seedlings away. They had come by this rice field through a customer who had wanted to purchase a pig from them, a while back when they were selling pigs that they had grown. He left them the rice field as a pawned item until he could come back for it. He has not yet come back, according to them and it has already been several years.

Mariel: This year no harvest?

Couple #4 husband: Actually there is some growth. The seedlings are starting.

Mariel: So it will soon be time.

Couple #4 husband: Yes, it will be soon.

Couple #4 wife: So, at least we won 7 be buying rice this year.

150 Prominently displayed in the living room is a television set which the wife ruefully admits has not been in use for quite a while.

Couple #4 wife: It must be broken by now, it hasn 't been turned on in over two years.

Their squatter house in Baracca had electricity since the different families would illegally connect wiring to the main electrical posts that ran up and down the highway. It had been a major disappointment that the GK village had neither electricity nor running water. Her son's chore upon returning from school everyday was to carry water from the pump, about 500 meters away, to their house.

They were both tall and slim, not typical of most Filipinos. They had five children, four of whom were boys and one girl. The wife was quite pretty with dark features; she had come from the more southern region of Luzon. She was also related to the barangay captain and to many other families in the village. Her family was part of the group who had populated the Baracca area and had been targeted to relocate to the village. She

151 herself had suffered an accident and had been hit by a jeepney; it had taken a long while for her to recover.

This couple presented a different example of need again. They were slightly better off than many others in the GK village because the husband had a steady means of income with a secondary means to obtain rice through his work in the rice field. The husband showed both entrepreneurship and hard work in providing for his family. They had obviously also been thrifty in that they had saved up for a television. It was obvious that some of the resistance that the GK administrators had been dealing with from this couple stemmed from the ambivalence this couple felt towards their relocation to the village.

Although, she had suffered a life-threatening accident by the highway, the amenities previously available to them, the accessibility of the village to the main road and the lack of running water were issues that they have had to deal with.

The teacher newly hired at the Abangayon GK village to teach the pre-school program at the village school, was a resident of the village. He had been brought up by a priest who had looked after him from a young age and had taken care of his education. The priest had put him through elementary school, high school and even college. He had attained a

152 Bachelor's degree in education and was able to teach. Unfortunately he had not passed his certification examination and therefore was limited in his teaching opportunities. His last teaching job was at a convent from 2003-2004 which was the priest's parish at the time. The priest who had been looking after him since he was a child was like a father to him. He received a posting in Toronto, Canada and from the time he left this teacher had not had a steady teaching job.

Couple#6 husband: I also worked in Manila. After I graduated, I worked in real estate in

Manila. I also was able to work as a teacher for about ten years. The only thing was that it I would be moving from place to place. They were all private schools.

Nel: Why only private?

Couple#6 husband: They have become more strict. If you are not certified you cannot work in the public sector.

Nel: Did you not take your exams?

153 Couple#6 husband: I did but I failed (bagsak). I have a license now though because after ten years they will allow you to teach as long as you have had practical experience. The license was given by the PRC, the Philippine Registration Commission (sic) but it is renewable after three years. But the license they gave me was only for primary grades, up to grade 1. As opposed to those who have a formal license, they have more opportunities.

Nel: So this job is just right for you?

He was quite regretful that he had not earned enough to be able to save money for a down payment on a property. Ever since they were married, they had been dealing with hard times. It seems that they also depend on family to help get them through. Presumably the priest was sending him money still.

Couple#6 wife: This place is particularly good for our children. At least now they have some stability. Because before, it was wherever the tide would take us, wherever we could rent.

154 Mariel: It would be deducted from your money.

Couple#6 wife: That is so true, instead of going to buying food for our children it would go towards rent. It would be fine if the rent was equivalent to only one small room but not....

Mariel: Before did you also cook food to sell to supplement your income?

CoupleM husband: Yes. We cooked the food that came from the ground? Or rather camoteng kahoy, cassava etc.

This couple had been living a far more contingent life than would have been expected from a teacher. His dependency on the priest, a father-figure was apparent although the priest had been away from the country for three years. Without his presence to help settle him into a job, the teacher was hard-pressed to find employment and had only been lucky to be able to teach at the village because of the need to provide preparatory education for the growing population.

155 Conclusion

The examples illustrated above all present cases where it is difficult to fit the subjects into specific categories. The first case that was discussed was about the wife of the program director who was not as well off as she could have been, having given up a lucrative entrepreneurial business in order to conform to the middle class values espoused by the GK administration for its members. The second case was about a woman whose family did not fit the target group because they were not living in the target area, whose husband had a steady business driving a trimobile and who lived in a house that they themselves had built although the land did not belong to them. The next couple was also somewhat better off since the husband, also entrepreneurial had a steady job selling taho and a second job farming rice. The last couple was interesting in that the husband was educated and had a profession yet they were living a contingent life dependent on others, primarily the mentor and father-figure for the man. These were examples of profiles that could not easily fit the known criteria of poverty. They presented life stories that spoke of need but these needs were all variable.

156 The underlying assumption of property ownership and the stability implied by owning property marks the symbolism of the GK village. The arrival of seasonal monsoon weather and the havoc it creates in people's lives is a primary motivator. It is interesting to note that the squatter homes of the target group in Baracca also exhibited stability, having been there over three generations even exhibiting the modernized amenities of having access to electricity that the GK village did not have. Yet for some, the village provided the opportunity for ownership that they so desired even as they patiently waited for the arrival of electricity and running water.

Credit is the mechanism that allows for the largesse of giving homes to the needy. The idea that money is not exchanged is important. In its place, value that is exchanged is intangible. It is found in the transformation that is expected to happen to the conduct and lifestyle of the poor, however that is envisioned by the GK administration. This is the territory where discourse meets with the concrete materiality of property. Credit is the promise of payment but because the village has been given and built through Christian philanthropy and no money has been exchanged, what is extracted in its place is the conduct of conducts that does eventually have a transformative effect on some. Credit

157 allows for the movement of the subjects from one class location to another through the sheer possibility of property ownership along with the change in habitus that comes about through the concrete transformation of space, in the solidly built houses withstanding the weather and the well-ordered village providing educational opportunities for their children.

Gibson-Graham conceives of individuals taking part in multiple class processes in complex ways at any one time. The importance of understanding the complex interaction between the individual and society implies acceptance of multiple class identities in a de- centered, and changing dynamic relationship (Gibson & Graham, 2000). As the poor participate in the multiple class processes inhabiting the nebulous areas where one is neither too poor nor well-off enough, there exists a space where categorizing proves problematic and where random occurrences have more play. There is nothing that can be

"fixed into place" like categories that produce the poor, the subjects themselves are able to re-produce their own class positions as they see fit and depending on their need. The interviews that were presented are examples of how class identities had neither fit well into categories nor were stable. It is in their stories that I could sense that in the re-telling

158 changes were being made, adaptations were being taken in order to fit the categories discursively produced by the GK structure. Therefore, the stories were fitting in their expression of the nuances and the agency displayed by the participants in the telling of their stories as it related to their class position.

The formation of classed subjects was discussed in this chapter. The following chapter looks at the subject as a product of discourse and their own self-creation through the narratives they present in their interviews. The importance of discursive formations as a constraining factor is discussed at length with regards to gender. The patriarchical structures embedded in the Couples for Christ organization, the religious discourses framing these constraints and the role that Capital plays within gendered structures are what interest me. The narratives are treated primarily as discursive formations with a focus on how the subjects themselves reproduce discourse as they understand it through self-creation. Attention is paid to opportunities where agency can be effected.

159 Chapter Seven: Patriarchy and Moral Conduct in the Gawad Kalinga Village

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the power of a patriarchal regime in relation to moral conduct. The organizing principle of the GK project is masculinist, rationalist and technocratic, given to a hierarchical mode of functioning. In this organization, women are rendered invisible. The rule of patriarchy, in its organizational sense and religious sense is closely linked to moral conduct. The moral edict underlying the GAT project is the religious and moralistic teachings of the Catholic Church. Within this framework, two cases are discussed at length are examples of how a moral edict is resisted in the first case, and how it is followed, in the second case. Opportunity for agency and resistance are understood as discursive processes as the couples narrate their experiences in coming to the village and the transformation they may or may not have undergone.

160 Patriarchy and the Evangelizing Mission

/ had been waiting in the Gk village administrative office for a while for the next participant to arrive for her interview. The office, seldom used, functioned as a catch-all for unwanted furniture. On the wall appeared to be an organizational chart with a number of blank spots. At the top was a male name, through the second tier, the same and to the third tier of program organizers. Only the man's name appeared on the chart with no sign of a couple being represented. The woman who I was to interview entered the room and I asked her what the organizational chart was all about. She said that it had not been updated for a while and was no longer current there having been the death of the director at the time. She said usually the men were represented in the organizational structure, the women with no real acknowledgement nevertheless did much of the work that their husband's has signed up for. I asked her as the wife of the program director what was her role in the Gk administration and she stated she was pretty much here all of the time since her husband had to work to sustain the family.

She, the Program Director's wife from GK Village II, it turns out was the same wife who had given up her Avon business (previous chapter) in order to fulfill the requirements of

161 the administrative role of her husband and to conform to the rule of the primacy of the family over a woman's career. In this way, the family needs are attended to by the women, in the nurturing of children as healthy future labour power and the care of men to remain highly productive. Women's individual labour power is subsumed under the needs of the family and household and kept within a solely private sphere.

Patriarchy has been re-entrenched through two discursive frameworks utilized by the

Gawad Kalinga project. The first is the hierarchic, male-dominated model of rationality and efficiency developed within capitalist enterprise exemplified by the Couples for

Christ organization and the second is the framework of the family, discursively produced by the Church and the middle-class.

Gender, therefore is socially produced by processes in

which organizations actively participate and by which these

organizations are shaped: practices 'make' gender in that

they produce and reproduce social relations and material

culture and the artifacts that sustain them. The meaning, the

social representation and the rhetoric with which these

162 practices are made accountable to those engaged in them

and to all others constitute the organizational culture as

textuality which moulds the subjectivity of these

individuals and their audiences (Gherardi,1995;18).

The work of women made invisible by the lack of recognition of their contribution and even of their presence within the GK project requires further exploration. The Gawad

Kalinga project as conceived by the Couples for Christ organization is embedded in a patriarchical structure. The mere concept of housing and village construction, by its very nature bespeaks a male project of materiality, rationality and engineering. The Couples for Christ organization is a men's club functioning philanthropically to assist man's need to provide shelter for his family. The project, born out of the recognition of the stress families face without adequate housing, has combined the expertise of men through raising funds and the act of materially producing houses and villages to address this need.

The evangelical aspect is the overriding impetus for the Church to grow with these particular adherents and in this particular way of worship. The difficulty stems from the expectation of volunteer participation in the Couples for Christ organization. As a member working without pay for the organization requires both dedication and the belief

163 in the work of GK as working for God. The philanthropic work is really made more complex embedded in the patriarchic nature of the organization where men are seen doing the work of building houses, building the nation and women's work is hidden from view. The functioning of the system is reliant on personal relationships, long-term friendships and networks that, for the middle-class, have been built over time.

Administrator B: Yes, sort of but with CFC it's more than that. Because as I am also chapter head we have a personal relationship that I can draw on and so it is easier to persuade them to come along (to visit the poor and do the profiles).

The Gawad Kalinga project as conceived of by the Couples for Christ faith organization is embedded in a patriarchic structure. The organization, hierarchical in its structure is at the ground level composed of household cells comprising of three to four couples from which emerge one household head. From this base membership of couples the designated household head rises to the next level; five or six household heads make up a unit. From this group each unit from three to four units rises to the next level which is the chapter.

Three to four chapter heads rise to the next level and become part of a cluster. Again three to four cluster heads move up to the next level and become part of a sector group

164 for each province so in the case of Sariaya, the members move to sector Quezon 5. The next level up is representation at the Provincial Council for Couples for Christ. After that one becomes a Provincial Area Director, in charge of various programs under the

Couples for Christ umbrella of which Gawad Kalinga is a part. At the top of the ladder is the Provincial Area Head who oversees the whole structure at the provincial level. But there are further levels up the ladder that achieve representation at the central council of power in Metro Manila.

Administrator B: I started as a chapter head at Sariaya for four to five years. There is a rule given to us that if you are a chapter head you also become automatically a program director within your area. I started in 2000. I left the role in 2004 and moved to the provincial level since we had expanded. We were brought in to deal with the crisis at

and after that we built up until we had fourteen sites.

Nel: How do you choose who will be program director and the members of the caretaker team (I have been calling them the GK Village administration)? Where do you get them?

165 Administrator B: Actually, during my time as chapter head I can talk to anybody who might be interested. I, as program director (becomes automatic because he is already a chapter head) look for interested people in the unit head level. And if all the positions are not filled, I look at the chapter heads for volunteers. It is only in the CYD (Child Youth

Development) program that there are more requirements in terms of their education.

Nel: So your recruits come from the pool ofCFC members in the community. Then you approach them and ask for anyone who might want to take up that kind of work. Of course, some will agree but not all.

The process of evangelization is key to the movement of couples through the system.

Membership is predicated on successfully completing the CLP- Christian Life Program, a thirteen week process of indoctrination at the household level which becomes the entry point into the system which has been referred to as the values formation program. The rewards are intrinsic and extrinsic; intrinsic in the moral fulfillment of 'good work' and extrinsic in that you become a member in a primarily good old boy's network. It is here that distinctions are made between the moral Christian middle-class and the rank-and-file

166 capable of innumerable corruptible immoral conduct. The work, of course, is voluntary and considered as part of the service required of all members.

Nel: But in the beginning, they have to be a member of the CFC.with the evangelizing.

Please talk a bit about it.

Administrator B: About how I became a CFC... Of course, you are going to look for people who are easy to talk to. In recruiting, you try to get people closest to you, or some acquaintances, at the office in the government. Myself, for instance, I was recruited by my sibling and I joined because I thought our relationship could improve (unclear if he is talking about his relationship with his wife or his sibling). Sometimes they wonder... why prayer meeting? I'll be invited to a party, and what we do let people know about us is to recruit them. What we do we go house-to-house. We evangelize people in our area and encourage them to start the CLP( Christian Life Program), twelve talks plus orientation, then a series of seminars after that; prayer meetings, regular once a week, then from there they become CFC. That's how you recruit.

167 Nel: When they have finished the thirteen talks, they have become CFC. Then they are invited to the pillars, that is the work that they do. The pillars is like a theme?

Administrator B: Yes, the pillars is the social ministry...

"Good moral conduct" is the currency that circulates amongst the Couples for Christ adherents. It is celebrated as the characteristic that best differentiates members of the

CFC from other citizens, those whose moral outlook is not so clearly or strictly safe­ guarded. In spite of this moral injunction, there still exists an inclusiveness and openness to the GK project, as different from the CFC, in that all are welcome to volunteer and those who require help are not rejected. Nonetheless, there is an understanding that corruption is unacceptable and avoided at all cost by the members.

Administrator R: The Lord prepared Couples for Christ for this big job of Gawad

Kalinga. Truly, I tell you who would put up with the sacrifice of being on the caretaker team when they have nothing to gain. If they have no formation (values formation), deep religious belief, they would not last. I've seen it already, they become hot-headed, prone

168 to corruption. One of the things we boast about in GK is our integrity. We really do not misappropriate funds. For example, in Canada, we handle millions of dollars, if the person who handles this is just anyone in any of the Philippine associations, don't you think they would have been fighting by now. It is because of what we have learned in the past about honesty, about loving God, loving the poor. Trust, that's why this is successful, because if it is any other Filipino group they would all be fighting. They would fight over the money. As you see in Canada, all the groups are helping us and many more are joining. I think it's because they trust us.

It seems easy enough to say but how do the members police each other? During my travels with the group I could see that the network was strong. News was shared freely and everyone knew about what everyone else was doing. A main component of the weekly household prayer is the 'sharing' with the group in terms of feelings, mistakes and transgressions. It allows for a certain amount of intimacy within the weekly prayer event as discussion is maintained regularly amongst a tight circle of co-members. There is a strict Catholic orientation to the group although their evangelization methods are not typical of Catholic processes. With the group we traveled with, church attendance was a daily affair usually first thing in the morning prior to breakfast. The tour group comprised

169 of our Canadian representative, the CEO of ANCOP, on his usual biannual inspection of constructed GK sites, a couple of whom the wife was the Manila coordinator for the

Canadian funded GK village sites, two provincial representatives and two program director, two youth from Canada who were members of the Youth for Christ organization, the driver and my team of three people. During the tours there were no obvious signs of gender difference. The men in the group treated the women well and with respect. During my visits to the different GK village sites, I only felt some gender bias in dealing with an older couple where we were invited to lunch at their event, the wife's birthday celebration under a large tree in the middle of the countryside. The husband pointedly ignored my questions after the lunch and perhaps he felt I was intrusive in trying to stay in a discussion among a male group. The women had all pretty much scattered leaving the men to talk amongst themselves. This is typical of most

Filipino social events.

The Philippine context needs to be elaborated on in relation to the social norms that govern Filipino subjects. It has already been impressed upon the reader the full extent of the patriarchal system of domination that exists within the CFC organization. However there are fissures and cracks, differences among couples that prevent a uniform or

170 totalizing claim to be made. For example, one other couple in the caretaker team of GK village administration consists of a husband who works in the wife's business. She had originally developed the business, built with her own capital and expertise and his role is to help her. He runs the business when she is busy doing purchasing and drives the family around. She clearly had the power and exuded self-confidence. He was however, quiet, less-forthright but it was he who accompanied the tour group on the day trip to visit other

GK sites. He was the representative within the CFC organization.

The marriage theology in the Catholic Church is oppressive

to the woman, since she is exhorted to be submissive to her

husband 'in all things.' The injunction in the marriage rite,

which admonishes women to be 'obedient to her husband'

and to the man to 'love his wife' shows the unequal status

of women in the so-called partnership (Sr. Mary John

Mananzan, 2002:61).

171 To the degree that religious discourse can be ascertained to both prescribe and maintain gender differences, Sr. Mary John Mananzan expresses the underlying importance of the

Creation story that under girds the religious doctrine of marriage. In so far as the Bible is most commonly cited as justification for the discrimination and subordination of woman, particularly in the story of Adam, who was created first, and Eve, who as a derived being came from his rib, women may "feel that they themselves are not significant but rather that their importance lies in their relationship of service to men. A woman is also accused of being the cause of Adam's sin and therefore a lot of guilt is implanted in them" (Sr.

Mananzan, 2000:61). To conjecture further, the unremitting religious discourse supplemented by the historical relationship of rule of the subordinated Filipino in colonized relationships with Spaniards, Americans and later, Japanese, prefigures in the weight of subordination and subservience in the discursive framework of the Filipina subject. She would perhaps be more inclined to accept her role in service of men, in the production of self as the normalized subject of domesticated femininity with little resolve for resistance or agency. It is in the figure of the program director's wife in village II that the enormity of the sacrifice extracted from her can be clearly seen. Having given up her lucrative business endeavor as an agent selling beauty products in order to fulfill the duties inherited by her husband as program director, her name and her work is subsumed

172 under the category housewife, erased from view while his reputation soared. She, after all, was his helpmate, binding her to him in the marriage contract, her identity collapsed into his. To illustrate further, the case of Couple #7 in GK Village II will be discussed.

Agency and Resistance: The Immoral Subject

We were pressed to interview Couple #7 because they were a special case. In a religious organization like Couples for Christ, common-law relationships are frowned upon; it was a surprise that this particular couple had been allowed entry into the village as their relationship outside of the church would have disqualified them from the outset. Details of their situation presented a more complex understanding of their entry into the village.

The husband had been working for Dona , the landowner who had donated the tract of land on which the GK village was built. The donation was meant specifically for three generations of squatters who had been squatting on her property for a few decades.

The husband had been her security guard monitoring her properties on the night shift for a number of years. He was also related to the family who had originated the squatter community; the woman, currently serving as 'kapitbahayan president' was his aunt. He himself had served as the kapitbahayan president for three years prior to her.

173 The love story between the husband and wife spanned a decade when he met her as a young student. She was going to school with a relative of his and was introduced to him.

They did not meet again until almost ten years after when he saw her in a crowd as he was distributing t-shirts during a political campaign. He was working for the politician.

He was already married and eventually left his wife for her according to other sources.

The reason he gave for their not marrying was lack of money. Their case is interesting because it was obvious to everyone that they were deserving of a home in the GK village and were generally treated with a lot of respect. The only blot on their record was that they could not join the CLP( Christian Life Program) because they were not married. It would cost a lot of money to receive dispensation from the Pope to annul his previous marriage.

Nel: How about going to church. Even if you have not taken the CLP do you still follow the rules about going to church regularly?

Couple #7 wife: Yes, of course.

174 Couple #7 husband: I myself sometimes cannot get to church but anytime when I am in

the city I will drop be the church there.

Nel: Because what we have heard from other beneficiaries who used to not go to church

became transformed once they became part of the GK village.

Couple #7wife: We were already aware of how to behave before, so for instance we did

not fight with each other. Although sometimes you get upset, if I stopped talking he

already knew he did something wrong. At the beginning when we had finished the values formation we already had learned something and so as it went along we learned how to

get along with each other.

Nel: And also perhaps because you had finished some schooling you both were able to

work outside. What he learned when he was in another country and the knowledge you

gained in nursing, there was a lot there for you to already know about how to manage

your relationship.

175 Couple #7 Husband: When I get mad, she also gets mad and she says just make sure that when you come back you have cooled off.

She was a trained mid-wife who had already been working in her profession. When asked about her career she showed no emotion at the loss of the job. Her previous job as mid­ wife seemed to also depend on the goodwill of a benefactor exhibiting little stability and perhaps contributing to her reluctance in trying to return to it. She seemed to have preferred to throw her lot in with her husband, a man at this point who was not in a position to make an 'honest woman' out of her but that did not seem to matter.

Mariel: Were you working in a hospital?

Couple #7 wife: No, it was a rural area.

Mariel: Why did you leave your job?

Couple #7 wife: Because I was on contract at the time. The term of the mayor who had hired us was finished and the new mayor who changed him, because he had not

176 appointed us himself and he was the opposition, he got rid of all of us and did not renew any contracts. So I moved to Lucena.

It was in Lucena that she met him again at a political rally and presumably at this point that they decided to stay together. It was at this point that she left her career, they started a family and she became a housewife. Maria Mies conceptualizes this process as housewifization resulting in the atomization and disorganization of these hidden workers in service of Capital. Her thesis though relating mainly to capital and patriarchy nevertheless has relevance here. The role of housewife, as established by the bourgeoisie within the parameters of a "family" relegated woman's sphere of influence to the home in a withdrawal from the public sphere of political influence and capital accumulation. The

Filipino middle-class affiliated with Couple for Christ construct themselves along similar lines placing family values and service to God above work for the accumulation of wealth. The contradiction lies in the actual financial difficulties that ensue for those families who are not firmly entrenched in the middle class, as in the example of the program director's wife and her recognition of this dilemma. For the poor, the same rules are upheld. "As the housewife is linked to the wage-earning breadwinner, to the 'free' proletarian as a non-free worker, the 'freedom' of the proletarian to sell his labour power

177 is based on the non-freedom of the housewife (Mies, 1998:110). The normalization process for both groups, the middle class housewife and the lower-class housewife keep the women subservient to their husbands.

Nel: So things would be alright again...How about you? Now that you have had two children what do you plan to do? Do you plan to go back to work?

Couple#7 wife: Myself- I would actually like to go to work but at this time it's hard because even when it is a contract job, it would not work out well that I would have to find someone to look after her( referring to her baby who is at the moment quiet because she is breastfeeding her) and it's different to be cared for by your own parents rather than someone else specially when contract work lasts only four or five years. But I also plan to work when she is a little older. I also used to volunteer for the SIBOL preschool as a helper here at the village. They would have hired me to teach except they had no budget for it. So I had to give it up but before I stopped I used to bring him (her older son) with me so by the time he was two he was already being trained.

178 Her dilemma is typical for most women in the middle and lower classes. The imperative to look after one's own children is calculated against the cost of paying someone else to do it. In countries where daycare is accessible and at a minimal cost, the imperative loses its force. In the Philippines where traditionally extended family like grandparents and elderly aunts would help to look after the children is a model that does not seem to be followed. She has stated a preference for looking after her own at this village and upon looking at the state of her house which was neat, with a display cabinet of the children's mementos and her children well-behaved and well-looked after, it is no wonder she would say that. Her husband must make enough for them that it has not become imperative for her to work. He, of course has the job of security guard at night and he also does farming during the day. On our last day he brought us a large sack of fruit he had picked for us. He was resourceful and hard-working. She was his counterpart in the home, domesticated and caring, subsumed in the common-law partnership.

Agency and Compliance: The Moral Subject

The example given above is an illustration of the moral subject enclosed within a religious, moralistic framework. The couple, perceived by the organization to be living in

179 sin and unable to marry because of a previous marriage on the part of the man nevertheless have created a life for themselves. Butler explains in an interview:

We have to ask here, however, whether the "I" who must

appropriate moral norms in a living way is not itself

conditioned by norms - norms that establish the viability of

the subject... It would seem that before we can ask about

what a subject is to do, we have to understand how morality

more generally functions as a forcible framework within

which the subject is formed (Davies, 2008: 21).

What is most interesting in this example is the possibility that transgressions may or may not have the desired effect of producing guilt or changing behaviour. It appears that the moral transgression of living outside the institution of marriage while participating within the constructed framework of a faith organization like Couples for Christ and benefit from having children, family and home-ownership is entirely possible rendering the injunction as null and void. In this instance, Couples for Christ does not seem strict in its enforcement of rules, marriage, church attendance or values. The caretaker team or the

180 GK administration at the village seem powerless at this point to enforce compliance because the couple are in a situation that is difficult to remedy. In this instance, the moral subject can be perceived to be more flexible in its interpretation. Some moral subjects are exempt from certain rules perhaps they exhibit behavior that already conforms to middle- classness. For instance, Couple #7 wife has education beyond any other in the village, she was a professional a mid-wife at one point. She still has more educational capital than even some of the caretaker team. Rules are not hard and fast in much the same way that subjects shift in relation to them. There is much in flux whether only as a matter of discursive framing or in real, material circumstance. To illustrate, a typical couple who was able to achieve the desired transformation was also able to construct it according to their own circumstance.

Mariel: Did you want to move here? How has your life become better since you moved here?

Couple #1 husband: It is much much better since we came here. Now you don't have to be afraid of the bad weather (masamang panahon literally bagyo is typhoon). Before, our

181 house would leak, here it doesn 't at all. Here you have your own washroom, running water and light.

The material benefit of a safe and secure home is appreciated and constantly measured against an insecure dwelling easily toppled by the vagaries of inclement weather. That has had a primary effect in stimulating and maintaining gratefulness.

Nel: When you came in here what were the requirements of you?

Couple #1 wife: We had to help out. What they call bayanihan, 1000 hours of sweat equity in order to receive a home.

Nel: How about agreements?

Couple #1 husband: There was none.

Couple #lwife: We had to sign that we understood the rules- the things that we had to do.

182 Nel: What were those things?

Couple #] husband: That we had to keep the walkway clean. We had to pick up any litter.

There were many but I forget them all.

Here it seemed obvious that they had been compliant and mindful of the rules to the point where they no longer thought about what they had to follow. It seemed that they had fully internalized the injunctions. The process of transformation seemed to best be explained by the practices, the daily expectations of keeping the home neat, the surrounding area clean, and to follow the rules.

Nel: Was there any change after your CLP? Did you used to go to church before you came here?

Couple #1husband: When we were there I seldom went to church, only if there was a birthday or an occasion. Since we came here, every week we are following what we are supposed to do.

183 Nel: How about prayers? Were you praying before or only when you came here that you started?

Couple #1 husband: There is no lack of praying.

Nel: Did you learn it only here or you knew how to pray before?

Couple #1 husband: We knew from before but it was only when we came that we are always praying.

Nel: Did something change inside of you? About God?

Couple #1husband: When we were in the other place, even if there is no food there would be drinking. When we arrived here we were told find a job, try to become a better person.

You might have been bad before but now you become good. That is true.

Nel: So there must have been a big change?

184 Couple #1 husband: Oh yes. Even if you ask her, she will tell you.

Couple #lwife: Even if I had just given birth you would not find him at home. My Mom would ask me where is he? And I would say he just left but in reality, he had been gone for several days already.

Mariel: That was big transformation when you became CFC?

Couple #1husband: In the beginning I really, really did not want to get involved. She forced me to come then when I heard some talks, someone said whatever it is you do, you should think about doing it right. I went to two talks and at that point I thought about what I heard. From then on I went continuously and before you know it I had finished the course. I said to myself- what do you know, I actually finished. In the beginning I really didn 't want it.

Couple Mwife: And sometimes I would be in tears trying to get him to come with me and sometimes I would get mad. But after he attended a number of talks it was his turn to

185 persuade me to go to meetings. Sometimes he would be pushing me to go specially after he had heard some of the lessons.

Nel: Is it just what they teach you, the lessons themselves that helped you to change?

Couple #1 husband: It is not just what they say( salita). But even when I am sitting in church, it is as if someone is talking to me. I just believe that. It is something that I feel. It is as if someone is whispering in my ear. That is how we got here.

The testimonial given by this couple seems quite powerful in terms of the internal change that he underwent and his ability to express it. It would have seemed trite if not for the genuine display and obvious sincerity of his comments. He had been plowing his plot of ground to the side of the village when he was requested to come during his lunch hour and prepare for the interview. He had changed from his mud soaked dungarees and cleaned up a bit before he talked with us. Our contact, the caretaker who had moved on to provincial duties but still came back to the village to help out and to keep in touch with the beneficiaries was sitting just outside the door. It would be difficult for me to say that the comments were scripted. We had seen it over and over again where the appreciation of the beneficiaries is such that they are in tears in expressing their thankfulness. A

186 number of men who knew the difficulty of providing for their family had broken down in a similar way when talking about their transformation from being a drunk, gambling money away to living a more productive and orderly life. As Butler states:

From the outset it is a challenge, if not an open question of

what relation the self will take to itself, how it will craft

itself in response to an injunction, how it will from itself.

And what labour it will perform upon itself. The injunction

completes the act of self-making or self-crafting, which

means the injunction does not act unilaterally or

deterministically upon the subject; it sets the stage for the

subject's self-crafting, one that takes place in relation to an

imposed set of norms (Davies, 2008:28).

The faith organization Couples for Christ constructs a system where gender difference presents a problematic for women as much as it does for men. In constraining women to the private sphere and exposing men to the stresses of the public sphere, the subjects perform and construct themselves accordingly. Relegated to the private domestic sphere

187 of the home, tied to a reproductive function, kept distant from opportunities to work and amass wealth or power, within this narrow frame woman still survives, reluctantly choosing one constraint over another. Man similarly constrained to be productive, to work hard and support the family also manages to transform. The examples above give us the opportunity to understand the self, re-created and transformed into the subject whose conduct of conducts is fitting after the injunction set by the Gawad Kalinga project.

Conclusion

This chapter explored gender in relation to the Couples for Christ organization and its hierarchical structure. Butler's concept of self-creation and my own contention that narratives are opportunities to exercise agency was substantiated by the narratives expressed by the interview participants. In the previous chapter, it was observed that the

GK beneficiaries produced narratives of self that varied and were malleable in terms of being able to fit into the Gawad Kalinga project bounded by class processes. Similarly, the self-presentation that emerged during the interviews in this chapter were narratives that varied so that the discourses of Gawad Kalinga were in evidence but not always consistent with the stories that were being presented. There was evidence of both

188 compliance and resistance in the narratives. Within discursive regimes and structures, there exists opportunities for both compliance and resistance. The factors affecting the subject's need to comply or resist and the framing of such an experience was explored in this chapter. The case of resistance was o explored with regards to the couple that was well-regarded and yet was unmarried within the strict moral structure of the Couples for

Christ organization. They chose to stay within the village setting in spite of being perceived by the community as living in a common-law relationship, which is unacceptable to the church. This flexibility of moral structuring can be explained as space where an opening was made, creating a fissure, where the constraint had no effect and was in effect, resisted. Such opportunities for resistance were seen to be available to the subject within their narrative. How they understood their situation and the effect on them could be seen as an opportunity to resist; injunctions therefore, may function to a certain extent as a constraint but it does not have the consistent or influential effect that one would expect. Normalizing processes of governmentality through religious and moral standards are not always followed allowing for opportunities for resistance. The resistance can be discerned through the narratives that account for the subject's self- production. Self-production is specific, historically contingent and made visible through narrative.

189 Chapter Eight: Conclusion

Gawad Kalinga: A Testament of Faith

The Gawad Kalinga Research Project was initiated as an exploration of the discourse of poverty alleviation in the Philippines espoused by a faith-based organization called

Couples for Christ. Viewed as an alternative to existing development aid, Gawad Kalinga has presented itself as an opportunity for the Philippines to re-make itself as a nation and help fellow Filipinos mired in the structural reality of poverty to improve their lives. The project, with little funding from the government or other institutions has been able to develop villages, housing complexes that provide homes for the poor. To their credit they have helped to move groups located in squatter communities into stable, solid homes constructed through the volunteer efforts of the middle class within the Philippines and abroad. The catch, in this project of altruism, is the evangelization of the Filipino poor into a renewal of Catholic faith in the charismatic movement. This renewal of faith can be seen as the transformative process expected of the families, beneficiaries of the houses who receive a home in exchange for the moral transformation and adherence to the conduct of conducts that have been prescribed by the Gawad Kalinga project. The

190 moralistic injunction to follow church doctrine, work productively and behave within the expected norms, are the processes of governmentality effected through the caretaker team's presence in the village. These processes are operationalized through the Christian

Life Program, the thirteen week initiation workshop series for the purpose of values formation for the poor as prescribed by the Couples for Christ community and the continuous administrative process built through the relationships of the caretaker teams with the village residents. Therefore, housing is not just provided and then the villagers are on their own, the ongoing friendship, mentorship and coaching continue as the caretaker team provide ongoing counseling for the couples, work opportunities for the men and education for the children of the village. The sacrifice expected and extracted from the caretaker team is enormous, seen as their duty and service of their faith.

Each chapter developed a theme that was threaded throughout the thesis. Chapter one provided an introduction and a brief narrative; it also outlined the organization of the thesis.

Chapter two explored the theoretical framework of discourse and the production of self- creation through narrative. Butler's concept of agency within discursive processes was

191 explored. Foucauldian concepts of discourse were outlined with examples of governmentality from the Victorian era. Development discourse and religious discourses were reviewed with the purpose of providing an outline for the current proliferation of discourses of the poor. The theoretical framework put in place was meant to delineate the groundwork and the foundation to be used in the thesis, mainly that discursive regimes have long-standing value and effect as language limited by discursive processes constrain subject formation allowing for limited opportunities for resistance. Nevertheless, resistance is still made possible within the framework of language itself as an act of self- creation through narrative.

Chapter three grounds the thesis in a feminist post-structural perspective. The emphasis in this chapter was to develop an understanding of the methodology with which I approached the research project. My approach was to understand the research process as emergent, with the interviews as the discursive elements from which the product of knowledge would emerge. Although research questions were prepared, the actual product of knowledge itself, the thesis that I have written has emerged in a form that I had not fully predicted from the beginning. It was not my aim to reproduce a thesis similar to others; it was my aim to explore the discursive processes that I eventually came to

192 understand within the research project as such. The writing of this thesis is both exploratory and experimental in the way that I chose to create narratives, vignettes that would bring the reader to understand my representations of the experiences I had within the research process. Similarly, the empirical material has been used as narratives receiving purchase within the self-creation that is produced without reference to a unitary narrative of village life. I had hoped to stay true to feminist principles exploring gendered narratives, power dynamics and through discourse present an understanding of agency and where I see it happening in narrative.

Chapter four presented a historical sketch with the main theme of Spanish conquest and the resulting conversion to Christianity. Religious discourse has been deeply embedded in the Filipino culture since its introduction by the Spanish missionaries. This theme is linked with the Couples for Christ organization as the Jesuit project of elitism and their aim to produce Christian leadership. The Capitalist class is discussed in relation to the class divide in the Philippines. The Catholic charismatic movement is linked to the GK

Project through the Couples for Christ organization.

193 In chapter five, development discourse, religious discourse and a discourse analysis from the Couples for Christ organization were juxtaposed to provide examples of the different discourses of poverty.

Chapter six presented an exploration of the subject within the discursive framework of class processes. The classed-subject within the Gawad Kalinga village was able to present a narrative consistent with the requirements of the project. This chapter was able to make use of Gibson-Graham's multiple subjectivities effectively presenting subjects with multiple class locations within the village setting. For instance, the couple with the television that had not been turned on in over two years because of the lack of electricity while, at the same time having come from a squatter community where they had access to electricity illicitly. The notion that there is no one definition of the poor and that this notion can be manipulated to fit the existing discourse was the aim of presenting the narratives in this chapter. At the same time, there is no one definition of the middle-class in terms of the GK administrators or caretakers. They occupy multiple class locations from which they construct their own self-narratives in relation to the poor, with whom they have intimate knowledge of having seen the shanties they live in, the difficult life they have led, which in certain cases is not very far off from their own experiences.

194 Chapter seven, similar to the previous chapter, explored the subjects and this time, their narratives of transformation within the moral injunction of the Gawad Kalinga project.

The aim of this chapter was to present subject formation as discursively framed by the evangelizing mission of the Couples for Christ organization. The transformation from an immoral subject to a moral one is effected through the discursive production of the narrative of self. The benefits of this discursive production can best be seen in the membership into the community as well as the material benefits of a solid house in the village, the educational opportunity for their children and the moral value placed on the good conduct that is the result of compliance. Resistance, however, is made more complicated with the example of the couple who resist the moral injunction because they cannot marry and yet they are afforded the benefits of property ownership and high regard within the village. The overall aim of this chapter was to explore the agency possible to both the compliant couple and the non-compliant couple through their narratives of self-production in which they are able to "make sense" of their lives in recounting their stories within the interview.

The main theme of the thesis that I tried to impress on the reader was agency, compliance and resistance. Primarily, what I understood to be the long-standing effect of colonial

195 domination structured and maintained by religious discourses and institutions is the production of docile subjects. Aided by a century of long-term capitalist processes, the middle-class continues to exert dominance over the more populous sector of society, the poor. The dominance brought to bear on poor Filipino subjects is embedded in the right to have safe shelter, provided by Couples for Christ in the Gawad Kalinga project. The submission of the poor into a relationship with the middle-class that functions to transform their lives into a life of morality and productivity is overwhelming. It is an easy decision to make since there are no other solutions forthcoming, either from the state, which has abandoned them or other external bodies, which has only the resources of the country in mind. Poverty, entrenched and pervasive leaves a sector of the Filipino population with very little hope for a future for themselves or for their children. The

Gawad Kalinga project provides a measure of hope in difficult times.

The transnational processes embedded in the Gawad Kalinga project were not explored in this thesis. The thesis, already complex in its theoretical framing would have become cumbersome in incorporating such difficult material. However, it may be useful to point to the future development of the project by elaborating on a few interesting points in the conclusion.

196 The Gawad Kalinga project provides the opportunity for the Filipino diaspora, both in

North America and Europe to participate in nation-building as it is called by the Couples for Christ organization. Primarily calling on the membership of the Couples for Christ organization, families' rich and poor alike, have been expected to promote the GK village as a site where engagement with religion, charismatic Catholicism in particular, is produced by participating in the fundraising efforts for the project. Families in the United

States and Canada, who are members of the Couples for Christ organization, have been expected to donate a certain amount of their income, as well as solicit donations from other people, to provide the material base for the GK village. The Filipino diaspora, and the Couples for Christ membership in particular have committed to the vision of nation- building and the amelioration of poverty in the Philippines under the leadership of Tony

Meloto and the Couples for Christ organization. The network of the CFC is wide-ranging with chapters in North America, Europe, parts of Asia and within the past few years, some countries in Africa. Faith-based organizing and the mobilization of capital through religious framing have tremendous impact. The production of the Filipino citizen, at home and abroad, is linked to memories of home and nation through the GK discourse of helping the nation. The call is seductive for those who feel the plight of the Filipino poor,

197 many of whom came from similar circumstances, and have escaped perhaps, to a better place. It is often not recognized that the financial hardship imposed on those abroad to maintain the nation through a remittance regime puts the expatriate at a disadvantage.

Nevertheless, aid is needed in the Philippines and in what shape or form it comes in is, I would expect, immaterial to the poor as long as it comes.

The transnational travelers, the tour groups comprising of Canadian expatriates, curious to see the material product of their donations are an integral part of the picture. There are many visitors, in fact, who are encouraged by the GK administrators who wish to see with their own eyes the vision of a better Philippines, as GK villages are actively promoted as the colorful, orderly and productive GK villages dotting the Philippine countryside. Perhaps aid, presented, organized and mobilized in this way is acceptable, after all. During my brief interaction with the younger members of the Couples for Christ organization, I could sense a willingness to move to further engagement. The hope for a more politicized thrust to the GK project and discourse is altogether possible, only time will tell if the movement and its goals can be sustained.

198 The thesis has developed as an emergent project bringing my conjectures to new places of exploration. The most important aspect of the research project that I would like to impress on the reader is the value of understanding how discursive processes frame experience and how experiences may be framed discursively in return. Discourse, in as much as it can impinge on subjectivities and the freedom they would like to think that they have, nevertheless also provides for the opportunity to resist constraint. It is in moments of flux, where spaces of rupture emerge that self-construction is within the purview of the subject, even if the overarching structure of class or gender exists to frame one's experience.

199 Primary Text: Meloto,Tony. "The Filipino Spirit is Rising." An entry on the website: fire in the gut, dated March 2008.

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