May 5, 2001, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Filipino riots reveal widening gap between rich, poor, by Uli Schmetzer,

May 5, 2001, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Filipino riots reveal widening gap between rich, poor, by Uli Schmetzer, 

MANILA - Startled Filipinos watched last week as urban poor like Diosdado Perez were transformed into a political force and then a raging mob determined to overthrow the government and reinstall their fallen hero.

The riot of poor people, ignored in the past and privately dismissed in the Philippines as "The Great Unwashed" or "The Zombies," set off alarm bells through the region.

Supporters of ousted President Joseph Estrada began protesting after he was jailed on plunder charges, and at least six people died and more than 100 were wounded.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the arrest of 11 opposition leaders, accusing them of inciting rebellion and planning a march on the palace in an attempt to overthrow her.

After last week's scenes of burning vehicles, battered police and a besieged president, many reflected how little has been done over decades of rapid economic growth to bring an escalating number of the have-nots back into the social mainstream or cushion their existence on the edge of society.

"Watching the riots on television, many educated Filipinos for the first time in their lives became aware that the dormant frustration and resentment of a highly unequal society like ours is volatile raw material for a social explosion," said Randy David, a well-known professor of sociology.

Social workers say at least two-thirds of Greater Manila's 15 million residents live in slums like the one Perez inhabits. At least 40 percent live below the poverty line, fertile ground for social unrest.

Perez, 28, has one shirt, no teeth and lives in a cardboard shack in the slum suburb of Tondo with his family of 10. His hopes for a better life rested on the promises of Estrada, who said he would take from the rich and give to the poor. Instead Estrada took from the poor and filled his own pockets.

The thin man from the slums is the product of a childhood spent scrounging for scraps, nursed on dreams of a windfall from the state lottery or a cockfight.

Perez, scoffs at charges that Estrada stashed away $81 million during his 31 months in office: "Erap (Estrada's nickname) he never steal a peso. The rich steal Erap's presidency," he said.

For Professor David and others, poverty suddenly had a face they had passed for years on the street with no more than an occasional glance or a handout.

The people who tried to storm the presidential palace resembled the scruffy but ever-smiling shoeshine boy at the corner. There was the toothless pedicab driver pedaling the not so poor in scorching heat through traffic snarls. There was the ragged lady who sold cigarettes on the sidewalk, not by the packet but one by one. And there was the grubby beggar who with a baby in her arms stood every morning at the same intersection.

What Filipinos really saw, argues Sister Christine Tang, a nun who has lived among the poor for 21 years, was the city's ragtag beggar army. The category, she says, is the lowest rung on the poverty scale.

"The people you saw were mercenaries, drug addicts and people who don't want to earn a living. To call them the poor is an insult to the poor because the poor have dignity and want to work," said Sister Tang.

In the Philippines, Sister Tang, 70, is considered a politicized version of the late Mother Theresa. She is also a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church, which she bluntly accuses of siding with the rich rather than the poor.

The nun from the Order of the Good Shepherd boasts that not one resident of her slum suburb of Leveriza joined the mob attack on the palace. "We have politically educated our people to understand what is right and wrong and how to distinguish between good and evil," she said. "If you leave people ignorant they are liable to follow evil leaders."

Feeling neglected by their government and the Catholic Church, millions of poor Filipinos have gravitated to religious cults with the same uncritical devotion their forefathers offered tribal chieftains.

Former movie star Estrada, already popular for his roles as the champion of the poor and a victim of the powerful, embraced the two largest cults, El Shaddai and Iglesia Ni Cristo. Both rewarded him with votes and the devotion of their followers who flocked to the protest rallies last week.

"The failure of the communists and the Church to educate poor people left the poor in the hands of El Shaddai and Iglesia Ni Cristo. Estrada used these movements for his own benefit. If our new president has gained something positive from these riots, it is that she has to do something concrete for the poor," said Francisco Sionil José, one of the Philippine's most-respected novelists.

With the specter of a class war looming, Arroyo quickly launched damage control. She visited Estrada in jail. In their brief encounter, he referred to her as "Madam President," a virtual abdication of his claim to the office. The former president is anxious to leave jail and sit out the time before his trial under house arrest.

Reassuring Estrada's restless supporters that he would have his say in court, Arroyo ordered helicopters to drop four-page leaflets on Estrada's strongholds in the slums. The leaflets explained why the former president was facing trial.

She went on television tirelessly to explain her position, and went on a goodwill visit to Perez's slum town of Tondo before the riot last Tuesday - all signs that she was more anxious than she admitted.

"Gloria (Arroyo) is one of them," Perez said, pointing towards the posh business district of Makati. "Erap is one of us."

Like his neighbors, Perez says he was bused to the rally and promised by his buddy Boy Roxas 300 pesos ($6) for the day plus a free meal. Roxas had received a stack of peso notes from one of the rally "marshals." In the turmoil Perez lost sight of Roxas, who so far hasn't shown up to pay anyone.

Not only poor people like Perez were seduced by the vision of a Messiah who had come to bridge the gaping gap between the long-ruling oligarchies of the Philippines and the rest.

"I am ashamed today that as an academic and professor I initially thought our people had seen in Estrada an exceptional figure who represented their hopes and who would incorporate the marginalized masses into mainstream life." Professor David said. "He gave people hope then betrayed their trust."