MOVEMENT FORMATIONS PROJECT:

Bi-National Research Project on Social ChangeInitiatives in the Philippines and the United States

By Francis Calpotura

3781 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94611ph: 510-653-3415 fax 510-653-3427www.arc.org arc@arc.org

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CONTENTS

3 Project Summary

7 The Legacy of Radical Traditions in Philippine PoliticsIts Impact on Current-Day Civil Society Strategies

22 The Road Less TakenMultiple Lanes Framework for Social Change Organizations in the U.S.

27 The Impact of Globalization on Social MovementsArticle One: Privatization: Freedom from Debt CoalitionArticle Two: Migration and Immigrant Action

34 The Promise of a Transnational Organizing Framework

38 AppendixIntervention Strategies on Local GovernanceList of Philippine InterviewsBibliography of Reference MaterialFinancial Report

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SUMMARYProject SummaryThe Movement Formations Project is a year-longbi-national research project of social changegroups in the United States and the Philippinesto comparatively study their emergence,evolution and current strategies. The mainobjective of the project is to help inform strategicchoices of movement organizations in the UnitedStates by learning from the framework andpractices of social change organizations in thePhilippines.

Project RationaleThe genesis and emergence of “formalized” socialchange work in the Philippines comes from adifferent path than non-profit organizing in theUnited States. The main distinction is this: thecurrent Philippine NGO infrastructure waslargely built from the ranks of organizationsengaged in a national liberation struggle duringthe tenure of former President Marcos from the1960s to the mid-1980s. Due to this tradition, theoperational framework which guide organizationsin the Philippines reflects a more comprehensiveview of social change which allows contention inall aspects of public life—from accountability ofpublic institutions to issues of state governance.In contrast, social change organizations in theUnited States largely function as agents ofaccountability with severe legal limitations placedon strategies which vie for direct control onportions of the state apparatus, including variousmodes of participation in the political process.Such formal restrictions stunt the development ofa comprehensive approach to social change suchas the one adopted by Philippine groupsinterviewed for this report.

The Philippine groups interviewed for the projectinclude (see list of interviews in appendix):AKBAYAN!Alliance of Free FarmersBarangay Triangulo Urban Poor Homeowner’sAssociation

BATMAN Consortium (network of more than 30groups involved in governance work)Center for Agrarian Reform Empowerment andTransformation (National Office)Center for Local and Regional GovernanceCommunity Organizing for People’sEmpowerment (National Office)Community Organiizng for People’sEmpowerment (Naga City chapter)Freedom from Debt Coalition (National Office)Freedom from Debt Coalition (Leyte chapter)Institute for Democratic Participation inGovernanceInstitute of Philippine CultureInstitute for Popular DemocracyInstitute of Politics and GovernanceKAGABAYNaga City Urban Poor FederationNaga City Development OfficeNaga City Urban Poor Affairs OfficeNaga City Health Services DepartmentNaga City People’s CouncilNaga City Chamber of CommerceNaga City Women’s CoalitionNaga City Children’s Advocacy GroupOffice of the Mayor, Municipality of Baybay,LeyteOffice of the Mayor, Naga CityPhilippine Community Organizing SocietyPhilippine NonProfit Sector ProjectUGNAYANSociology Department, University of thePhilippines, Tacloban City

Overview of Chapters in the ReportShifts in organizing strategies were precipitated bya qualitative change in political conditions. Themove from a dictatorship to democracy, albeitdominated by Philippine elite and traditionalpoliticians, signaled a significant re-calibration ofsocial change approach for Philippine groups.Most anti-dictatorship groups moved from aposture of outright opposition to more criticalcollaboration with various apparatus ofgovernment. Some surfaced from underground(and armed) activities to pursue legal avenues ofsocial change as part of “civil society”.

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What was most surprising in the research wasthe importance placed by groups on politicalopportunity rather than organizationalimperative or a set “model” of organizing: whatdrove the work were strategies rooted in areading of the political landscape.Organizational forms (and organizingapproaches) were seen as tools or vehicles to getthe desired political result. A deeperappreciation of this practice and frameworkbecame the central pre-occupation of theproject.

Chapter 1: Looks at the impact of the anti-dictatorship tradition in Philippine NGOcommunity. This deep and extensive politicalhistory affects the terrain on which groupsconduct their work today. How organizationsframe their decisions and calculations torespond to new political realities shows theextent of this tradition’s influence. The researchprofiles the work of Center for Agrarian Reform,empowerment and Transformation (CARET),and looks at the organizational and strategyshifts it went through to respond to newpolitical opportunities ushered in by the 1991Local Government Code. The decentralizationof government functions pushed by the Codeopened up political opportunities in localorganizing which transformed CARET from anational advocacy institute to a network ofgrassroots organizations which prioritizes thebuilding of local, membership-based chapters.This chapter traces this evolution and thelessons in combining multiple forms of socialchange approaches, including interventions ingovernance issues.

The research paper produced for the July 1,2002 meeting of groups engaged in governancework is included in the appendix. It lays out thevarious strategies of intervention that groupshave adopted, and the challenges that this areaof work face in the current period. This paperwas co-authored with Marisol Estrella, aneditorial consultant with the Institute forPopular Democracy (IPD) based in Quezon Citywho is producing a book which profiles the workof groups in the BATMAN Consortium.

Chapter 2: One of the main concepts thatemerged from CARET’s reflections, and otherorganizations engaged in local governancestrategies, is the Multiple Lanes framework.

Championed by the Institute for Politics andGovernance (IPG) who works with thesegroups, the framework allows for a multi-pronged, coordinated approach in pursuingfundamental social change. This chapterexplores the application of this framework tosocial change organizing groups in the UnitedStates. Eleven social change organizations acrossthe United States were chosen for this chapterbased on two criteria: first, each organizationapplies a community organizing approach as itsprincipal focus; and second, each has venturedin other approaches that engage the governanceof the their local governments (i.e. electoralwork, sponsoring ballot initiatives, or more pro-actively developing and pushing public policy).The organizations interviewed for this chapterare:

AGENDA (Los Angeles, CA)Asian Pacific Environmental Network(Oakland, CA)Californians for Justice (Oakland, CA)Community Coalition (Los Angeles, CA)Direct Action for Rights and Equality(Providence, RI)Kentuckians for the Commonwealth(Lexington, KY)Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LosAngeles, CA)Northwest Federation of CommunityOrganization (Seattle, WA)People Organized to Defend EnvironmentalRights (San Francisco, CA)People United for a Better Oakland (Oakland,CA)Southern Echo (Holmes County, MS)

Although these organizations, and many morelike them, have made forays into more state-centered approaches, movement infrastructurethat allows groups to consistently (andstrategically) vie for and impact governmentalpriorities is largely undeveloped. The lane forpolitical participation that can meaningfullycontend for direct influence on the allocation ofpublic resources is quite narrow and unpaved forcommunity groups in the United States. Thechapter concludes with a recommendation todevelop grassroots political parties whichdemands a re-conceptualization on the role of“non-profit” grassroots organizing.

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Chapter 3: Aside from the sea-change thatpolitical decentralization has ushered in thePhilippines, other global changes have affectedthe work of local organizations as well. Thischapter features two articles which describes thestrategies which organizations employ to dealwith two consequences of globalization:privatization of public utilities in thePhilippines, and migrant concerns in the UnitedStates in the post-911 environment .

Similar to the decentralization effort adopted byCARET in attending to the devolution ofgovernment functions, the Freedom from DebtCoalition (FDC), a national coalition ofPhilippine NGOs which focus on the impact ofglobalization in the Philippines, also unleashedlocal initiatives in dealing with the privatizationof public utilities in the country. An article inthis chapter, “Lessons in Humidity”, looks atone of FDC’s campaigns that fought theconstruction of electrical transmission linesthrough the island of Leyte which would haveresulted in the dislocation of thousands ofcoconut farmers and would have ruined thewatershed from which communities depend fortheir water supply. This article appeared inColorLines magazine in late 2002, and is slatedto be re-published in Filipinas magazine thisyear.

The other article in this chapter examines theimmigrant experience in the United States inthe post-911 context. The exodus of peoplefrom countries in the global south during thepast 3 decades has changed the color and soundsof American cities. Countries like thePhilippines have more than 10% of their totalpopulation living outside their borders, with thevast majority living in United States. This facthas started to shift their home country’sapproach to their plight abroad. This articledescribes how the governments of thePhilippines, Pakistan, and Mexico respond tothe concerns of these communities in an era ofheightened racism and xenophobia in theUnited States. It shows how U.S.-based groupsare starting to re-evaluate their positions on therelative usefulness of their embassies andconsulates in protecting their rights in the U.S.Various ethnic press outlets are consideringprinting this article in their publications.

Chapter 4: Finally, this last chapter, slated to beprinted in the Summer 2003 issue of ColorLinesmagazine, is a reflection on the personal andpolitical significance of this bi-national sojourn.Rooting it on my own family’s experience as animmigrant to the United States, the articletraces the impact of global economics on thelives of millions of Filipinos and how thisexperience has created transnationalcommunities outside the national borders of thecountry. This phenomena of globalization—themovement of millions of people around theworld to meet the labor needs ofcapital—creates fundamental challenges togroups who organize in immigrant communitiesin the United States at a time of virulentxenophobia and racism after September 11.How can we take the transnational experienceof these targeted communities into our calculusfor societal change? The article develops therich contours of the challenge and provides buta quick glimpse of the prospects for change.Further elaboration of this framework is beyondthe purview of this research project.

Summary of Key Project Activities

1. Philippines

• Conducted 58 individual interviews, and 4group interviews with leaders and members ofcommunity organizations. These interviewswere conducted in the MetroManila area, thecities of Tacloban and Baybay in Leyte, in NagaCity in the Bicol Region, and in the city of SanJuan del Monte in the province of Bulacan;

• Convened 29 people from 10 groups on July1, 2002, to a forum on Strategies forIntervention in Local Governance held in theCARET office in Quezon City;

• Produced report on impact of Civil Societygroups in the 1994 local elections for a meetingconvened by the Institute for PopularDemocracy (IPD) on April 22, 2002;

• Conducted workshop on the LocalGovernment Code of 1991 and prospects forintervention in the local budgeting process for19 leaders of KAGABAY in San Juan delMonte on May 25, 2002;

• Compiled materials on genesis of PhilippineCivil Society, organizational documents onchange strategies and analysis of political

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situation, and evaluation on the impact of theLocal government code of 1991 on NGOs (seebibliography).

2. United States

• Conducted interviews with directors ofeleven grassroots social change organizationsand networks from eight cities;

• Conducted presentations of research projectfor 4 organizations in Oakland, Los Angeles,and New York city;

• Placed articles in ColorLines magazine,Filipinas magazine, RaceWire, and an interviewat KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA;

• Compiled materials on the U.S. non-profitindustry, social movement theories, the trendtowards political decentralization in third worldcountries, and on the formation of transnationalcommunities in the United States.

AcknowledgementsThis project would not have been possiblewithout the encouragement and guidance ofGary Delgado at the Applied Research Centerin the United States, and of Joel Rocamora atthe Institute for Popular Democracy in thePhilippines. My heartfelt thanks to Lidy Nakpilof FDC, France Clavecillas of COPE, andArlene Santos of CARET for opening up theirorganizations and their time. Thanks to theFord Foundation, especially Urvashi Vaid andDavid Chiel, who provided the resources to dothis project.

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CHAPTER 1THE LEGACY OF RADICAL TRADITIONS INPHILIPPINE POLITICS: ITS IMPACT ONCURRENT-DAY CIVIL SOCIETY STRATEGIES

Introduction to Movement FormationsTo re-imagine: an organizer in the United Statesgoes back to his home country to seek lessons onhow social change organizations navigate thedynamics and tensions between organization,strategy, and political opportunity.

IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, I have beenconcerned about the impact—practical andideological—of “tax status” organizing in ourwork. Those of us who have run organizingoutfits have struggled with the unceasingdemands of raising money, managing staff,carving out a political niche that we can fill,and hustling for more money. At times it washard to see our destination because of theorganizational and practical demands of thework. It became difficult to re-imagine.

So I needed a break and see how otherorganizations in other contexts do their work.

I went back to my native Philippines inearly 2002, thanks to the generous support ofthe Ford Foundation, to learn lessons in movingbeyond “tax-status” organizing in the U.S. andPhilippine contexts (more established socialchange infrastructure, and one that is stillemerging and is freshly based on a long andenduring fight for justice and democracy.)Luckily, my Tagalog wasn’t that rusty, so Ivisited various NGO organizing networks in 4cities in the Philippines to find out how they dotheir work. Most importantly, I wanted to findout what happens if an organization leads withpolitics rather than with programs?

Fundamentally, what I found is nothing toosurprising to folks working for social change inthe United States. They do the hard work of“solid” organizing—one-on-one conversations,leading to meetings, and demands, and actions.But what did surprise me is the question theytend to start with in developing a strategy inresponding to opportunity: what can we do withthis political opening that can serve our goal oftransforming society? Change accelerates whenyou lead with “what’s the political opportunityand how can we fill it?” rather than “what canwe do given what we currently have?” The

former prioritizes change, the later the form orvehicle of change. For the most part, for a hostof reasons, we in the U.S. tend to ask the latterthan the former question in our work.

This article, I hope, gives us a little pause toask and answer the question again.

History and Evolution of Philippine NGOs“Two or three decades ago, no one would havethought that the small groups of young peoplewho decided to form institutions and agencies toprovide a wide variety of services for the poorwould be recognized as a vital component ofcivil society. This is how NGO’s in thePhilippines have evolved through time, fromthe periphery toward the center of civil society.”1

A strong civil society did materialize overthe two decades from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos.Often the product of efforts to organize theurban poor and the Philippine peasantry, thegrowth of change-oriented groups spilled over toother sectors of Philippine society as the Marcosdictatorship became more and more isolated.Massive street demonstrations in the early tomid-1980s evidenced the rapid growth of civilsociety groups during this period. By the ousterof Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, when millionstook to the streets in major cities across thecountry, political movements have ensconcedtheir agendas and influence within theseinstitutions that were key actors in the anti-dictatorship struggle.

The success of “People Power” in 1986brought in a new era in Philippine politics. Thepolitical ferment of the early-mid 1980s,culminating with the “EDSA Revolution”which toppled Marcos, marked the initialexperience of thousands of community groups,parish-level associations, farmers associations,etc. with national politics—a point at whichtheir local grievances found national referencesand expressions. The organized Left, of whichthe organizations associated with theCommunity Party of the Philippines formed thelargest bloc, provided the backbone of the anti-dictatorship protest movement. They were alsoin the best position to take advantage of thenewly-created democratic space, howeverlimited and tenuous, after the ouster of Marcos.(see Tables 1 & 2)

The Aqauino government reinstated formaldemocratic structures, which included

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TABLE 1

NOTE: The ideological roots of contemporarycivil society groups is shown in these two tables.Table 1 above looks at the array of politicalforces right after the fall of Marcos and thebeginnings of the Aquino administration in1987. Table 2 provides the picture of theideological spectrum of present-day civil societygroups. The grey area in Table 1 is transposed,15 years later, to the grey area in Table 2, whichshows the extensive influence of ideologicalgroups in Philippine civil society.

Leg

al a

nd

/or e

xtra

leg

al s

tru

gg

lep

ress

ure

an

d/o

r ele

cto

ral p

olit

ics

Un

der

gro

un

d

CommunistsDemocratic Socialists

Social Democrats

LiberalDemocrats

Diehard Marcos Followers

BAYAN

CommunistParty

BISIG

Federation of Free Farmers

U.S, Imperialism

KBL

Other Extreme Rightists

Business Interest Groups

Aquino Admin

Armed ForcesMarcos Loyalist Party

Armed Neofascist Elements

Traditional PartiesPandayan

PDSP

VPD

MLG ACES

ATOM

BANDILA

includes labor, youth, women, farmers, religious, cultural workers

Adapted from an unpublished political handout circulated to participants in a Philippine Social Democratic Party Organizing Seminar. January 1987

Philippine Political Spectrum After Marcos (1987)

Philippine NGOs & the Left (circa 2002)

CODE-NGO

Sector, Issue, Area-Based Coalitions

NGI

Individual

PACO

GRIPO

Sectoral/Geogrpahic

Alliances

GUAPO

PO

Membership-Based

NationalDemocrats

PopularDemocrats

IndependentSocialists

DemocraticSocialists

SocialDemocrats

LiberalDemocrats

Ideological Forces

Sectoral/Issue-basedConsortia

DirectService

Networks

SupportService

DJANGO TANGO FUNDANGO

GRINGO BONGO COME N' GO

MUNGO

Institutions/Agencies

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TABLE 2

GLOSSARY OF TERMS: Philippine NGO & the Left (circa 2001)<tagalog translation of acronym in parenthesis>

PACO <nail>: Professional, Academic, and Civic Organizations

PO: grassroots People’s Organizations• GRIPO <faucet>: Government-run and Initiated PO• GUAPO <handsome>: Genuine, Autonomous People’s Organization

DJANGO <action movie star>: Development, Justice and Advocacy NGO• perform direct and support services to GUAPOs.• Makes no pretense for political neutrality

TANGO <like the old-fashioned dance>: Traditional NGO• Charitable, welfare and relief organizations for the poor.

FUNDANGO <a traditional Filipino dance>: Funding Agency NGO• provides financial and other forms of support to grassroots groups

MUNGO <as in mungo bean, used in certain Filipino dishes>: Mutant NGO• mutation of original spirit of NGO work, that is set up for narrow personal and/or politicalbenefits(1) GRINGO <as in gringo>: Government-run and Initiated NGO(2) BONGO <as in bongo>: Business-Organized NGO(3) COME N’GO: fly-by-night operations of NGO “entrepreneurs”

NGI: Non-Governmental Individuals (academics, religious leaders, and various professionals whosework intersect with civil society issues)

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encouraging the growth of the NGO sector. By1992, more than 58,000 NGO’s have registeredwith the Securities and Exchange Commission,and more than 16,000 local groups soughtaccreditation with local governments toparticipate in governance activities.

Development projects flourished in thecities and the countryside, largely made possibleby the largesse of international funding agenciesfrom Europe, and to a lesser degree from theUnited States and Australia.

The rapid expansion and legitimation of thePhilippine NGO community transformed whatwas viewed as a mere appendage of politicalmovements to its own distinct sector followingits own internal logic of development. Althoughsome NGOs remained subordinated to politicalforces, most progressive NGOs (later referred toas DJANGOs—Development, Justice, andAdvocacy NGOs) zealously asserted theirautonomy. With public support, moreorganizational independence from politicalforces, and increased donor assistance, the NGOcommunity has embarked on a steady course ofinstitutionalization as a distinct sector inPhilippine political life.

Ideological RootsThough the NGO community shows signs

of institutionalization, its roots in theantidictatorship struggle give its key players abase of experience and a set of political practices

that prioritizes fundamental change even in thefight for incremental reform. In one of thecommunities I visited, Noemi Bien, thePresident of the Triangulo Urban PoorAssociation of Naga City was clear that theirdemands for changes had deeper roots. “Untilwe own the land, they can evict us anddemolish our homes. We can’t own our homesunless the government helps us with the money.But they don’t have money, until we renegotiateour foreign debt,” Noemi breaks down thepolitics of land tenureship.

“Throughout Philippine history, state powerhas always been challenged by organizationsthat articulate alternative ideological paradigms—communism, national democracy, populardemocracy, socialism, democratic socialism,social democracy, and liberal democracy…Asignificant number of PO’s (people’sorganizations) and institutions are directly orindirectly influenced by these ideologicalforces.” 2

The political forces most influential in thiscurrent NGO scene are the National Democratsled by the Communist Party of the Philippinesand its splinter groups, the IndependentSocialists led by BISIG, and various strands ofSocial Democrats predominantly allied with theCatholic church. These forces, to a greatdegree, formed the core of the anti-dictatorshipstruggle, and currently hold central positions inthe NGO community in the Philippines.

Above: Barangay Triangulo where Noemi Bien (right) livesand sells second-hand clothes.

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Decentralization and the Fight for GoodGovernance

“The simplicity of allies and enemies underthe dictatorship has been replaced by a shiftingterrain where new roles, tactics, and strategiesare constantly being forged” 3 The LocalGovernment Code (LGC) of 1991 is consideredone of the most important terrain shifts of thepost-dictatorship period.

On October 10, 1991, President CorazonAquino signed into law Republic Act 7160,popularly known as the LGC, as a landmarklegislation envisioned to ensure transparencyand accountability in governance by devolvingkey administrative, regulatory and fiscal powerto local governmental units (LGUs). In herview, “the new law lays down the policies thatseek to institutionalize democracy at the locallevel. It hopes to complete the process ofempowering our people through directparticipation in the affairs of government”.According to her Cabinet Secretary at thattime, “Anything that the dictator built, let usdestroy!” 4

The Code was supposed to help change thetraditional patronage system where localofficials can wield real power in their ownjurisdiction without having to “act like vassalsof national bureaucrats,” according to SenatorAquilino Pimentel, one of the architects of theCode. “The central government,” Pimentelrecalls, “controlled both the purse and thepower to develop the nation.” He adds, “It took89 centavos for every tax peso collected andprovided for only 11 centavos for the use oflocal governments.” 5 As a result of thiscentralized system, a culture of dependencedeveloped among the local governments andtheir national political patrons.

This fiscal imbalance changed under theLGC. Local governments, starting in 1992,benefit their share of tax dollars increase 4-11times their previous levels. Even the most basicgovernmental units—the baranggays, orvillages—enjoyed marked increases in theirannual budgets. In one of the cities I visited,San Jose del Monte in the province of Bulacan,their annual budget increased from 20 millionpesos in 1991, to a projected 228 million tenyears later.

Other key provisions of the LGC include:

• devolves responsibility for the delivery ofbasic services to the LGUs that has alwaysbelonged to the national government. This shifthas affects the Departments of Health,Agriculture, Social Welfare and Development,and Environment and Natural Services.Wholesale transfer of appropriate personnel,programs, projects, records, and equipment ofthese agencies to local governments;

• grants LGUs significant regulatory powerstraditionally done by national agencies. Some ofthe most significant regulatory areas devolved toLGUs are the reclassification of agriculturallands, enforcement of national building codes,inspection of food products, regulation of realestate trade and business, licensing andregulation of cockfighting; finally

• recognizes—and mandates—the activeparticipation of nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), people’s organizations (PO’s), and theprivate sector in the process of governance.These groups are given seats in the locallegislative body, as well as mandatedparticipation in “Local Special Bodies” whichthey share with elected officials. These include:Local Health Board, Local DevelopmentCouncil (prioritizes development projects),School Board, Pre-qualification, Bids andAwards Committee (for city contracts), Peaceand Order Council, and the People’s LawEnforcement Board. The LGC also includes aRecall provision to yank errant officials, as wellas providing for citizen-initiated Initiativeprocess to promote governmental accountabilityand responsiveness.

However, more than a decade after itsimplementation, it is widely acknowledged evenby government officials that there are still majorobstacles in implementing the Code’s provisionsand living up to its guiding spirit. Many LGUshave non-functional Local Special Bodies, onlya handful actually have sectoral representativeson their legislature, and much of the newly-crafted regulatory and fiscal powers are put tothe service of ensconcing local oligarchs ratherthan opening up local political culture. The1991 LGC, in the opinions of many Iinterviewed, is an imperfect law just as otherlaws that seek to redefine power relationships inan environment where local elites largely definethe direction of development in local areas.

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Mechanisms for Citizens°¶ Participation under the Local Government Code of 1991

1. Recall Provides for immediate accountability of both elective and appointive local officials whose tenure

may be terminated by popular vote. Must be initiated by a Preparatory Recall Assembly, includingelected officials.

Largely unused or operationalised by NGOs and POs, due to difficulties in enacting the process

2. People°¶s initiative and referendum People are given the right to legislate through “initiative and referendum”. Institutionalises people power, providing a means for people to pass key legislation directly rather

than through local legislatures or Congress Cumbersome procedures

3. Local sectoral representation Guarantees local sectoral representation in the local legislative assemblies (provincial, municipal and

city councils) 3 seats reserved for marginal sectors: sectoral representatives of women, labour, and one from urban

poor, indigenous cultural communities, or disabled while sectoral representatives should be elected, this has not been enacted.

4. Local special bodies LSBs are tasked to formulate policy recommendations, develop plans, and propose measures to guide

legislation and help steer local governments. LSBs include: local health board, local peace and order councils, local school boards, local pre-

qualification bids and awards committee, and the local development council The LDC is most commonly used mechanism for citizens participation by NGOs and POs. Not less

than _ of the LDC should comprise of accredited NGO or PO representatives. Considered as keyarena of advocacy and for strengthening local government capacities.

5. Mandatory consultations and public hearings Public consultations mandatory in the planning and implementation of any project or program by

government or private sector, and in vital decisions undertaken by the LGU But not very effective, no mandatory posting of public notices

6. Active partnerships LGUs must promote / facilitate partnerships with POs, NGOs and private sector in pursuit of local

autonomy Joint undertakings and ventures (delivery of basic services, livelihood projects, local enterprises) and

capability building Most utilised mechanism for participation

(Drawn from Iszatt 2002; see also Villarin 1996)

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New Arena of StruggleIdeological forces, which traditionally

operated on an expose and oppose stance, slowlystarted to travel uncharted routes throughadvocacy campaigns, negotiations withgovernment, and the parliamentary struggle. Inorder to maximize the opportunities opened up bythe LGC as a political space for progressivereforms, social movement organizations adoptedapproaches that engaged groups in state-centeredstrategies. “In the face of the LGC, the new Leftmodifies its basic perspectives, stressing the vitalimportance of intervening in local politics,including elections,” wrote noted sociologist OlleTornquist in his study of democratizationmovements in the Third World. 6

Tom Villarin, Director of the Institute ofPolitics and Governance agrees with Tornquist’sassessment of the political opportunities that theLGC presents. “Decentralization in the hands ofcorrupt, inefficient local officials will beineffective; in the hands of progressive localofficials, new avenues for political space andinstitutional reforms can be made. At best, weshould treat this mandate as an ‘arena of struggle’for those previously excluded from participatingcan demand their rights and claim entitlementsfrom the state as citizens.” 7

According to this framework, the LGC andthe efforts towards decentralization opens up animportant new arena where allocation ofresources, democratic participation, anddevelopment priorities can be fought over,negotiated, and even controlled by socialmovement actors.

To carry out their intervention strategies,civil society groups use a number of approaches toengage their local governments. Some strategiesfocus on building trust and relationships withlocal officials as a means to gain wider acceptanceof participatory governance initiatives. Othersstress building capacities of local groups to engagewith their officials, advocate their interests, andensure that participatory governance is practiced.A few emphasize an electoral strategy, incoordination with other approaches, on behalf ofa progressive, grassroots political party. Notablepolitical parties that have emerged from the Leftin the post-Marcos period include AKBAYAN,Bayan Muna, and Pandayan.

Based on interviews and case studiesconducted while in the Philippines, the groupsidentified the following key benefits in theirengagement in local governance work:

• ability to influence allocation of resourcesof local governments;• increased transparency of the workings oflocal governments;• development of new skills and capacities ofgrassroots organizations and NGOs;• local development plans better reflectpeople’s priorities;• institutionalized accountability of localofficials;• opened avenues for leadershipdevelopment and build a pool of potentialcandidates.

Civil society groups have been able to takeadvantage of political opportunities opened up bythe Local Government Code of 1991 to advancean empowerment agenda for poor people. Evenwith the Code’s uneven implementation thatunwittingly reinforced elite rule in somelocalities, progressive groups in the Philippineshave been able to develop an arsenal of state-centered intervention strategies that combinestraditional organizing and electoral (politicalparty) work.

Tornquist recognized this trend in the early1990s. “In carrying out their work in ‘civil society’the movements face certain structural constraintswhich call for different forms of extended politicsof democratization…Democratization may betaken beyond ‘civil society’ to the state.” 8

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Civil Society and the Local Government Code

Key Arenas of Intervention Intervention Strategies / Approaches

Participatory development planning Barangay and municipal development

plan Municipal land use plans - CLUP

Local development plans BDP-PRA Municipal land use planning

Policy making Participation in Local Special Bodies including

local development councils Municipal land use planning Pressure politics Gender advocacy Ballot initiative (Naga experience?)

Local finance / budgeting participatory budgeting participatory resource mobilisation- pledging

sessions technical assistance for LGU finance – fiscal

spaces for raising revenue local enterprise development gender budget advocacy- maximizing GAD

budgets

Local justice paralegal capacity building in local governance

issues

Civil society capacity building PO and NGO capacity building to participate /intervene in local special bodies

Many others!

Electoral vying for elected office – civil society leaders runfor office

platform development / promotion of newpolitics by brgy. and municipal /city electoralcandidates

Ballot initiative (Cabiao, N.E.)

Government accountability exposing impact of LGU borrowing participatory M&E – assessing local government

performance and implementation of BDPs

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Global Trend of DecentralizationThe Philippines joins a multitude of countrieswhere, in the past five decades, efforts ofdecentralization has taken root. The frameworkwhich guides these efforts is a conservative, not aprogressive, one. “The promise ofdecentralization,” according to Prof. Hutchcroftof University of Wisconsin-Madison and long-time observer of Philippine politics, “is closelyrelated to larger international trends promotingthe retreat of the state; in fact, it can been as acorollary to the focus of the WashingtonConsensus on deregulation, privatization, and thegeneral reduction of governments’ role in theeconomy.” 9 According to a 1994 World Bankstudy, 63 out of the world’s 75 developing andtransitional countries with populations over fivemillion are engaged in transferring political powerto local government units.

The recent resurgence to decentralize hasbeen accompanied, some say driven, by anincrease in donor support of various initiatives.The United Nations Development Programme,the UN Capital Development Fund, the WorldBank, the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) and numerousinternational donors from the U.S. and Europehave invested significant resources towardsdecentralization programs to improve governancepractices and strengthen democracy worldwide. Inthe Philippines, the Aquino governmentpartnered with the USAID in September, 1990,to launch a five-year, $66.7 million LocalDevelopment Assistance Program (LDAP) inanticipation of the passage and implementation ofthe LGC. “What happened in the Philippines isthat events moved much faster than anticipatedand the goal of devolution of power to localgovernments became an almost overnightreality,” according to a USAID/Manila officer.“LDAP increased the capacity of localgovernments to begin to assume its newresponsibilities.” 10

Decentralization has greatly affected thepolitical contours in the Philippines in someunforeseen ways. The conservative agenda todismantle central government functions and pushthe loci of significant political and economicdecisions to sub-units or local jurisdictions, alsoprovides opportunities for leftist parties and socialchange groups to take power at the local leveleven when they lack the resources to succeed innational arenas. This new political terrain hascaused much of the new Left to set aside the old

revolutionary politics of conquering the Statethrough armed struggle in favor of acomprehensive approach in winning local power.How groups navigate this new terrain, andleverage local power to impact national politicsonce again, is the historic challenge of thePhilippine Left at this time.

Let’s look at one of the NGO networks thathas taken on this challenge, and the lessons it haslearned in the process of developing a new set oftheories and practices to guide its work.

THE CARET EXPERIENCE“CARET started out in 1988 as a support institutionfor the setting up of a stronger union of peasantorganizations in the country. In 1994, as distantnetworking interventions proved to be more and moreinsufficient in addressing local opportunities,CARET’s work was qualitatively enhanced to effectinterventions in land tenure improvement viacommunity organizing and to help create effectivepeople’s organizations (PO’s) at a level closest to thepeople—the barangay (village). The realization thatCO is an effective tool in empowering communitiesand in engendering immediate responses to local issuescaused a significant shift of the direction of CARET’sinstitutional strategy from the distant mode to a moreproximal one. CARET now has 13 local chapters in8 provinces in the northern Luzon.”

--The CARET Practice and Framework, 2000

Gerry Bautista was a founding member ofKaisahang Gabay ng Bayan (KAGABAY) in1994. He lives in Barangay Sto. Cristo, in the cityof San Jose del Monte in the province of Bulacan,a short 45-minute drive from the outskirts ofmetro Manila. He has 3 kids: Aaron is 7 years old,Luwalhati is 4, and Emmanuel is almost a yearold.

Driving my brother’s white Sentra throughthe ghost town of San Jose del Monte, weapproached a clearing along the rows ofabandoned “low-income” housing units in theoutskirts of town. Don, a “facilitator” forKAGABAY, leads us down a dirt-hill and asks meto park the car under a lone tree in the middle ofa parched field.

A short distance away, a few women arehuddled around a steaming pot of pork meat andassorted spices slow-cooked to perfection. Furtheraway, a couple of men are tying a large blue tarpon the makeshift canopy made of long pieces ofbamboo tightly tied with twine. A handful of kids

16

have gathered around a tall, and rusty heliumtank taking turns inflating red and blue balloonswith festive “Congratulations” painted in white.It’s a day before Emmanuel’s christening, andGerry’s whole family and about a couple of dozenrelatives and friends are preparing for tomorrow’sbig celebration. “We expect about 500 people tocome tomorrow,” says Gerry proudly.

The unofficial election season has begun.Geri is running for Barangay (village) captain ofSto. Cristo in a few months, but, in thePhilippines, candidates for local posts aresanctioned to only formally campaign in the twoweeks before the elections. “I invited the mayor,everyone at the city council, the chief of policeand the leaders of farmers’ associations,” smilesGerry.

Changing TraditionsThe town of San Jose del Monte was

identified as a community organizing area by theCenter for Agrarian Reform Empowerment andTransformation (CARET) in 1994, signifying anew strategic focus for the QuezonCity-basedNGO. “In 1988, CARET started out as a nationalsupport institution for the setting up of strongerunion of peasant organizations in the country. By1994, the realization that CO is an effective toolin empowering communities and in engenderingimmediate responses to local issues caused asignificant shift of CARET’s institutionalstrategy.” 11

KAGABAY was one of the nine organizingprojects that CARET developed under its neworientation. Intended to organize farmercommunities threatened by land conversionslargely due to housing development projects toattract low- to moderate-income residents ofneighboring MetroManila region, KAGABAYbecame an experimental ground for integrating anelectoral and governance intervention strategiesinto community organizing.

“In the past, engaging in communityorganizing work as an avenue towards a moreactive participation in politics and governancewould have been odd for “pure” practicioners..” 12

KAGABAY participated in village-leveldevelopment planning, a process prescribed bythe Local government Code. Village residentsslowly began noticing some changes: accessibilityof local officers to residents, a working andefficient dispute settlement system, affordabletransportation services, and improved healthdelivery services including free medical

consultations, free or reduced-priced medicines,availability of doctors, etc. Residents prioritizedthe construction of a “wet market” and anenvironmental-friendly waste disposal system.Both are currently in operation. There have beentangible results in KAGABAY members’participation in village-level developmentplanning. Taking advantage of the politicalopportunities opened up by the LocalGovernment code solidified this transition forCARET.

KAGABAY also tested the electoral waters.Starting in the 1997 village-level elections,CARET assisted KAGABAY in winning 5 villagecaptain seats and successfully ran 14 villagecouncil members’ campaigns. (Out of a total of 59village councils in San Jose del Monte.)“Influencing and transforming the politicalculture can be best achieved if alternativepolitical leaders are thrust into positions of publicpower, through elections, to complement theincessant progressive advocacy being done fromoutside formal structures.” 13

KAGABAY members(above) participate in localdevelopment planning workshop on 5/25/02.

“Even in the context of the more politicaltradition of the progressive movements in thecountry, electoral participation as consequence ofCO work would have been far off. Time andthings, however, have a way of changingtraditions.” 14 Indeed, in the calculations of theLeft during the Marcos dictatorship, anyengagement in electoral politics only legitimizesthe democratic veneer of an oppressive system.More often than not, until the last years ofMarcos, political forces on the Left boycottedwhat they called “sham elections”.

17

“The decentralization of state powers make itboth necessary and possible for the new Left toengage in local politics. A lot of vital resourcesand powers will be devolved and the new arenacannot be avoided. It seems possible formovements to make use of their basicperspectives in reading these changes and tacklethem rather than just adjusting pragmatically.” 15

“In reality, the aim for progressive PO’sshould be to achieve the status of being a force tocontend with, thereby insulating itself from beingon the receiving end of any backlash, andensuring that it will remain a major politicalplayer in the locality even after the elections… Inthe long run, electoral alliances must be seen asmere episodes in the fight for bigger systemicchanges”

Patronage politics, one that is based on clanidentification and/or receipt of material and/orsocial benefits, has defined the Philippinepolitical landscape for centuries. For progressives,like those in CARET and KAGABAY, affecting

how politics is negotiated becomes an importantgoal in the pursuit of systemic changes.

Multiple Lanes in the Social ChangeHighway

This has led some leaders in the Philippineprogressive movement to find new social changeframeworks, one that can negotiate various arenasof change seamlessly. “Broadly, participation canbe likened to a multiple-lane highway. One usesthe inner lane and the outer lane depending onhow fast or how slow (yet safer) you want to reachyour destination. The destination is buildingempowered sustainable communities. Each of thedifferent lanes uses different vehicles and driversbut should be treated as inclusive of each other.The use of different lanes and vehicles must becomplementary and give value-added to each lanerather than sapping each other’s strengths. Theremust be “weaving” of these lanes at certainpoints.” 16

“Political participation is definitely a fast laneas events are dictated by the public’sconsciousness. The rationale for an electoralparty’s existence is first and foremost winelections. Unless you win, you cannot pursuegood governance programs and maximize theopportunities brought about by the LGC.Winning in the electoral lane, however, can notbe achieved if the other lanes are not beingpursued seriously and sustainably.” 17

The formation of Akbayan! (Citizen ActionParty) in 1998, borne out of years of negotiationsbetween social movement organizations andpolitical “blocs”, is built to be the electoral lanefor CARET and its cohorts. Leaders from BISIG,Pandayan, Siglaya, and Movement for PopularDemocracy political blocs formed the core at thestart of the Akbayan! founding process in 1993.After numerous regional and nationalconsultations among these blocs, Akbayan! wasfinally registered as a political party in late 1997.Since then, Akbayan! membership has grownfrom 10,000 to more than 100,000 dues-payingparticipants from 53 of 72 provinces in thecountry, elected officials in every level of localgovernment offices (e.g. Mayors, councilmembers, village level offices), and two people inthe House of Representatives in Congress.

Gerry Bautista was one of 1,200 Akbayan!candidates who ran for office in the localelections of July, 2002. Gerry’s campaignemphasized the “New Politics” of inclusivegovernance and participatory planning,centerpieces of Akbayan!’s platform, in a hotlycontested election. In the final count, Gerry lostby less than 200 votes to the incumbent, whofreely gave 500-peso bills to voters on the eve ofthe elections.

GB

18

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

MASS MOVEMENT

LANE VEHICLE FORMS NATURE

Self-sustaining, self-propelling and self-directing people's organization

Spontaneous citizens' action (e.g. anti-drugs campaing, anti-logging).

Social Movement unionism

Sectoral organizing (urban poor, women, environment, agrarian reform, etc).

Issue-focus (e.g. debt capaign).

Mass mobilization rallies

Sit-in, strikes and demonstrations.

Hunger strike.

"Critical engagement" with the state.

Public Pressure

Media mileage, publicity of issues/demands.

Mandatory public hearings and consultations (e.g. laws affecting environment)

Citizens' anti-graft watch

Anti-crime crusaders.

Actual excercise of rights as citizens

Rights acquired through action.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNANCE

Community organizing for democratic participation in governance.

Participatory planning and budgeting.

Participatory resource mobilization (pledging sesions).

Participatory monitoring and evaluation.

Representation in local special bodies

Direct people's participation in actual local planning and budgeting.

Mandated participation

Strategic interface with local governments for short, medium to long-term developement agenda.

Get specific, tangible gains that impact on daily lives of people

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Citizen's action party (mass based, progressive reform political party).

Legislative advocacy for progressive reforms.

Lobby work for tangible gains (e.g. national budget allocation, laws/issuances).

Electoral education, election campaigns, direct voting, guarding of ballots.

Coalition work, tactical alliance with modern elites and state reformists

Longer term, societal transformation.

Multiple Lanes in the Social Change Highway

19

LESSONS FROM THE PHILIPPINESIf truth be told, there are certain experiencesthat will stick to me long after I have forgottenwhy I went to the Philippine for six months in2002 in the first place. The 4-hour conversationwith Noemi Bien seated on a pile of usedclothes she sells in front of the railroad tracks inbaranggay triangulo in Naga City. Her passionfor the work, and the challenge to maintain thatpassion after her husband passed away in July,2001. Even committed leaders (and organizers)get tired—a real feeling of movement mortalitysets in. Her ability to go deep inside and tap thatboundless reserve of spirit and joy tempered bythe conditions of her new realities wasprofoundly memorable.

Those outdoor group interviews with leadersfrom two CARET-affiliated organizations,KAGABAY in Bulacan and UGNAYAN inLaguna, are unforgettable. Sitting down onwooden benches beside the rice fields that theytill, and feeling the warm breeze of a tropicalafternoon, make me appreciate the time theytook away from pressing work to share theirhopes and dreams for their community and theircountry. Their faces and voices will not beforgotten.

As an organizer, I do appreciate the factthat Noemi and the leaders of KAGABAY andUGNAYAN have reached their level ofdevelopment largely because of the strategiesand approaches their organizations haveengaged in to effectively address their particularpolitical situation. Culling the lessons from thisexperience is, in the final analysis, what wouldbe useful for social change organizations in theUnited States. What can we learn from ourcohorts in the Philippines?

Popularizing a comprehensive social changeframework that accounts for an arsenal ofstrategies from exacting accountability frompublic officials to effectively governinginstruments of the state apparatus. The“Multiple Lanes” framework is able to makesense of disparate activities of civil societygroups and point them to a unified strategy. Itvalues a movement-wide division of laborbetween local organizing groups (and theirintermediaries or NGOs), and a progressivepolitical party that can directly engage the stateapparatus during elections (and beyond). It alsosees that organizing strategies (i.e. towards stateaccountability) and political party activities (i.e.

seeking to govern parts of the state apparatus)belong to one social change continuum. Onewithout the other forms an incomplete picture.Either one would have strong grassrootsorganizations with limited ability to affect policyand popular political culture (like CO groups inthe U.S.), or one gets elected officials who arelargely unaccountable to any significant baseeven if they profess allegiance to a “movement”.In the words of Ollen Tornquist,“Democratization must be taken from civilsociety to the state.” 18

Willingness to form new organizations, orsubject current ones to a strict scrutiny on itsability to do relevant work given the demandsof political opportunities. The decision ofCARET to transform itself from a nationaladvocacy organization into a network of localorganizations allowed its groups to exploit thepolitical opportunities created by the LGC. Theformation of Akbayan! as a grassroots politicalparty that will work with the various politicalblocs including the one to which CARETbelong completed the arsenal of strategiesneeded to effectively influence local politics.“Akbayan! is a coming together of different‘streams of the progressive (Left) movement’,the convergence of which was made possible bythe emerging restoration of elite rule in theearly years of the transition from dictatorship todemocracy.” 19 In the concept paper “workingTowards the Formation of a Progressive PoliticalParty,” Akbayan! is a “response to the need for apolitical vehicle that will carry the progressivereform agenda into the heart of the nationalpolitical arena.” Its objective is to “expand andtransform access to the political process into theredistribution of social and economicopportunities among all sectors and peoples,between sexes, and across generations.” 20

A common political project that forms newalliances and builds movement infrastructurecannot permit sectarianism. In the Philippinecontext, “post-bloc” projects like Akbayan!were made possible by the collapse of the Left inthe early 1990s. The new party, according toJoel Rocamora, President of Akbayan, is achance for political blocs “to rid their workingrelationships of the sectarianism whichprevented them from working together before.”In the process, post-bloc projects like Akbayan!is able to thread different ideological traditionsand styles of work on the Philippine

20

Left—enough to form a new movementinfrastructure that can contend effectively inelectoral contests from the local to the nationallevels. In the context of weak organizations, andthe ascendance of conservative politics, theformation of a common political projectdemands a non-sectarian attitude towardscompeting factions to build new alliances.

New Demands on the Horizon?Philippine NGOs navigate these waters in a

context of increasing professionalization of thesector. Movement veterans are being forced tolearn new skills, and assume new roles inmaintaining and developing institutions. And astheir size and scope (and budget) increases,these NGOs also have to contend with externaldemands. “We can expect more demands placedon us by the SEC, and by our donors,” concludesArlene Santos of CARET. “U.S.-based donorsare specially skittish about our involvementwith electoral politics. We repeatedly have toexplain how it fits into our overall social changeframework.”

It will be instructive to follow thisdevelopment in the Philippine NGOsector—how much would groups adjust theirsocial change strategies to accommodate donordemands. Will this mean that groups likeCARET have to be more careful aboutintegrating their electoral activities into theirorganizing and development work? Will they beforced to distance themselves from Akbayan?The divide between “third sector” work andefforts towards direct political participationthrough elections and parties—legal restrictionsdemanded by the US corporate law—canradically alter the political culture and practicesof Philippine NGOs in the future.

The ideological roots of Philippine NGOscommitted to social change, the strategicleadership still exercised by movement veteransin these institutions, and an ability to adaptstrategies and forms of organization based onpolitical opportunities mitigate against a radicalshift in approach in the foreseeable futurebecause of external donor demands.

21

FOOTNOTES

1 Constantino-David, Karina. “From the Present Looking Back: A History of Philippine NGO’s”, Organizing forDemocracy: NGO’s, Civil Society and the Philippine State, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Hutchcroft, Paul. “The Political Dynamics of Decentralization: The Philippines and Thailand Compared,”University of Wisconsin-Madison, unpublished, 2002.

5 Ibid.

6 Tornquist, Olle. “Democratic ‘Empowerment’ and Democratization of Politics,” Kasarinlan, A PhilippineQuarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

7 Villarin, Tom. Democratic Participation in Governance: Multiple Lanes of Engagement Between the State,Social Movements and Civil Society. KAISAHAN Occasional Paper, Oct. 2000.

8 Tornquist, Olle. “Democratic ‘Empowerment’ and Democratization of Politics,” Kasarinlan, A PhilippineQuarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

9 Hutchcroft, Paul. “Centralization and Decentralization in Administration and Politics: Assessing TerritorialDimensions of Authority and Power.” Governance, An International Journal of Policy and Administration, Jan.2001.

10 United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “Shifting Seats of Government in thePhilippines,” Fall 1995.

11CARET. Creating Stronger Synergies on the Ground for Effective and Meaningful Political Empowerment andElectoral Participation of Organized Communities: The CARET Practice and Framework. Internal document,1999.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Magno, Alexander. “A Changed Terrain for Popular Struggles,” Kasarinlan, A Philippine Quarterly of ThirdWorld Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

16 Villarin, Tom. Democratic Participation in Governance: Multiple Lanes of Engagement Between the State,Social Movements and Civil Society. KAISAHAN Occasional Paper, Oct. 2000.

17 Ibid.

18 Tornquist, Olle. “Democratic ‘Empowerment’ and Democratization of Politics,” Kasarinlan, A PhilippineQuarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

19 Abao, Carmela. “Ideology, Social Movements, and Institutionalization,” unpublished M.A. dissertation on theemergence of AKBAYAN, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 2002.

20 Abao, Carmela. “Dynamics of Political Blocs in the Formation of a Political Party,” Philippine DemocracyAgenda, 1997.

22

CHAPTER 2THE ROAD LESS TAKEN: MULTIPLE LANESFRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL CHANGEORGANIZATIONS IN THE U.S.

Time spent with Philippine social changegroups, with their rich histories and livelypolitical culture, inspired me to ask this question:what would it take to develop a U.S. version ofthe Philippine Multiple Lane Highway frameworkso we can nurture a strategic movement builtfrom the experiences of (and accountable to) realpeople?

I now turn to look at my old cohorts in theUnited States—courageous men and women inthe frontlines of organizing poor and of colorcommunities on the important issues ofenvironmental justice, police brutality andcommunity safety, voting rights, living wage,affordable housing, access to quality healthcare,and welfare reform. In late Fall, 2002, theMovement Formations Project interviewedrepresentatives from 11 organizations todocument their initiatives in combininggrassroots organizing with electoral strategies, andask for their prescription in developing a moreexplicitly state-centered approach in our socialchange arsenal.

The creative minds of seasoned organizers weinterviewed are imagining and beginning toconstruct an important lane in the social changehighway—one that promises to provide poorpeople and communities of color the vehicle tosignificantly affect state policies, priorities, andrepresentation. And they are doing so in one ofthe darkest times for progressive organizing in thiscountry when basic rights and freedoms are underattack in the name of national security.

U.S. Non-Profits and Politics“The Ford Foundation asked us to participate

in a workshop that informed us of what we couldand couldn’t do as a 501(c)(3) in terms of ourlobbying and electoral organizing,” confides LeroyJohnson, Co-director of Southern Echo, aMississippi based, twelve-year old, AfricanAmerican community group. Southern Echo isone of many United States non-profitorganizations that has seen its organizing andadvocacy efforts scrutinized.

In San Francisco, the Tides Center, providesa fiscal home and infrastructure support to socialchange initiatives. Recently, it has seen a sharpupsurge in governmental scrutiny of groups theysponsor. “(The Tides Center) was recentlyaudited five times in twelve months, after onlyone IRS audit in three years, “ shares ChinaBrotzky, Director of Special Projects at theCenter. “US non-profit activist and organizingorganizations are being under attack by right winggroups more than ever. They continually put uson our heels.”

Since the Catholic Campaign for HumanDevelopment (CCHD) took a conservative turnwhen they re-aligned their funding priorities toreflect their anti-abortion and anti-gay stance fiveyears ago, many community organizations havelost their funding from CCHD. Activities thatCCHD construes as “fundamentally in conflictwith the teachings of Catholic doctrine” havebeen bases for pulling their support to organizinggroups who largely depend on CHD’s generousgrants. When leaders and staff of the MiamiWorkers Center joined a coalition of groupsseeking to defend a woman’s right to choose,CCHD cut their funding “We lost $50,000 at atime when money for organizing was drying up,”shares Gihan Perreira of the Center.

Despite efforts to restrict their effectiveness,organizing groups have gone against the grain bycontinuing to spawn new and innovativeinitiatives which vie for greater electoral powerand political impact. In the process, they arefinding ways to bridge the gap of issue-based (andtactical) campaigns focused on holding publicofficials accountable, with initiatives that seek toexert more direct control of state institutions.A small segment of the US-based non profitsector has begun to move towards developing abroader understanding in their strategic thinkingabout social change organizing in low incomecommunities of color—one that focuses onincorporating varying levels of electoralorganizing as part of their overall social changestrategy. Though still largely envisioned intactical, short-term initiatives, these organizationssee the need to develop more strategic and long-term political projects that will pave thedevelopment of a U.S.-based “Multiple Lane”framework, specially one that strengthens state-centered strategies of social change organizations.

23

Tactical InnovationsAll of the groups interviewed have engaged in

campaigns and projects that have (1) sponsored(and won!) local initiatives, (2) organized newconstituencies into the electoral arena, and (3)developed strategic alliances that test the localelectoral terrain.

Winning on local ordinances: In Oakland,California, a coalition of grassroots organizationscollected more than 20,000 signatures in 2001 toqualify a ballot initiative in the November, 2002elections. Measure EE, or the Just Causeinitiative, was geared to protect Oakland tenantsfrom unwarranted evictions and unreasonablerent hikes. One of the Measure’s anchororganizations--providing office space, staff time,and campaign strategy—was People United for aBetter Oakland (PUEBLO), a 13 year-oldcitywide organization of poor people and veteranof many organizing campaigns. “We never didanything this big before,” claims Dawn Phillips,Executive Director of PUEBLO. “And unlike ourissue organizing work, the Yes on Measure EEcampaign forced us to go for breadth rather thandepth,” Philips continues. “It was an educationalexperience we’d like to get better at next time.”When all the ballots were counted, Measure EEwon by a slim 1,400-vote margin, 51% to 49%.

On the other coast, Direct Action for Rightsand Equality (DARE) placed a Living Wageordinance on the city agenda. “The Living Wagecampaign was developed over three years ago andwe are finally seeing the fruits of our labor, “shares Sarah Mersha, Director DARE, a 12 yearold community-based membership group. “It grewout of the needs of our low-wage and no-wagemembers, and (the ordinance) incorporatedaffirmative action requirements so that therewould be no discrimination against people whohave past police records. We are now on theverge of winning it through a majority Providencecity council.” To even get it this far, DAREalong with Jobs with Justice and a few alliedorganizations collected signatures in targetedcouncil districts and assisted in electing threeallies (two are members of DARE) into the citycouncil. Mersha is confident that the newcouncil will adopt their ordinance once theybegin the new term. When this happens,Providence will join more than a hundred othermunicipalities who have passed some version of aLiving Wage ordinance.

New constituencies organized into electoralarena. In Richmond, California, the AsianPacific Environmental Network (APEN),gradually built the capacity of the Laotian refugeecommunity to engage in electoral campaigns.“One of APEN’s primary constituent bases ofLaotian refugees has barriers of language, literacy,and access to the poll booth,” points out APENDirector Joselito Laudencia. “APEN waspreviously known for its community-buildingprograms, but over the past three years we havemoved to accountability campaigns and recentlybegun to endorse relevant local and state-widepro-tenant and pro-affordable housinginitiatives.”

Laudencia recognizes that they have a longway to go. “These are the first baby steps for aconstituency that are either not yet used toexercising their democratic rights in this country,or are still prohibited from doing so due tocitizenship status.”

Calfornians for Justice (CFJ) recognized thistrend when it started in 1996 during thecampaign to fight Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action measure. “We organized CFJ tobe a vehicle for the emerging majority ofCalifornia—people of color, young people,immigrants—to have a home and begin flexingtheir political muscle,” according to Abdi Soltani,Executive Director of CFJ. “Even if people cannotvote right now doesn’t mean they have nostake—or even a say—on critical policies such asaffirmative action, bilingual education, or theslashing of the education budget.” Soltanicontinues, “young people, immigrants and thosedisenfranchised from the political process all havea role in beating back these conservativeinitiatives.”

New alliances formed: “What we know is thatfolks take bad policies and move them around thestates. So we see it as a regional problem in theSouth (Texas, New Mexico, to Mississippi, up toNorth Carolina)...” reveals Johnson of SouthernEcho, “(so we are) now creating state-wideorganizations that share power as alliances, not aspermanent organization around a particularissue.”

The formation of the Los AngelesMetropolitan Alliance, spearheaded byAGENDA and the Community Coalition andincludes more than a dozen neighborhoodorganizations, labor unions, and activist groups,has been instrumental in mobilizing voters in

24

communities of color in the past few elections.“We’ve been able to build solid and lastingrelationships with progressive groups in LosAngeles,” claims Ngethe Maina, former Directorof AGENDA. “We’re slowly building themovement infrastructure for bigger and bolderfights.”

A Long Way to GoThough groups deeply value electoral organizingand state-centered intervention, the vast majorityof their time and effort is spent on“accountability” strategies. Most of theircampaigns and resources try to hold publicofficials accountable to their organization’s sets ofissues—a process of issue campaign developmentthat groups have perfected. Much less frequently,some groups have sponsored their own localinitiatives (i.e. living wage ordinances) orendorsed candidates running for local office. “Wejust don’t have the resources and infrastructure torun these campaigns,” claims Sara Mersha ofDARE. “We can’t just take 100 chantingmembers to City Hall and win on the issue likethe typical organizing drive. Elections test ourpatience.”

There may be a deeper reason whyorganizations like DARE feel lukewarm aboutelections. While 82% of groups surveyed viewstate-centered work as important, only 36% areable to integrate this approach into their long-term strategy. Interestingly, only one of thesegroups is a local, geographically-basedorganization; the rest are statewide formations.For the most part, local, grassroots organizationsseldom engage in state-centered strategies becausethese don’t fit into their strategic social changecalculation even though they see theirimportance.

64%

36%

AGENDADAREPUEBLOPODERAPENCommunity CoalitionLAANE

NWFCOKFTCSouthern EchoCFJ

Use of Electoral Strategy in Current Organizing Work

Short Term & Tactical Needs

Long Term & Strategic Needs

18%

32%50%

AGENDADAREPUEBLOCommunity Coalition

NWFCOKFTCSouthern EchoCFJLAANE

APENPODER

Importance of Electoral Organizing in Overall Social Change Strategy

Not Important

SomewhatImportant

Very Important

The Lane Less TraveledThe graphs on the following page show aninteresting comparison of social changeorganizations in the United States and in thePhilippines. In general, U.S. groups tilt towardsmore traditional organizing strategies, i.e. exactingaccountability of public officials and institutions,rather than engage in strategies which contend fordirect influence of state policies and practices. Atbest, U.S. groups engage in single-issue initiatives(ex. Living wage ordinances) that are directlyrooted in their organizing strategy. The traditionalcommunity organizing influence on these strategiesis quite evident—measurable wins, local initiatives,and valuing the imperatives of organization-building.

Philippine groups I interviewed, for the mostpart, tilt the other way. They find their roots inmass movements, and cut their teeth in contendingfor state priorities. Their “multiple lanes”framework lead them to engage the state inmultiple terrains: local politics and governance,national policies and offices, as well as issue-focusedorganizing strategies . However, in myconversations and interviews with organizers in thePhilippines, I found that their appreciation for thescience of “traditional organizing” isn’t asdeveloped as their ability to develop massmovement organizing strategies. Only the Alinsky-inspired group, COPE Foundation and its affiliatein Naga City, portray a highly-developed method ofgovernment accountability strategies.

INFLUENCEDIRECT CONTROL

Highway of Participation in State-Centered Change Approaches - U.S.

Political Participation Democratic Participation in Governance

Mass Movement Government Accountablity Strategies

AGENDA

DARE

LAANE

KFTC

NWFCO

Community Coalition

PUEBLO

PODER

Southern Echo

CFJ

APEN

INFLUENCEDIRECT CONTROL

Highway of Participation in State-Centered Change Approaches - Philippines

Political Participation Democratic Participation in Governance

Mass Movement Government Accountablity Strategies

Triangulo Urban Poor Asociation

COPE Foundation

AKBAYAN

UGNAYAN

FDC

CARET

KAGABAY

SAVE-Leyte

25

Strategic ConsiderationsGroups like CFJ, AGENDA, the CommunityCoalition, and PUEBLO have developed to apoint where they are now in a position to add anelectoral organizing component as part of overallsocial change strategy. They are in the process of(or seriously considering) forming a 501©(4).Unlike a typical non-profit organizationregistered as a 510©(3) with the InternalRevenue Service (IRS), groups with a 501©(4)designation can engage in an “unlimited amountof lobbying so long as the lobbying relates to thepurpose of the organization.” (IRS Code for 501©(4)). It also allows for limited activities inpolitical candidate campaigns—something that iswholly prohibited for 510©(3) groups.

For the Community Coalition, known as amulti-issue community group based in South LosAngeles, they were just tired of contradictions intheir strategy and not being able to engage in theelectoral arena as decision makers. “We must beable to hold the elected officials in place or keepthem out of office,” explains Marqueece Dawson,Associate Director at the Coalition, “and this canonly be done through elected officials. Thelobbying restrictions were killing us.”

Having a formation which can directlyengage in electoral politics allows them to bridgethe gap in their organizing work. “We can bebattling with the principal of a local school in abig way, but once the person runs for office, wehave to be silent,” claims Dawson. “This finallybecame unacceptable to us. At this point, theelectoral strategy is about 20% of our strategy, butby the next major elections we anticipate it at30% of our resources.”

Maina prescribes a broader, more holisticapproach. “We’re talking about an entity that cando electoral work, as well as direct legislative anddirect action work, and that wants more power,”envisions Ngethe Maina. “We can’t be frozen bylegalities. We need to build a full comprehensivemovement.”

Grassroots Political Parties?“If you want to seriously engage in buildingelectoral power,” ponders Maina of AGENDA,“your efforts ultimately lead you to the formationof a grassroots political party.”

Unlike 501©3 and 501©(4) organizationswhich are either prohibited from or have severelimitations placed on their actions in politicalcampaigns, a political party makes it its businessto play in this arena without much pause. It

monitors, analyzes and is able to respond topolitical opportunities. It can be a repository ofpolitical intelligence, a place where lessons caninform future actions and refine strategies. It isalso a place where leaders are developed intocandidates, and where they can be heldaccountable to a platform of issues and valuesonce they’ve won. A political party is theformation tailor-made for this lane of the socialchange highway. The main challenge is to findan organizational model that fits the capacitiesand strengths of local, grassroots social changeorganizations.

“We think that it is important to find newways,” claims PODER Director Antonio Diaz,“but we’re not sure what they are. We’d be reallyinterested in participating in these discussions tosee how to build more comprehensive power.”

Dawson of the Coalition tends to agree, “Wehave kicked the idea around, but we do not haveenough of a voter base to have a seriousdiscussion on this.”

“At this point, there is a lot more hope withelectoral politics in Providence with changes inelected officials and politicians, “ says Mersha,“It’s an interesting time now with new foundhope and success. It’s like building a house, andrequires laying down the foundation for the houseand a lifetime of commitment.”

Strengthening Our Movement Infrastructure:Reflections on Bi-National ExperienceInspired by what I saw in the Philippines on howsocial change organizations frame their work in abroader outline, I began this article by asking thequestion “What if groups who do the hard work oforganizing poor and of color communities in theU.S. developed a similar framework? What wouldit take?”

Here are a few of my reflections in answeringthese questions:

1. Build a state-centered political formation atthe local level that enables grassroots groups towage campaigns from accountability of publicofficials to direct control of portions of the stateapparatus. This new formation (i.e. independent,local political parties) need to build from theinfrastructure of grassroots groups to maintain itssocial movement focus and priorities. This way, itcan ensure accountability to the interests of thepoor and communities of color while it tries tobuild strategic alliances with other constituent

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groups. School boards, planning commissions,transportation boards, city councils, etc. are allvenues for grassroots intervention on the locallevel for this new formation. The main challengein the initial stage of creating these formations isthe development of a Multiple Lane frameworkfor the local area. Who’s currently doing what?And how do these initiatives fit an overall changestrategy? What are the current gaps and how dowe fill them?

2. Central to the success of this enterprise is are-conceptualization of the role of “non-profit”progressive organizing. Presently configured asformations independent of the state, theseorganizations primarily adopt a strategy that seeksto hold government accountable to the needs ofits constituents. This approach ensures thatgroups that represent poor people andcommunities of color are perpetual guests, notrightful owners, of the state house. These groupsmay win on their issues, but are hamstrung todefine the overall direction of policies andpriorities of the state. A comprehensive andengaged civil society understands the continuumof power and intends to contend for societalpriorities at every level.

3. Foundations, especially those who seethemselves as allies of social change groups,should assist in building this movementinfrastructure. This endeavor is a logicaldevelopment of the work of communityorganizing which philanthropic institutions havesupported for decades. From building democraticorganizations of the most disenfranchisedcommunities, to ensuring that their long-termhopes and aspirations find institutionalexpression, this process should be seen as a socialchange continuum and thus deserve continuedsupport.

These are indeed tricky propositions.Balancing the demands of legal restrictions onnon-profit behavior, the pull of a tradition thatclearly demarcates the work of “civil society” andthe “state”, the limitations placed by shrinkingresources, and the real possibility of politicalisolation in pushing for progressive initiatives in atime when state fascism is ascendant, thisendeavor will be unpopular, even unrealistic. Butodds such as these have a way of releasing theimagination from the practical and the probable.It begins with the question, “What if…” and“What would it take?”

STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS

The World According to the InternalRevenue Service:

“An Internal Revenue Code Section501©(3) organization may not engage incarrying propaganda, or otherwiseattempting, to influence legislation as asubstantial part of its activities. An IRCSection 501©(3) organization my notparticipate in, or intervene in (including thepublishing or distributing of statements), anypolitical campaign in behalf of (or inopposition to) any candidate for publicoffice.”

“IRC Section 501©(4) organizations canengage in an unlimited amount of lobbyingso long as the lobbying relates to thepurposes of the organization. The promotionof social welfare does not include direct orindirect intervention in political campaignson behalf of or in opposition to anycandidate for public office. It may engage insome political activities, so long as that isnot its primary activity. 501©(4)contributions are not tax-deductible.”

“Political Action Committees (PACs) aredifferent from non-profits in that they areorganized for the specific purpose of makingcontributions and expenditures to influencethe selection, nomination, election, orappointment of any individual to Federal,State or local public office or office in apolitical organization, or the election ofPresidential electors.”

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CHAPTER 3

THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON SOCIALMOVEMENTS

Privatization of public utilities, and the migrationof millions of people from the global south tocountries in the North are effects of globalizationthat social change groups continue to creativelyaddress. These two articles focus on how groupsare responding to these globalized trends, andhow they are finding new ways to organize.

The first article, Lessons in Humidity, traces theefforts of the Freedom from Debt Coalition-LeyteChapter in the Philippines in fighting the plans ofthe National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR)to construct electrical transmission lines throughpristine forests. The dismantling of publicutilities in the Philippines has forced FDC toconstruct new ways of organizing—more localorganizing, and less national advocacy work.

The second article explores the new opportunitiesfor immigrant communities in the UnitedStates—“collateral damage” of neoliberaleconomic policies which force them to leave theirhome countries to find work in the UnitedStates—to appeal to their home countrygovernments for protection and relief fromincessant attacks on their rights after September11. The article profiles the experiences ofFilipino airport screeners, Pakistani nationalsduring special registration, and the efforts of theMexican government to provide identity cards toits foreign nationals living in the U.S.Organizations are finding innovative ways toenjoin their home governments for protection.

ARTICLE ONE:LESSONS IN HUMIDITY°XTHE FIGHT FORPOWER IN RURAL PHILIPPINES

“Survival required the formation of the Freedom fromDebt Coalition (FDC). The coalition was formed inthe aftermath of the 1986 EDSA uprising thatoverthrew the Marcos dictatorship. The deposedgovernment left a staggering debt, the bulk of whichwere from loans made by Marcos cronies at the behestof the Philippine government. Despite opportunities to

renegotiate the debt while the country was still baskingfrom the goodwill of an international communityawed at the victory of people power, the Aquinogovernment made it a policy to honor all debts, eventhose fraudulently acquired. As a result, debt serviceused up some 40% of the national budget and wasprioritized over social service spending. It was inresponse to this situation that FDC was formallylaunched in March 1988 by 90 organizationscoalescing into a multi-sectoral, non-sectarian andpluralist advocacy group. By 2000, FDC has formedchapters in 10 provinces in the Visayas and Mindanaoregions.”

--Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) brochure,2000

The humidity makes my shirt stick likeflypaper. It’s high noon in the dead of summer,where even the water buffalo seeks shade from theheat of the sun. After one hour on the plane fromManila, and five on the bus across the island ofLeyte, I finally arrive in the town of Baybay in mynative Philippines. My good friend at theFreedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) based inManila urged me to visit their Leyte chapter andwitness first-hand how the effort of localtownspeople is slowing down the pace ofglobalization. So I’ve come to meet those whochoose to preserve their pristine forests over theconstruction of steel towers for electrical lines,and to ensure that their river isn’t choked by therunoff from a denuded watershed.

It’s been close to 20 years since I’ve visitedthe Philippine countryside, then as a youth leaderin the anti-Marcos movement in the UnitedStates. In the early 80s, whole villages were“hamletted” for counter-insurgencypurposes—thousands relocated from the peripheryto the town center to drain the support base ofthe revolutionary forces. Twenty years later,Marcos is gone, but parts of rural Philippinescontinue to be displaced by forces less brutal butequally pernicious.

This will make for a compelling story, Ithought: a local campaign with an internationaldimension, striking at the core issues of our time.Structural adjustment. Privatization of publicutilities. Environmental degradation.Environmental justice. People’s participation ingovernance. It was that and more.

It was all about coming home.

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Privatization of PowerJuanito “Nitoy” Modina points to the

mountains behind us and with a bit ofexasperation says,” This is where electrical lineswill pass. They will ruin our mountains!” Likethousands of other coconut farmers, Nitoy’sfamily feels a deep affinity to the mountains ofPangasugan on the eastern boundary of Baybay.His father, and those before him, were landlessfarmers who made wine from the fruit picked fromthese tall trees in return for shelter and food.Nitoy’s ancestors worked these mountains withtheir hands for generations; these coconut treeshave given sustenance to generations of Modinas.Ironically, the construction of electricaltransmission lines, seeking to connect rural Leyteto its neighboring islands, threatens to sever thisaffinity for thousands of families in the region.

The National Power Corporation(NAPOCOR), the country’s major generator ofelectricity, plans to build two transmission linesthrough the island that will traverse thePangasugan mountains. These two“interconnection” projects will complete theelectrical grid for the entire region, connectingthe power-rich rural towns with the power-hungryurban areas. With a completed grid, NAPOCORexpects to sell these transmission lines todomestic and foreign companies in pursuit of itsprivatization plans. Following the dictates of theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), WorldBank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB),NAPOCOR is rushing to dispose of its assets andpay off the country’s debt to these very sameinstitutions. And if NAPOCOR succeeds with itsplans, the government-run corporation willreduce its share of the utility market from 94percent in 1998 to 58 percent by 2010. These twoLeyte projects are part of NAPOCOR’sprivatization scheme.

“No private company will dare buyNAPOCOR unless the interconnection isrealized,” predicted Rey Enales, secretary-generalof the local chapter of the Freedom from DebtCoalition (FDC). “Those corporations will not beable to get windfall profits unless power generatedfrom this island gets to the tourist andcommercial areas of Cebu, Bohol, and northernMindanao. Baybay is key.”

For Enales and the FDC, the situation inBaybay reflects a familiar story for developingcountries like the Philippines. “Whengovernments are cash-strapped, privatizing itsbasic social services such as health,

communication, housing, water, and powerutilities seems a quick-fix solution.” But forEnales, it always comes with a steep price. Astatement released by the national office of FDCin June 2002 calls for the Philippine congress to“re-classify power generation from a privateundertaking to that of a public utility” and to re-negotiate government contracts with privatepower producers. FDC claims that thesecontracts, which guarantee payments fromNAPOCOR even if these private companiesdon’t supply them with any electricity, have beenresponsible for an increase of up to 300 percent inhousehold utility rates over the past two years. Inthe first months of 2002, FDC spearheaded apopular campaign which forced PhilippinePresident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo toimmediately lower utility rates and investigatethese onerous contracts.

Making It Personal“These projects of NAPOCOR will affect morethan 880 hectares (3.5 square miles) of virginforest, coconut lands, and watershed areas ofBaybay,” Modina continues. He pauses to pour icewater into a clear glass tumbler, and drinks from itheartily. “It will displace coconut farmers fromtheir land and affect 7,100 residents who dependon water supplied by the watershed.”

He looks at the calm Pangasugan river andreminisces. “We used to hike those mountains askids. We’d leave right after breakfast and comeback in time for lunch.” Condensed water dripsfrom the bottom of the glass as he lifts it from thesmall bamboo table between us, and takes anothersip. “Then in the afternoon, we’d play in the riverto cool off.”

We hear children playing in the shallow riverwater just beyond. “Shelly Kate, be careful. Youmight hurt yourself!” Nitoy shouts to his five-yearold daughter. “My three older sons, James, Robertand John Michael, are in town with their mother,or else they’d be in there with her, too!”

We both smiled. The Pangasugan river in theheat of summer has provided comfort and play tomany Modinas, I thought to myself.

From Contract Worker to EnvironmentalistBecoming a defender of the environment was thefurthest thing from Nitoy’s mind in the early1980s. He dropped out of architecture school inhis second year, and found himself jobless andbroke in the unfamiliar environs of Manila. Hemoved from one job to another, until the

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Philippine Overseas Employment Administrationtold him to pack his bags. A few days later, NitoyModina, son of a landless farmer in rural Leyte,was on his way to Yemen.

Nitoy joined 3 million other Filipino contractworkers abroad who are placed in more than 60countries. For two years, he worked in the lavishkitchen of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Taiz,Yemen. “The kitchen staff prepared food forhundreds of people each day,” Nitoy says. “Wewere working all the time. So my fellow Filipinoworkers and I looked forward to our days off.” Itwas in one of those days that Nitoy met his wifefrom Britain, Janet Mackenzie. Janet taughtscience at the Mohammed Ali OthmanInternational School. There were very few foreignworkers in Taiz at the time, so all nationalitieswould play sports and go to parties together.That’s how Nitoy and Janet spent their few daysof respite during those years. They got marriedsoon thereafter.

When traveling in Britain to meet his in-laws, Nitoy was amazed at how a developedcountry could be so clean and environmentallyaware. “They planted lots of trees, and reallyloved nature,” he recalls. Nitoy soon becameinterested in environmental degradationthroughout the world. When they came back toBaybay, he enrolled at a number of ecologyseminars at the local college and eventually got ajob as an illustrator at the Department of PlantProtection.

But it was the typhoon of 1991 that sealed hisfate as an environmental activist. After a few daysof torrential downpour, the raging waters of thePangasugan River rose above its banks andflooded the Modina home. But what concernedNitoy the most were the tree limbs and trunkscareening down the mountains. “The waterseeped through the doors,” Nitoy recounts. “Butthe tree parts ripped through walls and fences. Iknew that illegal logging was responsible for this.”This was his wake-up call to do something toprotect the fragile mountain ecosystem. Hiscareer as the defender of Baybay’s environmenthad begun.

Once he was voted in as captain ofPangasugan village in 1994, he began to strictlyenforce all environmental laws and stopped illegallogging in the mountains. He organized othervillage captains in Baybay and blocked theapplication of the Philippine National OilCompany for mineral exploration in the forestedmountains. His advocacy on behalf of the

environment continued when he was elected tothe town council in 1998, and he assumedleadership of the Committee on Environment andHuman Rights.

Modina assesses the impact of his advocacyon behalf of the environment, “When I firststarted, the environment didn’t matter. As longas you had dynamite (for fishing), it’s okay, youwill not be punished. You could throw garbageanywhere, you could poison the river. But nowyou can’t do that anymore.”

Showdown with NAPOCORModina’s fellow council members don’t alwaysshare his views, especially when it comes to theNAPOCOR projects. With a 9-1 vote onFebruary 12, 2002, the town council passed aresolution that endorsed the Leyte-BoholInterconnection Project, the smaller of the twoprojects in dispute. Juanito was the lone voice ofopposition. “We underestimated the pressurecoming from above—especially from the governorand Malacanang (the presidential office inManila),” admits Modina. “None of my peersdared to contradict the wishes of their politicalpatrons.”

That’s when Juanito and Rey and others inthe Strategic Alliance of Volunteers for theEnvironment in Leyte (SAVE-Leyte) kicked it upa notch. Enales recounts. “According to the localgovernment code, any significant municipalproject has to go through a public discussionprocess; everything has to be transparent.” Reygets worked up. “Well, they got 15 out of 25councils of the affected villages to support theproject but couldn’t produce the minutes to gowith it. And in our discussions with residents inthose communities, no one knew about anymeetings!” Modina adds that the resolutionsthat the 15 village councils passed seem suspect.“They all had the same format, and you couldn’ttell one signature from the next.” Within a fewweeks, nuns, priests, students, faculty, vendors,community residents were mobilized to collectsignatures and attended public meetings withNAPOCOR representatives.

By the time I visited Juanito and Rey on May7, 2002—a period of less than three months sincethe council endorsement—the SAVE-Leytecoalition had collected more than 15,000signatures in a town of 90,000 residents spreadacross 23 urban and 69 rural villages. Theydemanded that the councils of the affectedvillages, the town council, and the regents of the

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local university rescind their initial support of theNAPOCOR projects. In a few months, they hadreversed the tide of support for the project, andexposed the secret dealings of NAPOCOR withlocal and provincial officials. By September 2002,most of the village councils had retracted theirsupport of the project; members of the towncouncil and the university Regents have madepublic declarations of “respecting the will of thepeople.” In an article, which appeared on March4, 2002, in the Eastern Visayan Mail newspaper,Vice Mayor Florante Cayunda hinted that if theresolutions passed by the barangays (villages) donot reflect the stand of the people, the SB (towncouncil) might withdraw its endorsement.

The SAVE-Leyte coalition has given a loudvoice to the people of Baybay. Modinasummarizes the fight with NAPOCOR this way,“We cannot give up our forests and water to bedestroyed by the government and private capital.It is immoral.”

New MeaningsIt’s starting to cool down a bit, and trees havebegun to form shadows. Shelly Kate has tradedher Winnie the Pooh swimsuit for a Disneyland t-shirt and matching shorts. Sensing that she’ll startfiddling with my tape recorder, Nitoy motions forher to come to him. “Did you have a nice time atthe river?” as he plants a kiss on her forehead.

The river seems to mean something else forme now. The river, as with the mountains, iscentral to this monumental fight only becausethey truly mean something to people’s lives. Theyare what Nitoy shares with his kids now; they arewhat connects their generation. And as long asthey continue to do so, the efforts of Nitoy andthe townspeople of Baybay have a chance ofbeating back the forces of globalization.

I came to Baybay to be inspired by the heroiceffort of regular people, bucking the odds, andwinning.

But I learned more than that.Issues and fights are easy to come by; they’re

everywhere around us. It’s when you know whomyou fight for and what the fight means in theirlives, that’s when it finally makes sense. Cominghome allows that understanding to happen.

ARTICLE TWO:HOME GOVERNMENT ACTIONS FORIMMIGRANT DEFENSE

“After 9/11, people hate us,” says Hiraj Zafer, aPakistani cook from Salt Lake City who has madehis way to Burlington, Vermont trying to enterCanada. He is not alone. Families, like that ofHiraj Zafer’s, who have lived undisturbed lives inthe United States for years are now rushing toCanada for fear of being deported back to theirhome country.

“There are now refugee camps as 1,200Pakistanis await asylum hearings at the U.S.-Canadian border,” according to Asad Zeidi,Founder and Board member of the South AsianNetwork (SAN), a southern California-basedimmigrant rights organization started in 1990.“We knew when Ashcroft announced the specialregistration that our community will be hit hard,”Asad continues. “But we never expected to belike this.”

Few institutions have been able to step upand provide protections to a beleagueredcommunity. But as an indicator of the emergingsocial, economic and political influence ofexpatriate communities in homeland priorities,some foreign embassies and consulates have beenenlisted to protect their nationals from theimpacts of the “War on Terrorism”. In the post-911 environment, these institutions provide thelast shield of legal protection for thousands ofimmigrants in the United States.

Mr. Zeidi senses the beginnings of this shift.“The Foreign Ministry and the community wereat a collision course after 911. They were notequipped to deal with the impact of these laws onthe Pakistani community,” recalls Zeidi. “But forthe first time ever, instead of picketing outsidethe consulates, we now have meetings inside tofigure out ways to respond to the demands fromthe community.”

This experience of some immigrant rightsorganizations shows that embassies and consulatesrepresenting expatriate communities are takingsteps, however tentative and reluctant, to protectthe communities most exposed to attacks fromthe domestic war on immigrants.

Pakistani Ambassador Calls forHumane Treatment“The Pakistan Embassy would do everythingwithin its resources and capabilities to uphold thecivil liberties, respect and dignity of the

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Pakistanis undergoing the special registrationprocess,” Ambasador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi assuresthe packed crowd of his fellow countrymen at ameeting in Washington, DC in January 5, 2003.“We are here. Call us whenever you want.”Before the meeting ended, Ambassador Qazipromised to provide free legal assistance,disseminate relevant information through theirwebsite and community newspapers, and pledgedto urge Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharrafto talk to President Bush about their concerns.

A few days after the Washington, DC forum,Ambassador Qazi joined Foreign MinisterKhurshid Mehmood Kasuri, representatives of theConsul General in Los Angeles, and the regionaland local directors of the Immigration andNaturalization Service (INS) for a town hallmeeting at the Civic Center in downtown L.A.Attended by over 200 people from communityorganizations in the Pakistani and Bangladeshicommunities, the unusual accountability sessionexacted commitments from those officials present.The Pakistani government pledged to ask theU.S. State Department to take Pakistan off thelist of countries that required their nationals toget special registrations, and establish a hotlinefor people to call for questions. The INS RegionalDirector also gave permission to SAN, workingwith the LA Pakistani Consulate, to have a tableinside the INS building during the period ofregistration to provide information and advice.The INS officials pledged to treat registrants whoare “out of status” in a “humane way”—i.e. notputting handcuffs in public.

“The efforts of the Pakistani government islargely credited for getting the INS to extend theregistration deadline from February 21 to March21,” says Vivek Mittal of the Alliance of SouthAsians Taking Action (ASATA), a SanFrancisco-based advocacy group. “Many considerthe Pakistani government’s intervention asbeneficial to everybody.”

Defending Filipino Airport ScreenersThe intervention of the Philippine governmenton behalf of the thousands of Filipino airportscreeners facing job loss was less productive.

During a visit by Philippine Vice-PresidentTeofisto Guingona to San Francisco in April,2002, a delegation of Filipino airport screenersand their advocates presented the visiting officialwith a petition signed by more than 100 screenersfrom Oakland, San Francisco and San Joseairports. Their demand was simple—to urge

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to help themsave their jobs. The Air Transportation SecurityAct of 2001 displaced hundreds of immigrantworkers from the “security frontlines” inairports—baggage screeners, security personnel,etc.—with requirements of U.S. citizenship. “Atthat time, Macapagal-Arroyo was negotiatingwith the Bush administration to allow thedeployment of U.S. troops to the Philippines,”recalls Kawal Ulanday, an organizer with Filipinosfor Affirmative Action. “We wanted her to useour demands as a bargaining chip in theirnegotiations.”

Vice-President Guingona instead instructedPhilippine Ambassador to the U.S. Albert delRosario to lobby the U.S. Congress for somerelief. The effort complemented a one-weeklobbying effort led by FAA and the screeners inMay, 2002. “There were a few in Congressincluding Dianne Feinstein and Zoe Lofgren whofiled bills to save the jobs of those currentlyemployed,” recalls Consul Eduardo Malaya of theSan Francisco Consulate. Those initiatives foundlittle political support from their colleagues anddied without making it to the floor.

“We have no other place to go,” says HectorArchangel, the 75 year-old Filipino who workedas a screener at the Oakland InternationalAirport. “9-11 took away the little rights we had,and politicians are not willing to take risks on usin this environment.”

Increasing Political CloutIncreasingly, immigrant communities in theUnited States are accruing political stock whichforce their governmental representatives here tolisten to their demands. Policies and initiatives ofhomeland governments, lobbied for by theirexpatriate constituents, have consolidated theinfluence of nationals living outside theirnational borders. In countries like thePhilippines, Mexico, Dominican Republic, andHaiti (to name a few), more than 10% of theirtotal population live abroad. In Jamaica, there areas many people residing in the country as outside.

Mexicans lead the way in galvanizing theconnections and influence across the border. In1990, the Mexican government established theProgram for Mexican Communities Abroadtasked to support the establishment of “state-level” associations of Mexicans living in theUnited States, and other programs whichstrengthen the cultural and economic ties to theirhomeland. In 1998, (check), the Mexican

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legislature passed a law that allowed for dualcitizenship. One intended outcome is for U.S.citizens of Mexican descent to buy real estate andmake other investments in Mexico withoutonerous taxes and red-tape. Late last year,President Fox created the Advisory Councilwhich is comprised of 120 Mexicans and U.S.nationals of Mexican descent to advise theMexican government on community issues in theUnited States. In one of the regional meetingsconvened by the Advisory committee, advocacyon legalization, human rights at the border, andvoting rights for Mexican nationals were at thetop of the policy agenda.

On Feb. 13, 2003, Philippine PresidentMacapagal-Arroyo signs the Overseas AbsenteeVoting Act which enfranchises 4-5 millionnationals outside of the country to vote forPresident and Senate seats starting at the May,2004 elections. Estimates from the Philippineconsulate predict that 1 – 1.5 million Filipinos inthe U.S. are eligible to vote, 3-5% of the totalvoting population. The Philippines joins theDominican Republic, South Korea, Colombia,and other countries with significant immigrantpresence in the United States with this law.Advocates from both sides of the Mexican borderare pushing for similar legislation.

Money Wields the Big ClubBut what exercises the biggest influence onhomeland policies towards their nationals abroadis remittances. “These remittances haveincredible influence on governments,” accordingto Asad Zeidi. “Since foreign exchange nowlargely go through State banks instead of small,more indigenous and less formal arrangements,the government directly benefit from every dollarof the billions sent back home every year throughfees and interest.”

A 2001 study by the Multilateral InvestmentFund found that the level of remittances ($20billion in 2000) to Latin America and Caribbeancountries exceeds all foreign aid to the region,and is more than 10% of the gross domesticproduct of six countries (Haiti, Nicaragua, ElSalvador, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, andEcuador). For example, Mexico’s remittancesexceed 160% of farm exports, equal its tourismrevenues, and are equivalent to two-thirds of oilrevenues. With 2,383 Filipinos leaving thecountry everyday to work overseas, the $8 billionannual remittances represents 50% of the entire

Philippine national budget. Without remittances,these economies will collapse.

Marriage of Interests:Matricula Consular & U.S. BanksWith the prospects of a general amnesty forundocumented immigrants dim after September11, Mexican President Vicente Fox instructed the47 consulates in the United States to push theissuance of “matricula consular” (Mexicanconsulate ID) for Mexican nationals. Hundreds ofthousands of Mexican nationals in the UnitedStates do not have reliable identification, and assuch are constrained in opening up bank accountsor cashing checks, signing up for utilities, andacquiring driver’s licenses. The government-issued photo ID certifies one’s Mexicannationality and residence in the United States,thus preventing potential harassment from USauthorities. Mexico has been issuing matriculasfor 131 years, but only in the past two years havethey become so in demand. There were morematriculas issued in 2002 (over 1 million) than allthe others in circulation before September 11,2001.

U.S.-based banks were first in line to believethe matricula as valid ID. The prospect ofcapturing $9.5 billion of remittances fromMexican nationals convinced 74 banks in theUnited States to recognize the matricula. Withprodding from community organizations and theMexican consulates, at least 800 policedepartments also recognize the validity of theMexican identification. Recently, the city ofToledo, Ohio, joined Los Angeles, San Franciscoand Columbus in passing an ordinance thatallows city agencies to accept the matricula as anofficial ID.

Opponents consider this policy as a form of“stealth amnesty”. “The cards are part of VicenteFox’s plan to circumvent U.S. federalimmigration laws by lobbying state and federalauthorities to grant amnesty in incrementalsteps,” writes Phyllis Schlafly in her syndicatedEagle forum column. On January 7, 2003, a dozenHouse members sent a letter to Secretary of StateColin Powell stating that the matriculas areissued by governments of Mexico, El Salvador,Guatemala and Honduras for “the express purposeof evading U.S. law.”

Political Re-CalculationWith a sizeable percentage of their nationalsliving abroad, and the significant financial

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infusion of their diaspora into the nationaleconomies, some governments have been forcedto respond to the clamor of the expatriatecommunity. Nationals outside their homecountries have become effective lobbyists inengendering accountability from theirgovernments to their issues.

But Zeidi is cautious about this new trend.“The Foreign Ministry is not equipped to dealwith these issues in the long haul. BeforeSeptember 11, they did not interact with thecommunity in any significant way.” Zeidi thinksthat the burden of proof is with the ForeignMinistry.

That’s the challenge that Consul EduardoMalaya wants to take head on. “We want to re-orient our Foreign Service away from the politicalcocktail circuit towards attending to communityneeds first and foremost.”

With no sign of an abatement of attacks onimmigrants in the horizon, immigrant rightsorganizations may have little choice but to helptheir governments make this transition.

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CHAPTER 4

THE PROMISE OF A TRANSNATIONALORGANIZING FRAMEWORK

It came through a friend or a relative, frequentlyin a brown manila envelope stamped “EstevaFinancial Services”. Once a month, my fatherreceived a few thousand pesos in a remittancefrom my mother who worked two jobs in heradopted home of San Francisco,California—taking care of an elderly Russiancouple during the day, and working as a nurse’saide at night. Those were days of heightenedanticipation for the Calpotura kids: is this thetime for a new pair of Adidas soccer shoes? Or anew Voit basketball just like what the Lazatinkids—our neighbors next door—got for theirbirthdays? Or maybe we can get our 1954 yellow-and-white Chevy Bel-Air with pointy shark-finsand missing chrome-plated passenger door decalsfinally fixed so I don’t have to walk to school inthe mornings? At least we knew of a feast thatevening—corned beef and fried chicken withmango ice cream for dessert. Privately, I hopedthat this remittance would last longer than theone before.

At 52, my mother left the country of herbirth for the United States in 1974, one of354,987 Filipino migrants to the United Statesthat decade. She joined the exodus ofprofessionals recruited to work and live abroad: inher case, to work as a dentist’s assistant inChicago. Though she got her dentistry degreefrom the Centro Escolar University in Manila inthe late 1940s, she never filled a cavity or drilleda tooth. She raised eight kids, giving birth fromwhen she was 21 up until two days after her 40thbirthday in July 1962. “The last one was thehardest,” she likes to relate whenever asked aboutthe occasion of my birth. “I was already at thegates of heaven, but St. Peter told me to go backbecause God wasn’t done with me yet.”

After a few cold winter days in the Midwest,my mother took the next flight west to join mypregnant sister and her husband in their smallhouse in San Bruno, California. It was there, onKensington Avenue, that my immigrant motherwho’d never held a wage-earning job in her lifedecided to make those monthly remittances her

singular preoccupation. She scoured the want ads,finally ending up at the Helper’s Home for theMentally Retarded on Fulton Street in SanFrancisco, earning free room and board and $250a month, most of which she sent to Manila.

Fully comprehending the meaning of mymother’s remittances, what they signify to the toilof millions of people like her, and to severalgenerations of people with dark skin all over theglobe who chose sacrifice for a dream deferred,leads to a position that clashes with the thedemands of a post-911 patriotism—when thedividing line between good and evil is to pledgeone’s total allegiance to America. Those whoseek remittances from abroad continue to staketheir belonging to a country they left, not merelyfor some forlorn sense of community at a timewhen immigrants feel unwelcomed in America,but because many have family who depend ontheir labor.

Greenbacks on BrownbacksStarting in the 1970s, the Philippines, like manycountries in global south, adopted “economicliberalization strategies” which turned robust localeconomies into those that followed the dictates ofthe international market. Nation states wereforced to privatize public industries, open theireconomies to foreign competition, and gear theirproduction towards exports. Championed bytransnational financial institutions including theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and theWorld Bank, these policies arrested economicgrowth that most countries in Asia, LatinAmerica, and Africa enjoyed in the 1960s. “Theyears 1960-1973 define the golden period ofgrowth for developing countries with 30 countriesgrowing at 3% or more in per-capita terms,”according to University of Maryland’s EconomicTimes. “In contrast, growth rates plummetedduring 1973-1994, and was specially pronouncedin Latin America and Africa.”

Since these economic policies took hold morethan three decades ago, millions have left theircountries to look for better futures for theirfamilies. The United States was the destination ofchoice for millions looking for some comfort frompoverty. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 11%of the total U.S. population are immigrants, withmore than half immigrating in the 1990s alone,mostly from Asia, Latin America and theCaribbean. In countries like the Philippines,Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Haiti (to namea few), more than 10% of their total population

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reside outside of their national borders. InJamaica, there are as many people residing in thecountry as outside.

Between 1965 and 1969, the Philippines hadreplaced Europe as the leading source of foreignphysicians in the United States and, along withIndia, was providing the bulk of its foreignscientists and engineers. By the 1990s, thePhilippines’ biggest export was human labor towork the fields of Dubai, the bars of Tokyo, andthe hospitals of Los Angeles. There are 2,383Filipinos who leave the country, and theirfamilies, everyday in search of remittances abroad.

These mothers, fathers, brothers, and sistersremit close to $8 billion each year to familymembers back home in the Philippines,accounting for more than 10% of the country’sGross Domestic Product (GDP). They earn up toten times, sometimes more, of what they can earnif they stayed put. In a country where 87% offamilies live below the poverty level, selling one’slabor abroad is a family’s only lifeline.

Resistance“We’ll get a bigger room when I get my license asan LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse),” my momtold me on my first morning in the United Statesas she prepared to leave for school.

We rented a small room in Mrs. Garza’s houseon 16th Avenue in the Richmond district of SanFrancisco. It was no more than 10 feet from doorto window, and 12 feet from one wall to the next.Two beds, one for my mom, another for me andmy brother, both with electric blankets. Adresser, a closet, a bureau with a 13-inch colorTV on top, and a small, gold-plated vanity withcracked glass where my mom hung her whitenurse’s aide outfit.

At 15, I joined my mom and brother in SanFrancisco. My original passport is stamped “hhw9-11-77” on the very first page of the visa section.I wore my first-ever suit, a three-piece looker ofwhite pinstriped grey wool, on my first ever planeflight. Being extra careful not to mess the sharpcrease of my new pants during the 16-hour planeride, I didn’t sleep much so that I wouldn’t lookrumpled when I got off the plane to meet mymom and brother. After a short stop at customs inHonolulu, Philippine Airlines flight #107 finallytouched San Francisco. My brother met meoutside the arrival gate. “Mama couldn’t be hereto meet you. She’s working until midnight, soshe’ll just meet us at home,” Ray explainedmatter-of-factly.

My mom left home every day at 6 a.m. toprepare breakfast for the Omli’s, an elderlyRussian couple who lived on the other side oftown. She cleaned their house, gave them theirmedicine, and rushed off to school for an 11o’clock class. I’d pick her up at John AdamsCommunity College and take her directly toHillhaven Convalescent Hospital by 3:45 p.m.I’d be waiting outside the hospital by 11:45 p.m.to bring her home.

At 16 years old, I could not completelycomprehend why my life was so different from therest of my classmates. I blamed my mom forforcing me to be a responsible adult when I reallywanted to be a regular teenager—hanging out atthe Stonestown mall, in front of Mercy HighSchool for Girls. I don’t remember ever tellingher this; it must have felt too much of animposition, an added burden, to her alreadyburdensome life.

Marcos, Hitler, Diktador, Tuta!It wasn’t until I completely understood thetotality of my family’s experience that I found thecourage to forgive. It wasn’t until I becameinvolved in the anti-Marcos dictatorshipmovement in the United States, with its anti-fascist and anti-imperialist politics, that I couldput everything into proper perspective. I began tounderstand that my mother’s decision to goabroad, the remittances, the uneasiness I felt inmy brown skin, and my acceleration to adulthoodhad deeper, more historical roots than mereconsequences of individual actions. Poverty,capitalist-driven development, dictatorship,racism, low-wage jobs for immigrant women,imperialism. More importantly, my involvementtaught me one other important lesson—that thesecan be challenged, fought, and changed throughthe actions of a determined people.

It’s almost Christmas, 1983, a few monthssince I joined the Pilipino Student SupportCoalition. Marita leads us to the conference roomof the law office where she works. It’s a Sunday,no one’s around, and I noticed Mario by theXerox machine taking advantage of free copying.It is raining outside, a typical San Franciscowinter day, when it feels like dusk has folded intothe early afternoon hours. We take off our coatsand settle into plush leather seats in a roombigger than all of our apartments combined. Sony,Richard, Marita, Mario, and I are forming theUnited States chapter of the League of FilipinoStudents—the biggest, most militant student

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organization in our homeland, and moreimportantly, allied with the politics of theCommunist Party of the Philippines.

From 1983 to 1986, there were dozens of anti-dictatorship organizations like the LFS thatsprouted across the United States. Many moreorganizations—church groups, serviceorganizations, hometown associations, Rotarians,Lions, etc—joined activities that helped isolatethe Marcos dictatorship internationally. Thosewere heady times.

But within the Left in the Filipinocommunity in the U.S. at that time, a debatebrewed that never got resolved. It was a stupiddebate on “primary contradiction” faced by theFilipino community—whether they should beorganized as members of the U.S. working classexploited for their labor and their race, or asmembers of the Philippine nation who stillmaintain identification with the homeland.

This political reductionism misses the point.Both are important loci for a people centrallyimpacted by the forces of globalization from thelast quarter of the 20th century to thepresent—displaced, forced to move, profiled byrace and gender to fit a global division of labor,but still draw unfathomable hope from a dreamdeferred. Most make this journey nurtured bytheir faith, culture and their own language--andwant to bring this deep texture of their lives intoa new environment. They seek a place wherethey can bring everything about them, irreducibleto one part of their complex selves, to anendeavor which speaks about this experience and,I hope, changes a world order which rendsgenerations of families like ours without guilt.

911 Reductionism “When I worked all those long hours,” my momrecently told me, “what kept me going wasthinking of all of you.” Loyalty to family isunconditional.

Pledging one’s allegiance to a post-911America—one which continues to rend familiesapart for promises of material comfort—is at bestan uneasy proclamation for those who remit.How could they pledge loyalty to a country thatdestroys families with their bombs and drivesmillions from their homes? How could theyascribe fealty to an America that detains andpersecutes those who come to this countrybecause they, too, are forced to work for a dreamdeferred? How could this country deserve their

allegiance when they’re not allowed to feel thatthey truly belong?

When the Sun Meets the MoonTwenty-eight years later, my mother returns tothe Philippines to a four-bedroom house not faraway from the two-bedroom apartment where Igrew up. She’s gone back to familiar streets—Katipunan Avenue where ShoppersvilleSupermarket still stands, B. Gonzales Streetwhere our apartment complex has been replacedby a 14-story condominium building. But theLazatins, our old neighbors, are still there, as wellas Mamadeng’s grocery store a block down on C.Salvador street.

“This is where I want to spend the last days ofmy life. You are all grown now, with your ownfamilies. My job is done.”

I went back to the Philippines with mymother, helping her settle into her new life. EverySunday morning, I’d drive her to Seed MoreMarket where we’d have our brunch in one of theoutdoor eateries, and where she could buy plantsfor her garden outside her bedroom. Purpleorchids, jasmine, and perennials of every color.And then there was the Ilang-ilang and theChampaca.

“These trees remind me of my childhood. Ilove to sit in my garden, watch the sun meet themoon in the early mornings, and smell the odorsof my youth.”

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“Remittances have for generations been a traditional means offinancial support to family members in less-developed countries.As the scale of migration has increased in recent years and thegrowth of remittances has accelerated dramatically, the socialand economic impact of this phenomenon now transcendsfamily relationships and is drawing national and internationalattention.”

• Worker remittances in 2000 to Latin America and theCaribbean surpassed $20 billion for the first time, expanding atan annul rate of 7-10%. Most come from remittances in theUnited States.

• Workers remit $250 on average, eight to ten times a year,involving 80 million transaction each year to Latin Americaand the Caribbean. Transaction costs run between 15-20% ofthe funds remitted, meaning poor workers are paying severalbillion of dollars a year in transfer fees.

• The level of remittances to Latin America and the Caribbeanexceeds all foreign aid to the region combined, and is equal to athird of all foreign direct investments to countries.

• Remittances account for at least 10% of the Gross domesticProduct in six countries—Haiti, 17%; Nicaragua, 14.4%; ElSalvador, 12.6%; Jamaica, 11.7%; the Dominican Republic,10.0%; and Ecuador, 10.0%.

• Mexico’s remittances ($6.795B in 1999) exceed 160% of itsfarm exports, are equal to tourism revenues, and equivalent totwo-thirds of oil revenues.

• Salvadoran workers sent home $1.58B in 1999, seven timeswhat the country received in direct foreign investments to itseconomy.

• 25% of residents of the Dominican Republic now reside inthe United States, sending home $1.747 in 1999--three timesmore than what the country gets with its agricultural exports.

• Remittances to Colombia are equivalent to half of thecountry’s revenue from exporting coffee.

• At current growth rates, cumulative remittances to LatinAmerica and the Caribbean for the coming decade (2001-2010)will reach more than $300 billion.

From “Migrants Spur Growth in Remittances”, Stephen Fidler,Financial Times.com, May 16, 2001.

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APPENDIX

Intervention Strategies for Local Governance: Briefing paperJuly 1, 2002By Marisol Estrella & Francis Calpotura

I. The Local Governance Code in historical perspectiveThe emergence of local government units as policy-making loci has shifted the terrain of popularstruggles from national to local. This has been largely ushered by the Local Government Code of 1991which provided the legal basis and opened up new spaces for civil society participation in localgovernance. During the past few years, local action by civil society groups at the barangay, municipaland city levels has tested this new terrain.

Rationale for decentralisation in the Philippines1

Following the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship, the new Constitution in 1986 established a stronglegal framework for citizens’ participation – to reverse and avoid repeating the repressive and centralisingpower of the state. The provisions in the Constitution stop short from being outright revolutionary bymandating the state to protect people power and legitimise aspects of direct democracy. TheConstitution outlines general principles to guide participation of citizens and their organisations at alllevels of social, political, and economic decision making.

The Constitution contained provisions for decentralisation, in order to ensure citizens had greater accessto and influence over their government and make government more responsive to people’s needs. Theseprovisions paved the way for enacting the Local Government Code in 1991.

Key provisions in the LGC that promote citizens°¶ participation

The LGC of 1991, in effect, redefined the powers and relations between key political actors namely: thelocal government units (LGUs), civil society (particularly POs and NGOs), and national governmentand central agencies. A great number of responsibilities, power, and resources previously held by centraloffices or agencies were devolved or transferred from central to local governments at the provincial,municipal or city, and barangay levels.

However, power was also transferred or dispersed laterally to NGOs, POs, the private sector, thusopening up governance to civil society at large (Iszatt, 2001). The Code also provided the legal andinstitutional basis for civil society participation in governance. The allocation of specific seats in localspecial bodies (LSBs) to NGOs and POs was made mandatory. LSBs include the local developmentcouncil, the local health board, the local school board, local pre-qualification bids and awardscommittee, local peace and order councils. In addition, the Code enables NGOs and POs to ensurepublic accountability of their local governments, through the system of recall and people’s initiativeprovisions. Box 1 summarises the various mechanisms for citizens’ participation established under theLGC.

1 This section draws from a paper examining the policy frameworks and legal ramifications of citizen’s

participation in local governance (Iszatt, Nina T. 2002. Legislating for Citizen’s Participation in Local

Governance. The Philippines Experience. Prepared for the LOGOlink network supported by the Institute

of Development Studies and Ford Foundation. DRAFT). See also Brillantes, 1998.

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Box 1.Mechanisms for Citizens°¶ Participation under the LGC

1. Recall Provides for immediate accountability of both elective and appointive local officials whose tenure

may be terminated by popular vote. Must be initiated by a Preparatory Recall Assembly, includingelected officials.

Largely unused or operationalised by NGOs and POs, due to difficulties in enacting the process

2. People°¶s initiative and referendum People are given the right to legislate through “initiative and referendum”. Institutionalises people power, providing a means for people to pass key legislation directly rather

than through local legislatures or Congress Cumbersome procedures

3. Local sectoral representation Guarantees local sectoral representation in the local legislative assemblies (provincial, municipal and

city councils) 3 seats reserved for marginal sectors: sectoral representatives of women, labour, and one from urban

poor, indigenous cultural communities, or disabled while sectoral representatives should be elected, this has not been enacted.

4. Local special bodies LSBs are tasked to formulate policy recommendations, develop plans, and propose measures to guide

legislation and help steer local governments. LSBs include: local health board, local peace and order councils, local school boards, local pre-

qualification bids and awards committee, and the local development council The LDC is most commonly used mechanism for citizens participation by NGOs and POs. Not less

than _ of the LDC should comprise of accredited NGO or PO representatives. Considered as keyarena of advocacy and for strengthening local government capacities.

5. Mandatory consultations and public hearings Public consultations mandatory in the planning and implementation of any project or program by

government or private sector, and in vital decisions undertaken by the LGU But not very effective, no mandatory posting of public notices

6. Active partnerships LGUs must promote / facilitate partnerships with POs, NGOs and private sector in pursuit of local

autonomy Joint undertakings and ventures (delivery of basic services, livelihood projects, local enterprises) and

capability building Most utilised mechanism for participation

(Drawn from Iszatt 2002; see also Villarin 1996)

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Mapping the topography of approaches by civil society groups in the Philippines

Since the enactment of the Code in 1991, there have been a number of initiatives aimed at maximisingLGC provisions for increasing citizens’ participation in local governance.

A. The terrain of local governance initiatives

The “territorial” range of local governance initiatives by civil society may be categorised in terms of:(i) the levels of intervention (mainly municipal and/or barangay);(ii) the geographic context (rural, urban, urbanising or “rurban”, and areas of conflict); and(iii) ethnic/religious/linguistic affiliations (indigenous peoples or IPs, Moslem communities, etc.)

Levels of intervention

Many local governance initiatives have focused primarily at the municipal or city government levels.This is most likely driven by cost-effectiveness concerns and issues of scale. Working with municipal orcity LGUs to promote citizens’ participation allows for a greater area of barangay coverage (barangaysnumber a little over 42,000 in the country!). In addition, intervening at the municipal level helps tomaximise LGC provisions that devolves key powers, responsibilities and resources to municipal or cityLGUs. The LGC also promotes a greater range of mechanisms for people’s participation at themunicipal level, such as through sectoral representation and participation in local special bodies. Somegroups have targeted specific LGU Departments (e.g. health, urban poor, development) to be moreresponsive to the needs and opinions of residents.

However, there are also other civil society initiatives that intervene directly at the barangay level. TheBATMAN programme is probably the only one in the country which adopted this strategy. Therationale stems from BATMAN’s perspective on local, everyday politics. BATMAN viewed thebarangay to be the most basic, concrete location where direct, face-to-face contacts between localgovernment officials and the citizenry took place on a more regular basis- especially in rural areas. Thebarangay was seen as somewhat “closer to the people” than any other unit of government. In addition,the barangay was also, to some extent, viewed to be less affected by municipal or city level politics whichare usually dominated by local political elites and entrenched interests This would make it easier forBATMAN NGOs to engage with barangay LGUs.

Geographic context

In the past, most local governance initiatives are implemented in rural areas, which is logical since thePhilippines is still predominantly rural. However, as the process of urbanisation takes place within thecountry, cities and major towns have already sprung up outside the Metro Manila region. Increasingly,urban areas are facing specific issues and concerns not readily found in rural contexts. As a result, urbanor urbanising areas provide a new and strategic terrain for engaging in local governance. Table 1 listssome basic, potential differences between rural and urban governance. (Areas of conflict are also anothergeographic area which poses unique challenges for local governance, and deserves its own focus.)

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Basic Characteristics Rural Governance Urban Governance

What are the main developmentissues or problems?

Livelihood options / access toand quality of basic services /infrastructure

Land Reform

Environmental concerns becomeimportant: air pollution, waterpollution, sanitation, garbage

Other concerns: Transportation /infrastructure / access to andquality of basic services /housing / peace and order /criminality / population growthand density

Who can participate and whoshould be represented?

sectoral groups / POs, informalleaders (i.e. elders, teachers),

mainly urban poor sectors,informal workers, labour groups,middle class / professionals ,business

Nature of civil societyorganisations

People’s organisations, mainlysector-specific i.e. farmers,women’s, fishers, cooperatives,etc.

Civic associations, namelyreligious groups

People’s organisations (urbanpoor) and civic associationsincluding church groups but alsoneighbourhood associations,homeowners associations,chambers of commerce

What methods or techniques areemployed?

PRA mainlyHousehold surveys

Adapted PRA toolsRadio/ mediaMass actions

Ethnic/religious/linguistic affiliations

While our presentation will focus mainly on the first two “terrains”, local governance initiatives may alsotake place in localities of different ethnic/religious/linguistic affiliations. These include working in IP orMoslem communities, where culture, religious beliefs, lifestyles all play an important role in shaping thenature of governance relations between leaders (both formal and informal) and the rest of thecommunity.

B. Key arenas for civil society participation and intervention strategies by civil society

While the LGC has opened up key arenas for civil society participation, civil society, in turn, hasdeveloped a range of strategies to intervene in each of these key arenas. (Table 2)

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Table 2. Key arenas of intervention and strategies by civil society

Key Arenas of Intervention Intervention Strategies / Approaches

Participatory development planning Barangay and municipal development

plan Municipal land use plans - CLUP

Local development plans BDP-PRA Municipal land use planning

Policy making Participation in Local Special Bodies including

local development councils Municipal land use planning Pressure politics Gender advocacy Ballot initiative (Naga experience?)

Local finance / budgeting participatory budgeting participatory resource mobilisation- pledging

sessions technical assistance for LGU finance – fiscal

spaces for raising revenue local enterprise development gender budget advocacy- maximizing GAD

budgets

Local justice paralegal capacity building in local governance

issues

Civil society capacity building PO and NGO capacity building to participate /intervene in local special bodies

Many others!

Electoral vying for elected office – civil society leaders runfor office

platform development / promotion of newpolitics by brgy. and municipal /city electoralcandidates

Ballot initiative (Cabiao, N.E.)

Government accountability exposing impact of LGU borrowing participatory M&E – assessing local government

performance and implementation of BDPs

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C. Vehicles of participation strategies

To carry out their intervention strategies, civil society – mainly NGOs – use a number of vehicles orstructural mechanisms. Local governance initiatives may tend to emphasise more intensive engagementswith LGUs, local NGOs and POs, and / or other structures of representation such as LSBs. While thesevarious vehicles are distinct, they may be used simultaneously by civil society.

LGU led

For instance, NGOs may tend to focus on building trust and relations with LGU officials as a means togain wider acceptance of participatory governance initiatives. This includes building LGU capacities topromote participatory governance and develop partnerships with NGOs and POs.

NGO led

Another strategy includes working mainly through local NGOs and POs as the main vehicles foradvocating and practicing participatory governance. Emphasis is placed on building capacities of localNGOs and POs to engage with LGU officials, to advocate people’s interests, and to participate in claimmaking and policy formulation. Hence, local NGOs and POs lead in ensuring that participatorygovernance is practiced.

Others

Other ”vehicles” used include structures of representation (both formal and informal). This mightinclude working closely with local special bodies, in particular the local development councils, andbuilding their capacities to ensure citizens participation in local decision making and policy formulation.

III. BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE

Much is claimed about the benefits of participation to justify increased citizens’ participation in localgovernance. Which of these benefits have actually been achieved is another matter. Based on actualexperience and empirical evidence, it appears that there are benefits to promoting participation in localgovernance. However, a closer assessment reveals that these actual benefits are more a reflection of shortto medium results rather than an indication of longer-term impacts or deep changes in local governance.This could mean that intervention strategies by civil society may not be necessarily contributing tolonger term objectives, such as deepening democratisation and achieving people’s empowerment – or atleast multiple strategies are needed to effect real changes in governance.

Based on interviews and case studies we conducted, these are some of the key benefits identified bygroups in their engagement in local governance work:

A. Short to medium term results °V achieved benefits:

8 ability to influence allocation of resources of local government;9 access to information and plans of the LGU – increased transparency ;10 development of new skills and capacities for PO’s and NGO’s; including confidence building-

ability to speak about issues in public arenas;11 Local development plans reflect people’s priorities, address key problems/concerns12 Institutionalisation of participatory development planning (to some degree)

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B. Longer term outcomes or impacts °V potential benefits:

(i) Socio – economic development / overall human development Promotes sustainable natural resource management; Priority placed in addressing key development indicators (income, health, etc.).

(ii) Political – democratisation, empowerment, institutionalised accountability of local governments Promotes “collective” or shared leadership- less centralized, less focused on one individual (i.e. brgy

captain); Robust and engaged civil society

The need to develop the right “mix” of intervention strategies to achieve long-term objectives simplyunderscores the importance of revisiting and reassessing civil society’s governance frameworks, whichwill be critical for identifying and developing effective intervention strategies. This includes assessingcivil society’s understanding of governance and clearly defining their strategic goals for local governance.These may include the following: (a) is the participation of civil society groups institutionalized andresourced? (b) do the strategies achieve political and organizational scale?; and (c) do the strategies leadto/facilitate structural change in the balance of power?

IV. Challenges in the Coming Period

These three axes—institutionalization of meaningful democratic participation, employing strategies thatreach scale, and meaningful and effective engagement in electoral contests—define significant sets ofchallenges for civil society involved in governance work. The rest of this paper focuses on the first twochallenges; the third one, in our opinion, continues to bedevil civil society groups and demands a morethorough exposition than what we can deliver.

A. Strategies that Demand Meaningful Participation. Do LGC provisions on citizens’ participation, byand large, stunt rather than facilitate democratic governance on the ground? It largely depends on twokeys factors: (a) a strong, civil society-oriented executive and council, and (b) the level of organizationof civil society groups engaged in governance issues and processes. If one of these factors is absent in thelocal political culture, the mandates of the LGC are insufficient to alter the balance of power because itdefines terms of engagement that slants in the favor of those in power: it mandates perpetual minoritystatus, and at best it is meant to be consultative in nature. It’s an organizers’ nightmare.

Unless the demand for meaningful participation can itself be an issue for civil society groups. What theLGC provides is a ticket to the dance; pero pag hindi natin gusto ‘yung tugtog, eh di sikapin natingpalitan ang musika! There’s a conclusion (largely based on perception, and some experience) amongsome PO leaders, and even some activists, that engaging in LSBs is a waste of time—“luto na ‘yan!” Thissentiment, though popular, we think misses a strategic opportunity.

Naga City boasts of the most developed civil society infrastructure for engagement in local governance.It is interesting to note that the Empowerment Ordinance which created the NCPC and structures forconsultation preceded the LGC. We might look to the NCPC experience in the effort to institutionalizedemocratic governance and engagement of civil society groups; when democracy itself becomes the issue.Components of the NCPC are worthy of our attention: (a) it gets funding from the LGU to conduct itsbusiness, which allows it to hire & fire its own consultants, and provide meaningful support to itsrepresentatives in LSBs; (b) it is THE space for a strategic alliance across sectors and class in the city;and (c) it is guided by the concept of “Partnership” b/w civil society and LGU where power is negotiatedand not subject to unilateral change by one group. In the days of the civil rights movement in the U.S.,this can be considered a milder form of the demand for “community control” of public institutions.

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The Naga experience (and others) can provide some insight on what are the key components on theinstitutionalization of meaningful citizens participation in local governance. (By the way, the LGCmandates at least 1/4 rep from civil society in BDC and LDCs; why not push for more?)

B. Transitional Strategies that Reach Scale. The other challenge is the need to move contests to themunicipal/city level to achieve scale. An incremental strategy, in our experience, works when you’resharpening a dispute, not when trying to solve it at the level of increments. The work gets stuck there.Scaling up strategies endeavor to achieve functional majorities. The need for transitional strategies thatachieve scale, forges multi-constituency alliances, and is tested in the electoral arena.

And we’re not necessarily talking about candidate elections. We’re talking about issue-based contests(in line with the culture of claim-making familiar to groups) that is put to the electoral test.

Cabiao, Nueva Ecija, May 1994. A PO starts a campaign to test the power of the initiative to try torepeal an SB Resolution to relocate the public market. They convened an alliance of market vendors,church groups, jeepney drivers, professionals, etc. to collect signatures of the needed 3% of all registeredvoters. They were able to surpass their goal in 90 days. The Mayor oppossed the measure and tried tostonewall the process with the local Comelec. A process (and the vote) which should have taken a fewmonths lasted for more than a year. The initiative was voted on as part of the 1995 municipal elections.It won with a 68% Yes (against relocating the market) vote. I unfortunately cannot find anythingwritten about this campaign. One of the main organizers of this campaign is now the chief of staff of theMayor of a neighboring town.

Aside from the Cabiao experience, the “People’s Initiative & Referendum” section of the LGC has beenuntested. If made to work, the strategy may yield the type of “scaling up” (of organizationalinfrastructure, practice in municipal-wide electoral contests, and a vehicle to forge a broad-basedalliance) that may position civil society groups in a new way (the ability to deliver votes). And one cantailor a “majoritarian” issue based on the conditions of each locality.

In the mid-1990s, around the same time that Cabiao was testing the waters, an emerging progressiveparty in the U.S. (the New Party) built its presence in a number of key medium-sized cities through asimilar initiative. They collected signatures to force contractors that do business with the city to pay a“living wage”. After 3 years, there are more than 100 cities and other jurisdictions that passed someversion of the Living Wage ordinance (either through popular vote, or through legislation of citycouncils). Though we’re not advocating for a single, uniform ordinance that gets replicated all over, theexperience of the New Party and of the folks at Cabiao may prove instructive in the effort of scaling upgovernance strategies for civil society groups.

There are national-level advocacy for both approaches, we think, at the level of the DILG and that ofthe Comelec who monitors the initiative process.

V. Final Word (for now)

What we’ve provided is a very coarse description/prescription of intervention strategies employed by civilsociety groups engaged in local governance efforts. We consider this a work-in-progress, not onlybecause there’s so much more to be said about the subject, but more importantly because most of thestrategies we describe (and others we missed) have yet to take root. Tasting the fruits that thesestrategies bear may take a few more years.

But at least we can taste some of it now, and it makes us yearn for more!

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LIST OF INTERVIEWSPhilippines (1/15 - 7/15)

DATE NAME POSITION ORGANIZATION PLACE1/28/02 Joel Rocamora Executive Director Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD) Quezon City1/31/02 Tom Villarin Executive Director Institute of Politics and Governance (IPG) Quezon City2/5/02 David Chiel Country Represen. Ford Foundation Makati2/5/02 Milwida Guevara Program Officer Ford Foundation Makati2/5/02 Arlene Santos Director Center for Agri. Reform, Educ. & Trans.

(CARET)Quezon City

2/7/02 Oca Francisco Director PHILCOS Quezon City2/10/02 Honesto, Noemi… Group Interview

(12)Urban Poor Federation (Visit to Bgy.Triangulo)

Naga City

2/11/02 Mayor Jess Robredo City Mayor Mayor's Office Naga City2/11/02 Reuel Oliver Executive Director Investment Board, Naga City Development

OfficeNaga City

2/12/02 Rolly Sergio Director Urban Poor Affairs Office Naga City2/12/02 Health Committee Health Services, City of Naga Naga City2/13/02 Noemi Bien President Bgy. Triangulo Urban Poor Homeown.

Assoc.Naga City

2/13/02 Evelyn Sierra Organizer COPE-Naga City Naga City2/13/02 Malou Capucao Director Naga City People's Council Naga City2/14/02 Representatives Chamber of Commerce Naga City2/14/02 Representatives Women's Coalition Naga City2/14/02 Representatives Children's Advocacy Group Naga City2/15/02 Representatives Magsaka-Ca (Alliance of Free Farmers) Camarines Sur2/21/02 France Clavecillas Executive Director COPE Foundation Quezon City2/25/02 Arlene Santos Director CARET Quezon City2/28/02 Juan Luis Iglaya PolMap Director IPD Quezon City3/1/02 Mary Racelis Director Institute of Philippine Culture Quezon City3/5/02 Arlene & Don Director &

OrganizerCARET & KAGABAY Quezon City

3/11/02 Ramon Fernan Director Philippine NonProfit Sector Project Quezon City3/12/02 Alex Brillantes Director Center for Local and Regional Governance Quezon City3/19/02 IPD Senior Staff Meeting Economic & Electoral Mapping: Giving

ShapeQuezon City

3/23/02 Leaders & Staff Group Interview(6)

KAGABAY San Jose,Bulacan

3/28/02 Community Leaders Group Interview(20)

UGNAYAN Victoria,Laguna

4/2/02 Lidy Nakpil Executive Director Freedom from Debt Coalition Quezon City4/3/02 Zoraida Aquende Chief, LFRDD Dept. of the Interior and Local Government Quezon City4/15/02 Staff Group Interview Freedom from Debt Coalition/Power

CampaignQuezon City

4/22/02 Presentation Group Meeting(15)

Civil Society Involvement in Local Politics Quezon City

4/23/02 Argee Deputy Mayor Nueva Ecija Quezon City4/29/02 Marisol Estrella Consultant BATMAN Consortium Quezon City5/2/02 Rey Enales Lead Organizer FDC-Leyte Chapter Quezon City5/6/02 Pascualito Ilagan Chair FDC-Leyte Chapter Tacloban, Leyte5/6/02 Castor Gamalo Vice-Chair FDC-Leyte Chapter Tacloban, Leyte5/6/02 Eric Aseo Member FDC-Leyte Chapter Tacloban, Leyte5/7/02 Jose Cari City Mayor Municipality of Baybay Baybay, Leyte5/7/02 Juanito Molina Councilor Municipality of Baybay Baybay, Leyte5/7/02 Rey Enales Lead Organizer FDC-Leyte Chapter Baybay, Leyte

47

5/8/02 Mimiette Bagulaya Executive Director Institute for Democratic Participation inGovernance

Tacloban, Leyte

5/8/02 Ladylyn Mangada Professor University of the Philippines, Tacloban Tacloban, Leyte5/9/02 Local Activists Group Meeting (6) at the IDPG Office Tacloban, Leyte5/15/02 Jocelyn Angeles Lead Organizer COPE-Naga City Quezon City

France Clavecillas Director COPE Foundation Quezon City5/16/02 Tom Villarin Executive Director IPG Quezon City5/20/02 Lidy Nakpil Executive Director FDC Quezon City5/25/02 Community Leaders Workshop (19) KAGABAY San Jose,

Bulacan6/7/02 Lidy Nakpil Executive Director FDC Quezon City6/11/02 Arlene Santos Director CARET Quezon City6/18/02 Tom Villarin Executive Director IPG Quezon City7/1/02 Forum on Interv.

Strat.Group Meeting Culminating Activity (29 people from 10

orgs.)Quezon City

7/13/02 Joel Rocamora Executive Director IPD Quezon City

48

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REFERENCE MATERIALS

Abao, Carmela. “Dynamics of Political Blocs in the Formation of a Political Party,” Philippine DemocracyAgenda, 1997.

Abao, Carmela. “Ideology, Social Movements, and Institutionalization,” unpublished M.A. dissertationon the emergence of AKBAYAN. Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 2002.

Angeles, Jocelyn. “Regional Urban Poor Programmes with a Focus on Training for CommunityOrganization: The Naga City Urban Poor Sector Organizing Experiences from 1986 to 2000,” presentedat a workshop on Human Security and Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan, Dec. 5-8, 2000.

Angeles, Jocelyn. “The Role of Naga City Urban Poor Federation in the Passage of Pro-Poor Ordinancesand Policies,” Philippine Democracy Agenda, 1997.

Arnstein, Sherry R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners,July, 1969.

Balgos, Cecile, Ed. A Manual for Reporters: Investigating Local Governments. Philippine Center forInvestigative Journalism, 2001.

Basch, Linda, Schiller, Nina, and Szanton Blanc, Cristina. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects,Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States, Overseas Publishers Association, 1994.

Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization, The Human Consequences. Columbia University Press, 1998.

Bhattachryya, Gargi, Gabriel, John, and Small, Stephen. Race and power: Global Racism in the Twenty-first Century. Routledge, 2002.

Bien, Noemi. “History of Triangulo Urban Poor Homeowners Association,” unpublished.

Boudreau, Vincent. Grassroots and Cadre in the Protest Movement, Ateneo de Manila University Press,2001.

Brillantes, Alex. “Five-Year Assessment of the Implementation of Devolution in the Local GovernmentCode.” Local Government in the Philippines: A Book of Readings, Volume Two. University of thePhilippines, 1998.

Brillantes, Alex. “Public Administration and Regional and Local Governments: Trends and Issues in aGlobalized Environment.” Paper presented at the University of the Philippines, San Fernando, Feb. 16,2002.

CARET. Creating Stronger Synergies on the Ground for Effective and Meaningful Political Empowerment andElectoral Participation of Organized Communities: The CARET Practice and Framework. Internaldocument, 1999.

Carino, Ledivina. “Governance in Local Communities: Towards Development and Democracy.” LocalGovernment in the Philippines: A Book of Readings, Volume One. University of the Philippines, 1998.

Clarke, Gerald. “Non-Governmental Organizations and Political Institutionalization in thePhilippines.” Local Government in the Philippines: A Book of Readings, Volume Two. University of thePhilippines, 1998.

Constantino-David, Karina. “From the Present Looking Back: A History of Philippine NGO’s”,Organizing for Democracy: NGO’s, Civil Society and the Philippine State, Ateneo de Manila UniversityPress, 1998.

COPE Foundation. “20 Years at a Glance,” history and evolution of the COPE Foundation. Started in1970 by Herb White, affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation in the U.S.

COPE Foundation. “Checklist of Knowledge-Skills and Attitudes of CO’s,” internal evaluationdocument prepared for staff retreat, April 2001.

49

Corchado, Alfredo and Sandoval, Ricardo. “Mexicans in U.S. Push Fox for Vote”, Dallas Morning News,March 15, 2002.

De Guzman, Raul, and Reforma, Mila. “Decentralization Towards Democratization and Development inthe Asian Pacific Region.” Local Government in the Philippines: A Book of Readings, Volume One.University of the Philippines, 1998.

Dizon, Ana Marie. “Decentralization, Local Governance and Urban Poverty in Four Philippine Cities,”Ateneo de Manila, unpublished report.

Duany, Jorge. “’Los Paises’: Transnational Migration from the Dominican Republic to the UnitedStates,” paper presented at a seminar sponsored by Migration Dialogue, Santo Domingo, D.R., Mar. 7-9,2002.

Fitzgerald, David. “Rethinking the ‘Local’ and ‘Transnational’: Cross-Border Politics and hometownNetworks in an Immigrant Union,” presented at the Institute for Labor and Employment, University ofCalifornia, Santa Cruz, Jan. 18-19, 2002.

Francisco, Oscar. “Reflections on Community Organizing and Ballroom Dancing,” Kasarinlan, APhilippine Quarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 13, no. 1, 1997.

Francisco, Oscar. “Building Civil Society at the Grassroots: the Philippine Community OrganizingExperience,” Philippine Democracy Agenda, 1995.

Freedom from Debt Coalition, Leyte Chapter. Three Year program, 2000-2003. Internal document.

Freedom from Debt Coalition. “Briefer on the Campaign on IPPs in the Philippines,” Sept. 4, 2001.

Freedom from Debt Coalition. “Campaign on the Power Industry: Narrative Report on Implementation,January to July 2002.” Internal strategy paper.

Freedom from Debt Coalition. Articles of Association and Mandate Paper, 2000.

Galing Pook Foundation. Kabangaling: The Philippine Case Bank on Innovation and Exemplary Practices inLocal Governance, Volumes 1-6, 2001 Edition.

George, Terrence. “Local Governance: People Power in the Provinces?” Organizing for Democracy:NGO’s, Civil Society and the Philippine State, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.

Golamco-Navaral, Tet. “Notes for a Panel Presentation on BATMAN, Developers, and Aglucay,”presented on July 1, 2002.

Graham, Pamela. “International Migration and Transnational Politics: Recent Developments in theCaribbean and Mexican Cases,” Paper delivered at the 1997 meeting of the Latin American StudiesAssociation, Guadalajara, Mexico, Apr. 17-18, 1997.

Gunning, ______. “Political Parties and Pressure Groups,” Understanding Democracy, Chapter 12. Datepublished unknown.

Hoefer, Richard. “The Effect of Institutional Arrangements on Political Advocacy by Swedish andAmerican Nonprofits,” date published unknown.

Hutchcroft, Paul. “Centralization and Decentralization in Administration and Politics: AssessingTerritorial Dimensions of Authority and Power.” Governance, An International Journal of Policy andAdministration, Jan. 2001.

Hutchcroft, Paul. “The Political Dynamics of Decentralization: The Philippines and ThailandCompared,” University of Wisconsin-Madison, unpublished, 2002.

INFORM! War, Immigrants, and the Economy: Filipinos in a Post-911 World, Jan. 25, 2003.

Institute for Politics and Governance. Minutes form a meeting of Community Organizers engaged inlocal governance work, July 2001.

50

Jenkins, J. Craig. “Social Movements, Political Representation, and the State: An Agenda andComparative Framework,” in The Politics of Social Protest: Social Movements, Protest, and Contention,Volume 3. University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Jessop, Bob. “Approaches to the analysis of Civil Society and the State (First Draft),” 2000.

Jessop, Bob. “Bringing the State Back in (Yet Again): Reviews, Revisions, Rejections, andRedirections,” Paper presented to IPSA Conference, Quebec, 2000.

Karaos, Anna Marie, Gatpatan, Marlene, and Hotz, S.J., Robert. Making a Difference: NGO and POPolicy Influence in Urban land Reform Advocacy, Monograph No. 15, Pagsusuri Ukol sa Lipunan atSimbahan, Jan. 1995.

Kawanaka, Takeshi. “The Robredo Style: Philippine Local Politics in Transition,” Kasarinlan, APhilippine Quarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 13, no. 3, 1998.

Kerkvliet, Benedict, and Mojares, Resil. From Marcos to Aquino: Local Perspectives on Political Transitionin the Philippines. Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1991.

Kunreuther, Frances. “Building Movement vs. Building Organization: Summary of RegionalDiscussions,” Building Movement In(to) the Nonprofit Sector, 2002.

Kuti, Eva. “NonProfit Organizations as Social Players in the Period of Transition: Roles and Challenges,”Szelenyi 60, date published unknown.

Magno, Alexander. “A Changed Terrain for Popular Struggles,” Kasarinlan, A Philippine Quarterly ofThird World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

Maguire, Diarmuid. “Opposition Movement and Opposition Parties: Equal Partners or DependentRelations in the Struggle for Power and Reform?” in The Politics of Social Protest: Social Movements,Protest, and Contention, Volume 3. University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Mangada, Ladylyn Lim. “Grooming the Wards: Dynamics Between a Political Party and CommunityGroups,” Philippine Democracy Agenda, 1998.

Mangada, Ladylyn Lim. “The Impact of Participatory Local Governance Interventions on LocalDemocracy and Development: The Case of Barangay Domrog,” University of the Philippines, Leyte,unpublished.

Municipality of Baybay, Leyte. “Municipal Profile,” 1999.

NonProfit Sector Research Fund. Mapping New Worlds: Selected Research on the Nonprofit Sector Aroundthe Globe. The Aspen Institute, 2001.

O’Neill, Michael. Non Profit Nation: A New Look at the third America, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2002.

Rebullida, Lourdes, Endriga, Dolores, and Santos, Geraldine. Housing the Urban Poor: Policies,Approaches, Issues”, UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies, 1999.

Republic of the Philippines, Department of the Interior and Local Government. Memorandum circularto all accredited NGO’s in the promotion of participatory local governance. July 24, 2001.

Republic of the Philippines, Department of the Interior and Local Government. A Study of People’sParticipation in the Local Development Councils, Manila, Nov. 2001.

Rivera, Temario. “Democratic Governance and Late Industrialization,” from The State & the Market:Essays on a Socially Oriented Philippine Economy, Ateneo de Manila Press, 1998.

Rocamora, Joel. “Theses on Philippine Local Politics,” paper presented at a meeting at the Institute forPopular Democracy, Apr. 16, 2002.

San Juan, Karel. “An Analysis of the Internal and External Environments of Philippine NGO’s,” Trendsand Traditions, date published unknown.

51

Santos Jr., Soliman. “A Rapid Field Appraisal of the Implementation and Impact of the EmpowermentOrdinance and People’s Council of Naga City,” report to the Naga City Council, Jan, 2002.

Santos Jr., Soliman. People’s Council, Institute for Politics and Governance, 1998.

Santos, Arlene. “Setting Foot on a Rurban Setting,” part of unpublished book on Local GovernanceStrategies soon to be released by the Institute for Popular Democracy.

Sidlangan, Inc. “Barangay Democratization Project: San Julian, Eastern Samar,” proposal presented toBayBay Municipal Council, May, 2002.

Silliman, G. Sidney, and Noble, Lela Garner, Eds. Organizing for Democracy: NGO’s, Civil Society andthe Philippine State, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.

Silliman, G. Sidney, and Noble, Lela Garner. “Citizen Movements and Philippine Democracy,”Organizing for Democracy: NGO’s, Civil Society and the Philippine State, Ateneo de Manila UniversityPress, 1998.

Smith, Robert C., Ph.D. “Migrant Membership as an Instituted Process: Transnationalization, the Stateand the Extra-Territorial Conduct of Mexican Politics,” International Migrant Review, 2002.

Staeheli, Lynn. “Community, Immigration, and the Construction of Citizenship,” project proposal tothe National Science Foundation, 2001.

Stiglitz, Joseph. “More Instruments and Broader Goals: Moving Toward the Post-WashingtonConsensus.” Presented at the 1998 WIDER Conference, Helsinki, Finland, Jan. 7, 1998.

Tilly, Charles. “Social Movements as Political Struggle,” Encyclopedia of American Social Movements, July1997.

Tornquist, Olle. “Democratic ‘Empowerment’ and Democratization of Politics,” Kasarinlan, A PhilippineQuarterly of Third World Studies, University of the Philippines, Vol. 8, no. 3, 1993.

Torres, Andres. “Latino Cultural Identity and Political Participation: Scanning the Recent Literature,”Mauricio Gaston Institute, University of Massachusetts, March 2001.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “Decentralization and DemocraticLocal Governance Programming Handbook,” Center for Democracy and Governance, May 2000.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “Democracy and Governance: AConceptual Framework.” Technical Publication Series, Nov. 1998.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “Shifting Seats of Government in thePhilippines,” Fall 1995.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “State-Civil Society Partnerships forPolicy Advocacy and Implementation in Developing Countries,” Sept. 1998.

Villarin, Tom. Democratic Participation in Governance: Multiple Lanes of Engagement Between the State,Social Movements and Civil Society. KAISAHAN Occasional Paper, Oct. 2000.

Work, Robertson. “Overview of Decentralisation Worldwide: a Stepping Stone to Improved Governanceand Human Development.” 2001.

52

MOVEMENT FORMATIONS PROJECT

Expense Statement

(Feb.1, 2002 - March. 31, 2003) Expenses Budget BALANCE

Salary (@ $50,000 annual) $36,125 25,000 -11,125

Taxes (@ 13%) 4,696

Benefits: Health Insurance 3,342

Dental

Other 112

TOTAL Taxes & Benefits 8,150 7,500 -650

Prgram Expenses:

Research Consultant (9/1-1/31) 8,000 4,000 -4,000

Transcription Services 1,350

Graphic Designer 1,200 3,500 2,300

International Travel 1,000 1,000 0

Domestic Travel (Philippines):

Tacloban Site Visit: Airfare 273

Naga City Site Visit: Airfare 179

San Jose del Monte Site visit (transport) 104

TOTAL DOMESTIC TRAVEL/PHIL. 556 1000 444

Domestic Travel (USA)

New York 659

Los Angeles 225

884 2,000 1,116

Stipends for Philippine Partners: 10,000 10,000 0

Institute for Popular Democracy 2,500 2,500 0

Freedom from Debt Coalition 2,500 2,500 0

COPE Foundation 2,500 2,500 0

CARET 2,500 2,500 0

Printing 911 8,000 7,089

Mailings & Postage 818 1,000 182

Convenings 3,750 7,500 3,750

Meeting & Travel Expenses

Tacloban Site Visit: Hotel 196

Tacloban Site Visit (per diem @ $25/day) 175

Naga City Site Visit: Hotel 183

Naga City Site Visit (per diem @ $25/day) 200

San Jose del Monte Site Visit (per diem) 250

Airport Transport (6/7/02) 24

Catering (July 1 Forum) 190

Airfare for Tet Navaral, Presenter 154

Meeting with IPD, CARET (3/7/02) 86

Administrative Support (IPD) 2,500

Los Angeles (Car Rental & Gas) 270

Los Angeles (per diem) 75

New York (lodging, & per diem) 425

TOTAL MEETING & TRAVEL EXPENSES 4,728 5,000 272

Miscellaneous

TOTAL MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES 1,334 2,000 666

TOTAL BALANCE 44