Urban Life in the Philippines
Metro Manila, seen as a “land of opportunities,” has lured many people from different provinces to work and live here. About 35 percent of the families live in informal slum areas that are unfit for settlement, such as in low-lying flood plains, on riverbanks, near highways and railroads, and on dumpsites.
Continue Reading ›The Value of Churches Working Together
Compassion Philippines is partner to 320 evangelical churches from 17 Christian denominations. While normally denominations such as Baptists and Pentecostals in the Philippines would not see eye to eye in matters of doctrine and practice, our church partners work together very well regardless of denominational differences.
Continue Reading ›Child Sponsorship Is About Relationship Building
“Sponsorship is not about the money you give but about the lives and relationships you build.” This is not just a clever thing to say. It’s a profound statement that I learned from the children themselves. I’ve seen that our children are more concerned about building their relationship with you than the help they get.
Charles in Charge: By Design of the Master
Both of Charles’ parents labored hard in the rice paddies all day long but brought home little money. When Charles mother got sick, they did not have money to take her to the hospital.
Charles never found out why she was sick. She just grew weaker by the day, until finally she died. He still wonders if the disease his mother succumbed to was curable.
Angelica’s Father Is Missing
Angelica’s father is missing. The last time he’d gone astray, he was found after a few weeks, but now it’s been months. Angelica’s mother explains that her husband is mentally ill. He used to work on the farm, strong as a water buffalo.
“He just went home one day afraid of dying,” says Emma, Angelica’s mother. “After that, he kept on saying ‘they are going to kill me’ over and over until he lost all sense of reality.”
Since then, Emma took on the responsibility of raising their four children. Angelica, 6, is the youngest. Emma worked hard day and night as a house-help, earning only $25 a month, until she developed a heart ailment. (more…)
Christian Servant Leadership in Action
Every year, graduating Leadership Development Program (LDP) students in the Philippines go to work camp where they engage in community service. The yearly work camp usually engages students in missionary work to unreached tribal groups, but this year the students extended a helping hand to typhoon victims.
Marikina Foursquare Student Center After Typhoon Ketsana
Typhoon Ketsana, which struck the Philippines on September 26, damaged more than 1,500 homes of Compassion-assisted children and families, and nearly 20 student centers were affected by the storm.*
Ketsana hit the Philippines on a Saturday, the day when registered children gather at the student centers. But on September 26 not many arrived at Marikina Foursquare Student Center. Ketsana was already pounding hard.
However, some children did come.
Bernadette, the center director, fed them and instructed them to go home immediately. And as she planned to visit the homes of other children to give them some food because the floodwaters were rising fast, she was called by her own family. Her home was flooded too.
“What I have learned from this is not to look back on the possessions I lost, but rather focus on saving myself and my loved ones. On that day, I couldn’t attend to the needs of the children since my own home was in disarray.”
In the following days Bernadette reports that none of the children from her student center were hurt, although all of their homes were flooded, damaged in some way or destroyed completely.
The student center and its surrounding communities were completely submerged under water. And five days after the typhoon, homes and communities were still flooded, muddied, stinky and a mess.
Mirasol, a mother at the church, says,
“It is still a nightmare for me. I still vividly recall images of people being swept away by the water. I couldn’t sleep thinking that I was not able to help them as they were crying, as they were swept away towards the river. My child was crying the loudest, ‘Mother, Mother, the water is so high already!’”
Two of Mirasol’s children, Maribel and Dominic, are registered at the student center. They are safe but their home is still under water.
Miguel, another child from the student center, says he was so afraid because he got separated from his father when his father took his mother to safety first, but could not come back for Miguel and his younger brother because of the dangerously strong current.
Miguel and his brother were rescued by a neighbor, also a Compassion parent, as the boys jumped from roof to roof. They were reunited with their parents the next day at the church, but their tiny home was washed away completely.
Miguel’s father confesses,
“I pounded on my heart in anguish, crying. I was thinking of my boys all the time. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to look for them several times. I even waded back and forth in the water calling out for my sons.”
But despite the situation he and his family now find themselves in, Miguel’s father says,
“I won’t complain because I still have what truly matters.”
His family.
When natural disasters strike, Compassion’s Disaster Relief Fund provides sponsored children and their families with food, clothing and basic supplies to help rebuild their lives. Learn more about the Disaster Relief Fund.
*Editor’s note: In the wake of a disaster we contact each sponsor who has a child affected by that disaster. We do so once we receive details from the country office about the child. If your child was affected by either Typhoon Ketsana or Typhoon Parma, you will be contacted when we receive information about your child.
Philippines Milestone: 50,000 Registered Children
“Why just now?” asks Pastor Joel. “Where was Compassion when I was just a child who had all the potential but did not have the money to go to school or to eat three square meals a day?”
Pastor Joel grew up on the remote island of Siquijor in the Philippines, which has long been known for magic and witchcraft, but Compassion in the Philippines only began partnering with churches in Siquijor this year.
Although Compassion reached the Philippines in the 1970s, we finally landed in the isolated island after 30 years!
In 2004, we began regularly updating our strategy map to identify the poorest and neediest provinces in the country with the fewest number of evangelical churches, and the list included Siquijor. (more…)
Now He Smiles
In 2008, little Eric was the first child registered at Rio Tuba Learning and Development Center in the Philippines. I was there. And I recently went back to see how he is doing.
To reach Eric’s far-flung town, I traveled by plane, took a 30-minute motorcycle-taxi ride, and then a grueling six-hour bus ride on a dusty, monotonous rough road.
I was warmly received by Pastor Gwen, who immediately said she remembered my last visit. She also said Eric has improved much. His father, Benny, however, has been very elusive.
Pastor Gwen has tried several times to reach Benny to discuss matters about sponsorship, but he’s never home. His children always say he’s out looking for food.
The next morning I saw Eric in his tutorial class at the student center and immediately noticed a big difference – he was smiling at me!
There was a toothless gap in his big grin, and I was very happy to see it.
I approached and asked if he remembered me from my last visit. He said no.
I observed Eric in class. He was the quietest and most well-behaved.
The other children were typically rowdy, but Eric went about his quiet way, listened to the teacher attentively, colored some drawings as told, and took his morning snack.
As in all student centers throughout the Philippines, Rio Tuba plans and conducts many activities for the children. The goal is to connect with each individual child so that each hears the Gospel and learns Bible stories and songs, is monitored for health, receives school tutorials, and is given a chance to just play, eat, enjoy, feel loved and feel safe.
Simply put, each child is given the chance to live a happy life so that all of them, like Eric, can begin to smile.
I learned that 6-year-old Eric comes to the center after his regular elementary school classes. He is in grade one. We grabbed a quick lunch, and it was time to meet Eric’s family again.
Pastor Gwen had briefed me on how the student center performed in its first year of partnership with Compassion. So naturally I wanted to know if all that she said was true for Eric’s family. (more…)
A Young Activist
The problems of the Filipino youth are real – delinquency, early pregnancy, drug addiction, prostitution and gangs. In the crammed squatter community of Escopa in metropolitan Manila, these social ills are a way of life.
Kenh is one of the young people living in Escopa, and today he has a chance to help solve these problems. Kehn, 16, was recently elected as one of his neighborhood’s youth officers, and already he has initiated the distribution of free bags, pencils and papers to little children, using local government funds.
“I believe that education is the key to helping the youth and straightening their lives,” he says. “If only they will stay in school, then they will be drawn away from youthful evils.”
Kenh’s involvement with the local Youth Council is political in nature, but poverty is not just political rhetoric for Kenh. It is reality. (more…)
A Young Missionary
Patricia lives in one of the crowded slum communities of Santa Mesa, Manila and that is known as breeding ground for thieves, criminals and prostitutes.
The winding path to her home is so narrow that only one person at a time can pass through. Children play and run along the narrow maze of alleyways, throwing rocks at houses, cursing at people and threatening other children. They are noisy, dirty and disrespectful.
Patricia had enough of them and one day decided to do something about it. She decided to teach them the Bible so that they can change their ways. She gathered these rowdy children aged 5 to 10 years old so that she can teach them about Jesus.
Patricia is only 12 years old.
“I teach them about Jesus … so that they can become better children. At first, it was just a teacher-student game but soon I realized that I could actually teach these children for real.”
For two years now, she has taught the children every Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., with an average of 11 students at a time. (more…)
A New Beginning for Eric
Compassion seeks to register the poorest children around the world, and Eric in the Philippines is one of them. Compassion gives hope to those who need it most.
Based on its studies on poverty, Compassion in the Philippines identified Rio Tuba as one of the neediest towns in the country, and Eric’s family is the neediest of them all.
In this isolated town where only one bus line is willing to travel from the main city, Eric’s family is even cut off from the rest of the residents. They live in an unfinished, tiny bamboo hut in the middle of an open field. Although from time to time their closest neighbor gives food and offers help, he often mocks them for their predicament.
Eric’s father, Benny, is a carpenter. He used to earn a daily income of US$5.60 when there was available work. This was not enough to feed his seven children. Since his wife left them in March 2008, Benny stopped working completely to take care of his children full time. (more…)
