The “Seed of Hope” Campaign Launched
on the
Commemoration of World Food Day 2006
Since its establishment in
1996, the Philippine NGO Coalition on Food Sovereignty and Fair Trade (PNLC),
in which MODE is a co-convener, has been leading the World Food Day (WFD)
commemoration in the Philippines every year. To recall, the WFD was
initiated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on October 16,
1983. Tasked to lead the gargantuan effort of eradicating worldwide
hunger, FAO saw it fit to designate a day in which peoples of the world
reflect on food and relate this to the hunger situation particularly in
developing countries. FAO had set the following objectives for the yearly
WFD commemoration;
- heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in
the world;
- encourage attention to agricultural food production
and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and non-government
efforts to this end;
- promote the transfer of technologies to the Third
World;
- strengthen international and national solidarity in
the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention
to achievements in food and agricultural development;
- encourage the participation of rural people,
particularly women and the least privileged categories, in decisions and
activities influencing their living conditions;
- encourage economic and technical cooperation among
developing countries. (FAO website)
Guided by the above
objectives, FAO designates a theme on the WFD commemoration for each
year. For 2006, the theme is: Investing in Agriculture for Food
Security.
A glimpse on the hunger situation in the Philippines
The Philippine government is
known to be among the countries which had readily signed many
international human rights treaties including the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This Covenant stresses
that the right to food is the people’s most basic right. Yet, even while
the year 2006 is the 23rd year of the worldwide WFD commemoration, the
poverty situation in the country is becoming worse as paradoxically stated
by PNLC – “…the commemoration of World Food Day is meaningless and in
fact, this is an insult to the hungry 14.5 million Filipinos…” (Social
Weather Stations or SWS). What a contradiction to the Philippine
government’s pronouncements at the international level!
The hunger situation in the
Philippines speaks loud and clear. The WFD commemoration is empty and
meaningless for the almost four million Filipinos (National Statistics
Labor Force Survey) who have no jobs and have nothing to buy food. Add to
this, the almost 8 million workers who are looking for additional jobs so
they can buy enough food and secure other basic necessities for themselves
and their families. The highest rate of joblessness in the past 20 years
was in 2004; 4.1 million were unemployed, 6.8 million were underemployed
and 4 million worked part-time not to mention the new graduates who were
still looking for jobs.
The above data clearly speak
that international trade propelled by the WTO and the ASEAN has not
created positive impact on the lives of our people. Imported products
have become more accessible due to dumping and smuggling while media
ensures the popularity of these products to the detriment of our own. In
the absence of government support and worsened by policies which are
unfavorable to local production, farming has become a losing activity.
Local industries are closing shop because their local market is
increasingly being captured by imported products. All these lead to food
insecurity in the urban and rural areas in our country.
The “Seed of Hope” Campaign initiated by PNLC
Just like in earlier years,
PNLC thought of a particular campaign for 2006 which would reflect the
current hunger situation in the country, spark initial responses to our
people’s needs and carry the international theme - Investing
in Agriculture for Food Security.
After an in-depth discussion
among PNLC members, the “Seed of Hope Campaign” took
shape. The campaign stresses that hope lies in the core
of human beings so that this cannot be taken away by anyone or anything
external to them. Correspondingly, the campaign carried the call - “going
back to the basics” – to those which are doable based on our internal
human and material resources. An initial expression of this is the setting
up of “a home garden for every family” which is raised organically.
The campaign was launched in
three separate places in Metro Manila namely, in Pinaglabanan
Shrine in San Juan on October 15 and on October 16, at the compound of the
Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Sta. Mesa and at the
Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City. This was also launched in some
areas of PNLC’s member-organizations; i.e. Samar and Leyte, just to cite a
few. (Please, read related article on the WFD commemoration in Samar in
this issue.) The Pambansang Kongreso ng Kababaihan sa
Kanayunan (PKKK), a national rural women network, actively
participated in the WFD commemoration and had come up with various
activities in the members’ respective areas. (Please, read also PKKK
article in this issue.)
The local government of San
Juan and PUP-Sta Mesa in cooperation with the Sagip Pasig
Movement, Ecowaste Coalition warmly joined the campaign. Ms. Guia Gomez,
the mother of the San Juan Mayor, was very excited with the WFD
commemoration, being a pioneering activity in their municipality. She
identified the Barangay Health Workers and Nutrition Scholars as initial
cooperators.
In PUP, the Vice President
for Academic Affairs led the commemoration together with officials of five
barangays surrounding the university. The link in these areas is
the Sagip Pasig Movement (SPM) or the movement focused on saving
the Pasig river, a historically famous but now dying body of water which
runs in practically all parts of Metro Manila up to the Malacañang
palace. The areas surrounding the Pasig river in Sta. Mesa were
identified as pilot communities for the “Seed of Hope.”
PNLC joined the Global Action against Poverty
(GCAP) in a mobilization dubbed “Stand Up Against Hunger” at the Quezon
Memorial Circle (QMC) in the afternoon of October 16. The activity had
three parts: first, the Human Chain/Stand Up Event wherein people formed
a human chain and stood up against poverty; second, the Anti-Poverty
Fair wherein various organizations had set up a market where home-based
products were sold; and third, the Anti-Poverty Concert in the evening.
In this last part, solidarity messages were read and songs were rendered
by organizations, bands and progressive artists.
Some of the common features
of the above activities were the introduction of a song composed by
Armando Paragat entitled: “Binhi ng Pag-asa” choreographed by a
women’s group called Women’s Space, viewing of a 5-minute video dubbed “Ang
Mahiwagang Binhi”, distribution of seeds, brochures on Seed of Hope
and the PNLC WFD Statement and the signing of the covenant to eradicate
hunger.
As a whole, the “Seed of
Hope” campaign had firmed up old partnerships and had helped open new
ones. To name a few, the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the
Philippines (AMRSP) helped promote the campaign by distributing copies of
the Seed of Hope materials among their constituencies. The Roman Catholic
Church through its policy making body, the Catholic Bishops Conference of
the Philippines (CBCP) and its arm, the National Secretariat for Social
Action (NASSA), participated in the campaign as well. The CBCP’s
announcement in some parishes helped ensure that the activities were
grassroots-oriented and household-based.
