"Before, imperialism used military means to control the 'third world." Today they use economic intervention like the World Trade Organisation and the Multilateral Agreement on Investments.
"So we need to improve the cooperation between smaller producers, and the link between producer and consumer. Alternative trade helps develop the consciousness of popular organisations in the south, and consumers in the north.
"We can't confront the capitalists directly. But strong people's movements can establish meaningful links that make a difference."
The problem is maintaining export levels in an increasingly competitive market, and persuading farmers that they must increase the quality of their products, even if this is more time-consuming.
"There is a limit to what we can do," explains Loquellano. "We only facilitate. Street children Urban poor in
Street children are a very visible consequence of the crisis in
Philippine society.
Ignored by the Department of Social
Welfare and Development, and brutalised by the police, street children in Mandaue City have gradually come to trust the
"aunties" who opened a drop-in centre in their district.
"Options" offers an integrated programme: educational counselling and support for those who want to rejoin the school system and those who do not. It also offers welfare services and livelihood skills.
Many of the children survive by scavenging and recycling refuse, or washing the city's Jeepney buses.
Most of what they earn is given to their mothers, to buy food for younger brothers and sisters.
"The Principal of the local school didn't even realise that these children were on the street!" says
Options director Ligaya Abadesco.
"Teachers only saw that these children were often absent, often tired, and often distracted. We cover the costs of those children who want to attend school, though our resources are limited. We may try to persuade the city government to pay these expenses. But street 24 International Viewpoint #313 July 1999
The farmers are the ones who must decide what do to about globalisation. We try to help them identify the relationitervention kids don't vote, and neither do many of their parents."
Beyond the immediate project, Options staff are trying to dialogue with and organise the squatter communities from which the street children come. Options' community development officer covers five urban poor communities.
"The urban poor face a daily diet of injustice. They are very hard to organise, and we can only win their respect and confidence if we can help solve some of their immediate needs."
Projects like Options are a question of principle, not 'mere' humanitarianism. "We need to provide an alternative to the dependent, clientelist relationship which the government, politicians, and most NGOs encourage among the rural poor," explains Abadesco. "We need to build a long term relationship, that will continue even if our funding runs out. Of course we concentrate on basic issues like access to water and education. But this is the only way to begin to organise and educate the community."
In collaboration with other popular organisations, Options is trying to develop income-generating projects. "We need to make ship between the big picture and the local situation."
PFTAC's training programme includes strategic planning sessions, so that the farmers' associations can themselves identify new projects (rather than passively accepting the recommendations of their technical and political advisors). Corruption and co-option
PFTAC also educates the rural poor about the dangers of exploitation of poverty and popular movements by unscrupulous Non-Governmental and charitable organisations, which can have their own bureaucratic interests, or which abandon a particular project as soon as foreign funding is no longer available.
"There is a constant turnover of "development" groups which pretend to sympathise with the rural poor, but are primarily motivated by their own religious, zoological, political or economic agenda, says Loquellano.
"Goups like our own are in for the long haul. But we have always told the peasants that, if the day comes when they no longer want our help, we will go."* the parents less dependent on their children's paid labour."
The long term goal is the formation of a resident's association in the squatter zones. As a matter of principle, this organisation would be invited to join Options' board of directors.
In one squatters camp, Options is helping mothers regain collective control over the single water outlet. The original installation was financed by an NGO, but, over the years, the unorganised residents failed to pay the water company, and the tap is now under the control of one individual. "Since she has the money, she can always lend the mothers a bit of money to buy food," said one organiser. "Which makes it very hard for the other mothers to challenge her."
Subject to funding, Options plans to train a series of paralegal advisors on labour law, to assist individual workers (and to provide paid work for some blacklisted activists!)
Options also collaborated with medical students at San Carlos (the country's oldest university) in training the urban poor in the production of herbal medicines.
In the housing boom, the urban poor are the first to be ejected or forcibly relocated. Without the support of organisers like Options, the urban poor will be unable to use the legal mechanisms that offer them a degree of protection. * alt for org Swi of Col (CP of t cOO thai leg fra dec OWI alis beg cor mer Ma edu SOC to t weI exa