The recent experience with COVID-19, a pandemic that has further exposed the vulnerabilities of the poor in Philippine society, provides a socio-political and economic context for a re-emphasis of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines’ (PCP II) Church of the Poor (COP). This paper argues that the crisis brought about by the pandemic affirms the importance of the COP but at the same time it provides a context to further deepen our understanding on what else can be done by a COP. To carry out the objective, Amartya Sen’s definition of poverty that focuses on capabilities instead of income is used for synthetic analysis of poverty’s face as it was experienced during the pandemic. This is used to further analyze how the Philippine Church can rekindle its commitment to be a Church of the Poor in the new normal.
Keywords: COVID-19 • Church of the Poor • New Normal • Capability Approach1) Abellanosa, Rhoderick John S. “The CBCP and Philippine Politics: 2005 and After.” Asia Pacific Social Science Review, Vol. 8/1 (2008): 73-88.
2) _____. “Poverty’s Political Face in a Slum: Focus on Human Rights.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 39 (2011): 149 – 162.
3) _____. “The Political Face of Poverty: Cases of Human Rights Violations in Pasil, Cebu City.” Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 2/2 (2011): 132-148.
4) _____. “Poverty of Words in Poverty Discourses: The Case of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.” Philippine Sociological Review, 61/1 (2014): 175-204.
5) _____. “Discursive Detours and Weak Gatekeeping: The Deficit of the Philippine Bishops’ Church of the Poor Discourse.” Political Theology 16/3 (2015): 226-246.
6) Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines. Pasay: St. Paul’s, 1992.
7) Arcilla, Chester Antonino. “Ensuring the affordability of socialized housing: Towards Livable and Sustainable Homes for the Poor.” UP CIDS Policy Brief 2019-15.
8) Balisacan, Arsenio. Poverty, Urbanization and Development. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1994.
9) Bane, Mary Jo and Lawrence Mead. Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty and Welfare Reform. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2003.
10) Cabalza, Dexter. “Paranaque village chief accused of ‘torturing’ curfew violators” [available online]: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/ 1248527/paranaque-village-chief-accused-of-torturing-curfew-violators.
11) Cartagenas, Aloysius L. Unlocking the Church’s Best Kept Secret. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2012.
12) Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. “CBCP Pastoral Exhortation on the Era of New Evangelization (longer version)” in http://cbcponline.net/cbcp-pastoral-exhortation-on-the-era-of-new-evangelization-longer-version/, access 1 May 2020.
13) Chambers, Robert. “Poverty and Livelihood: Whose Reality Counts?” Environment and Urbanization 7/1 (1995): 173-204.
14) _____. “Participation, Pluralism and Perceptions of Poverty: a Conference Paper.” Paper for the International Conference on Multidimensional Poverty: Brasilia August 29-31, 2005.
15) _____. “What is Poverty? Who Asks? Who Answers?” Poverty in Focus (Dec 2006): 3-4.
16) Co, Edna et al. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Economic and Social Right. Pasig: Anvil, 2007.
17) CNN Philippines. “21 protesters demanding food aid arrested in Quezon City” [available online]: https://cnnphilippines.com/news/ 2020/4/1/quezon-city-protesters-arrested-.html.
18) Dagmang, Ferdinand. “From Vatican II to PCP II to BEC Too: Progressive Localization of a New State of Mind to a New State of Affairs.” MST Review 18/2 (2016): 63-75.
19) Gaspar, Karl. “Basic Ecclesial Communities in Mindanao: A Call to Continuing Missiological Relevance.” MST Review 19/1 (2016): 37-66.
20) Genilo, Eric Marcelo. “Epilogue: The Church of PCP II after the RH Bill Debate.” Eric Marcelo Genilo, Agnes Brazal and Daniel Franklin Pilario, eds., The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines: Quo Vadis? Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2015.
21) Hutchison, Jane. “The ‘Disallowed’ Political Participation of Manila’s Urban Poor.” Democratization 14/5 (2007): 853-872.
22) Macasero, Ryan and Michael Bueza. “MAP: Where are the coronavirus cases in Cebu City?” [available online]: https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/260554-map-coronavirus-cases-cebu-city.
23) Maritain, Jacques. “The Democratic Character.” Robert Caponigri, editor, Modern Catholic Thinkers, vol. II. New York: Harper and Row, 1960.
24) McGoldrick, Terence. “Episcopal Conferences Worldwide and Catholic Social Thought, in Theory and Praxis: An Update.” Theological Studies 75/2 (2014): 376-403.
25) Miranda, Dionisio M. “What will You Have Me Do for You? The Theological Ethics Agenda from an Asian Perspective.” James Keenan, ed., Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church: the Plenary Papers from the First Cross Cultural Conference on Catholic Theological Ethics. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2008.
26) Moreno, Antonio. Church Society in Postauthoritarian Philippines: Narratives of Engaged Citizenship. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2008.
27) Paul VI. Populorum Progressio. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1967.
28) Philippine Statistics Authority. “Proportion of Poor Filipinos Estimated at 16.6 percent in 2018” [available online]: https://psa.gov.ph/poverty-press-releases/nid/144752.
29) Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. New York: Oxford, 1981.
30) _____. Inequality Reexamined. New York: Russell Sage/Harvard, 1995.
31) _____. Development as Freedom. New York: Oxford, 1999.
32) _____. “Democracy as a Universal Value.” Journal of Democracy 10/3 (1999): 3-17.
33) _____. Identity and Violence. New York: Norton, 2006.
34) _____. The Idea of Justice. New York: Penguin, 2010.
35) Social Weather Stations. “Fourth Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey: Self-Rated Poverty rises by 12 points to 5-year-high 54%” [available online]: https://www.sws.org.ph/swsmain/ artcldisppage/?artcsyscode=ART-20200123140450.
36) Stiglitz, Joseph, A. Sen and J-P Fitoussi. Mis-measuring our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up. New York: The New Press, 2010.
37) Stinus-Cabugon, Marit. “135 Covid-19 cases in Cebu City neighborhood” [available online]: https://www.manilatimes.net/ 2020/04/20/opinion/columnists/135-covid-19-cases-in-cebu-city-neighborhood/716241/.
38) Tagle, Luis Antonio. “What Have We Become? Ten Years after PCP II,” Landas 16/1 (2002): 105-117.
39) Verstraeten, Johan. “Catholic Social Thought and Amartya Sen on Justice.”
40) Peter Rona and Laszlo Zsolnai. Economics as a Moral Science. Switzerland: Springer, 2017.