As of 2016, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Filipino immigrants in the States (1,942,000) rank fourth in number, surpassed by Mexico (11,575,000), India (2,435,000), and China (2,130,000).18What does this statistic imply? Why do Filipinos leave the Philippines and then move to the United States? What is their missional calling to transform their homeland Philippines and how have they responded to this calling? Chapter 5answers these questions in light of Diaspora Missiology and Missional Agency.
Everyday People
I use the term everyday people, instead of “the poor,” in order to avoid pejoratively labeling the poor. In addition, defining the poor is a very complicated and multifaceted issue. For this reason, when I use the term everyday people, I point to the ordinary people, generally speaking, who comprise the basic sectors such as the farmers, workers, urban poor dwellers, students and professionals, having a lower socio-political-economic status than those who are known as the powerful and the rich. In the context of the Philippines, as figured out in chapter 3, it is obvious who the powerful and the rich are, that is, the ruling elite class that originated from landowners throughout the colonial period19and constituted a national oligarchy during the late 1980s.20Therefore, the term everyday peopledoes not open up doors to the idea that even rich people are everyday people in some aspects of their lives. Rather, I would use the term everyday people in this study as the abbreviation of “everyday people with a lower socio-political-economic status.”
Powerlessness
In this study, I argue that everyday people communicate a sense of powerlessness. What does powerlessness mean? I define powerlessness as lack of ability, influence, or authority to control crucial aspects of their lives. If so, what does power mean? I simply define power as the capability to get things done regardless of exterior resistance or restriction (For the further understanding of power, see the section of power theories in chapter 2). What does, then, powerlessness look like? David Stravers, a former missionary to the Philippines, encapsulates the worldviews of the poor in the Philippines into three factors: the sense of powerlessness, the commitment to the status quo, and the perception that outside forces will always be in control.21They are interrelated with one another and concurrently represent the characteristics of powerlessness altogether. For example, if times are really bad, a poor Filipino in Murica22may tell that his or her life is “pigado gid,” that is, “so full of troubles that there is nothing one can do to escape them.”23Therefore, one can only say “amo ina sa amon kabuhi,” that is, “the way it is and there is nothing we can do about it.”24In Negros Island, people are “pressured to not seek to change the status quo by acquiring too much good or by transgressing the boundaries of his or her assigned status.”25If one person receives too much relief from outside, other members of the community may “become hostile against him or her through gossip and ostracism.”26Thus, in this context, someone’s acquiring wealth means depriving someone else. Since the issue of powerlessness is multi-faceted in its definition, cause, and solution, this study chose to focus on two major causes for powerlessness: structural evil and social imaginary.
Structural Evil
In this study, I define structural evil as the asymmetric structure of socio-political-economic systems that cause and perpetuate powerlessness. Given the context of the Philippines, structural evil is represented by oppressive and corruptive political power structures (the patrimonial oligarchy, patron-client relations, elitism, and a cacique democracy), and exploitative economic power structures (booty capitalism and neo-patrimonialism). Chapter 3discusses structural evil in greater detail.
Social Imaginary
Charles Taylor defines social imaginary as “the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.”27In social imaginaries, people perceive a common understanding, conduct common practices, and discern a sense of legitimacy. I argue that the powerlessness of everyday people in the Philippines has become “a sense of the normal expectations” and “the kind of common understanding” that enable them “to make up their social life.”28This hints that the sense of powerlessness functions at the mythic level as some kind of social imaginary. Chapter 4explores two different Filipino cultural values (Bahala na and Utang na loob) as social imaginaries that cause and perpetuate a sense of powerlessness.