Mission One: The Global South

Mission 1: The Global South

By Immanuel Canicosa

Act One: Learn

In the well-loved sport of basketball or even any other team sport, there are those teams in the professional as well as the amateur leagues which are always dark horses coming into each season, teams which are the so-called “cellar dwellers” or “bottom-feeders”.

This means that these teams have been perennially at the bottom of the standings and are only bestowed with victories every once in a while. They are mincemeat to the powerhouse teams, who, in stark contrast, are perennially contenders for the championship.

It could be said that the gap between the Global North and the Global South can be compared to the power struggle between the teams in a league. The First World countries are always atop the standings, while the Third World countries, which comprise most of the 192 states recognized by the United Nations are the “bottom-feeders” and the “cellar-dwellers” in the context of their financial and economical standing.

Sports analysts, however, have a euphemism dubbed for these so-called “cellar-dwellers” which also reminded me of the Third World countries. Sports pundits call these weaker team “developing teams,” and the one optimism they constantly hurl in the direction of these “bottom-feeders” is that “they could chalk up all their losses as an experience which they can use to get stronger next year.”

While this may be true for the world of sports, in the world of international relations, nothing could be chalked up to experience. The countries in power cannot be easily removed from power. Victory for the Third World countries seems as far as ever.

And one of the reasons, naturally, is that the First World countries would not want to help them in their plight.

I looked into some of the issues in the link provided, and what struck me the most was one of the articles posted in the Third World Debt link. It contains all the causes as well as the implications of having huge debts, and the various ways in which these debts have been alleviated. It is sad to note, however, that the articles detail that most of these efforts have failed.

The G8 is an informal group of some of the most powerful countries in the world (The United States, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, The United Kingdom, and France), and every year they deliberate on various issues, including the Third World countries. They, however, have done little to alleviate the woes of the Third World countries despite their capability to do something.

Some of the articles have also cited the causes of the pervasive debts incurred by the Third World countries, and one of the reasons still traces its roots back to the time of colonialism, which saw the First World countries conquer the Third World countries. Some of the debts being borne presently by the governments of these Third World countries are merely transfers of the debts of the colonizing states and not their own.

 In effect, the rich are actually being subsidized by the poor.

So in my opinion, a possible solution for this would be for the First World countries to make efforts to alleviate the debts of the Third World countries. Unlike in team sports wherein the teams vie for supremacy, in the real world countries should be helping one another.

The G8 should start acting and stop merely discussing their plans on how to help the Third World countries. They should be the ones who should be initiating the help for the Third World countries. Unlike in team sports, it is only they and the other First World countries that can put an end to the spell of the Third World countries as the “bottom-feeders” and “cellar-dwellers.”

Act Two: Act

Mention the word Ondoy to any Filipino, and he or she will almost always have an experience to recount, a story to tell. Because the Typhoon Ondoy which wrecked havoc on our nation during September of 2009 was one of the worst typhoons to hit our nation in recent years.

Some information websites affirm that it dumped a staggering four month worth of rain into Metro Manila and other provinces in Luzon and Visayas in just a single night, and it was during the fateful night of September 26 that the nation bore the brunt of this vicious force of nature, which left more than two hundred people dead and millions of destroyed property in its wake.

However, one positive which can be drawn from this otherwise forgettable event was that it brought together Filipinos, and for the first time, there was no distinction on who is rich and who is poor, who got educated in an esteemed institution or who is illiterate.

This tragedy had inadvertently brought together our nation of more than ninety million people.

My family was just one of the millions who were afflicted by the typhoon, but after we got out of our heavily flooded village in Cavite and into one of our relatives’ house, we wanted to help other people who were in need. We donated clothes and food to our neighbors and those residing in neighboring villages and even personally delivered some of the much-needed food rations into their homes.

We have also heard stories of other people going out of their way and helping people who were strangers to them, people they have not hitherto even seen. This act of kindness which was seen throughout the country is an evidence of our nature to help our fellow Filipinos.

But do we need another Ondoy to once more bind us as a nation? Do we need two-hundred more bodies and millions more in property damages to wake up the slumbering kindness deep within our hearts?

What I am pointing at is that the initiative to help other people should be present in us so that we can help other people, especially marginalized people whom we see every day. We can start by helping in the community as well as some of the projects of the University (DLSU) which are aimed at helping these aforementioned marginalized people. This would be the best that we could do as students, especially since we Lasallians practice Christian values.

Act Three: Imagine

Title: Poor Man’s Grave

Note: This is a short story that is the consequence if the gap between the First World and the Third World is never alleviated ad a war breaks out. This is more of a negative story than a positive one.

The sun bore down on the scrawny frame of Diego, aged thirty-three, as well as thousands of other backs bent like dried twigs. Yes, Diego is thirty-three, but numbers these days are just bland digits that no one really notices. These days, nobody looks like his age anymore. Or at least in this part of the country.

Diego and thousands of other have braved the scorching morning sun because it is Tuesday, the day in which the government sends its supply trucks out from the walled-off city and into the slums in which Diego and thousands of others live. They hand out small bags of food and water supply, one for each family, to be saved for the rest of the week until they can give another set of supplies the next Tuesday.

They are mired in a myriad of problems, but yet another one reared its head in their direction: It is rumored that this ration of water and food is the last, and that the meters-high gates of their capital city living in relative affluence shall be forever closed on them, leaving them to their own fates, if ever they had one.

That is why Diego woke up extra early today: so that he might get that last ration of food and water for himself. Other families have children to worry about. Thank God my parents died in the war, Diego thought.

But it wasn’t only his parents who were claimed by the war. The last time he watched the news, which was four year ago, Diego heard that half of the world’s population had been slaughtered, all because the Russian president was attempted to be assassinated. He wasn’t even killed, and yet the world paid dearly for it.

Even the idyllic nation of Switzerland was forced to take sides and break its centuries of neutrality in armed conflicts. Now, their banks lay in ruins, and their once-renowned timepieces are merely memories.

Not to mention the end of chocolates.

The line wasn’t moving at all. Diego looked at the beginning of the line and saw that the soldiers have already begun to give the first set of rations to the first family. Soon it would be his bony fingers getting hold of those plastic bags filled with canned foods and a kilo of rice, and a small jug of water.

Is this really the last time I’m ever gonna be able to eat, he wondered. It was a question, sure, but it was question for which he knew the answer. And the bad thing is, he couldn’t bring himself to say the answer.

He tried straying from the truth, thinking of another bland optimism being preached by some of his more optimistic neighbors. One of them mentioned another flourishing settlement in the mountains, but the mountains have all been razed, so that piece of optimism had already been shot down.

Diego walked over gingerly as a green-clad soldier handed over the red plastic bag containing his last meal and last drink. He would go back to his house (which hardly did the word ‘house’ any justice) and heartily eat the food, drink the water, and wait for his inevitable death.

:)