PLENARY REMARKS BY CORAZON JULIANO-SOLIMAN
Secretary for Social Welfare and Development of the Philippines
To Mr. David Rockefeller, who is an inspiration for bridging leadership and bridging divides, and to my other friends and colleagues: good evening, salaam alaikum, peace to you all.
Today we face the challenges of a divided world. Differences cause conflicts. Intolerance of different beliefs, religions and faiths breeds violence. Power is used unjustly, leading to wars and deaths. Institutions offering mediation are ignored and their moral authority is questioned because the parties in conflict do not recognize them. As a consequence, increasing numbers of people join the ranks of the poor sectors as the economies of the world are terrorized by divisions.
Common ground is easy to identify if we stop and set aside our biases and prejudices. The air we breathe, the space we occupy, the land we walk upon are all common ground, but we too easily forget that this common ground is for all of us. We draw lines of divisions based on culture, economics, politics and social standing.
My own personal "her story" speaks of common ground that was first ignored and later found. Before becoming a Cabinet Member in the Macapagal-Arroyo Government, I was part of the development NGO sector, often known as civil society. The beginning for me was the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship; we brought him down. And so I've had the privilege of being a participant of two people power victories.
In both cases, it was easier to bring down the government than rebuild the fabric of society and make democracy a reality for millions of poor people in our country. The different development perspectives, the "my solution is the only solution" attitude, the fear of co-opting each other or worse, being co-opted by government, was so intense that after the victory of winning back democracy the search for common ground quickly lost steam.
But poverty was tearing us down and we believed that active reform was needed to make democracy a reality for the poor people of the Philippines. So a group of us worked on a coalition of peasant organizations called the Congress for People's Agrarian Reform, which brought together 14 national peasant federations with 4 distinct ideological groupings. They had been competitors in recruiting members in the rural areas, even competing for members in the armed struggle, and were very suspicious of each other. Yet they came together to work for a genuine agrarian reform law. It was an inspiring experience.
Victory was not ours alone. It came because we worked with other sectors in society: faith-based organizations, the academic community, people from the business community who believed that we needed to energize the domestic economy, and legislators. So today, as we speak, the agrarian reform law means more fish and rice for millions of farmers in the Philippines. And the innovations of the multi-sectoral approach with farmers and land owners working together to keep their production going is a continuing affirmation that divides can be bridged and poverty conquered.
The second people power revolution is another testimony to finding common ground among different groups of people, even among those who are considered enemies. When the economic and moral situation under the Estrada Government resulted in increasing poverty and the erosion of gains made in the social reform agenda of the Ramos Government, the leaders of different organizations came together to begin the process of building the RIO campaign: Resign, Impeach or Oust. The common ground was the desire to change the government leadership and the campaign itself was the fusion of the different strategies. It was a victory in the struggle against corruption and bad governance. It was a unity of a broad group of organizations -- from business organizations to religious groups of different faiths, youth organizations, different ideological organizations, partisan political parties, the academic associations, artists groups and more -- that came together to struggle together.
These two examples were national political initiatives that addressed poverty through policy reform and through exacting accountability from government. I would now like to share with you how collaborative actions can address poverty in the villages and urban poor communities.
In my experience as a development NGO worker and now as a public servant, I have seen the power of the tri-sectoral approach to address hunger and malnutrition, lack of educational facilities, housing needs, and lack of jobs and income generating activities. The tri-sectoral approach is getting business, government and civil society working together on common projects on the ground with the affected communities as the convergence point. "Pockets of Hope" I call them. For example, one of the biggest broadcast networks ABS-CBN, through its Knowledge Channel, joins hands with government and NGOs to expand educational opportunities for poor and depressed communities by providing television sets and educational materials to public schools. Teachers can tune into cable programs appropriate to the grade levels of their students.
The Ayala Group of Companies brings in their expertise in housing and land development, provision of potable water and other utilities, and helping provide livelihood opportunities to an urban poor community that is also working with the government's anti-poverty line agencies.
The Philippine's giant food corporations and multinational corporations also worked with government and NGOs to provide supplemental feeding and day care centers for children in very poor rural and urban communities.
This approach creates synergies of resources from the three sectors. The World Bank has also ventured into this approach and today we have a $100 million loan for a community-driven development effort called "KALAHI's Seeds: Empowerment and Development in the Village." My ministry is the lead agency for this undertaking.
In summary, what are the lessons that we can share? One key element is the presence of bridging leaders: persons who have the skills and the qualities of leadership that inspires and catalyses collaborative action. They have an eye for common ground; they have big ears so that they can catch a common point in the discussion no matter how faint and far off it may sound. Their ego can take the teasing, and sometimes even the scorn, of friends and colleagues when the effort to find common ground is difficult and they are the only one who believes that there's room for a mutually beneficial solution to the problem. They also know when the process has reached its limits and that the best solution is to stop, disengage from the discussion and allow participants to go back to their constituencies to consult and search further for solutions.
The second lesson is that poor people must be active participants in the problem-solving process.
The third lesson is that we must look for allies in the most unexpected places and we must never give up on people. I have seen this most recently now that I have crossed over to government.
And finally, the last lesson I would like to share with you is that we all have the power to transform our own societies. In this room alone power exudes from each and every one of you. But it is how we use our power that makes a difference. We use power in two ways: "grace-filled use of power" and "graceful use of power." Grace filled-use of power means we use power informed by our faith and spirituality. Graceful use of power means "my use of power does not disempower you or myself, instead the interaction and transaction empowers both of us continually." Friends and colleagues, let us use our power with grace. Thank you.
* * *
Corazon Juliano-Soliman was sworn in as Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development of the Philippines in January, 2001. In addition to her service in government, Ms. Juliano-Soliman has extensive leadership experience working on national and international development issues. Among them, she has served as Executive Director of CO-TRAIN, providing leadership training to community organizers in the Philippines and internationally; as Chairperson of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks, an umbrella organization of 14 major groups in the Philippines; as Chairperson of the Philippine-Canadian Joint Committee for Human Resource Development; and as National Secretariat Coordinator, Congress for People's Agrarian Reform. She has consulted for UNIFEM, taught at Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines, and is the recipient of numerous awards for her work in the areas of development and community organizing.