Overcoming the Enemy

Meditation: Overcoming the enemy
by Frank J. Hernando
Delivered at the Filipino community, Zion Methodist Church
Seoul, Korea 20 July 2014

Scripture Text: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43

1. I’m sure that you wondered that I posted on Facebook pictures taken in Hong Kong and I haven’t told you about it the last time I was here with you. I accompanied Gloria to Hong Kong and attended her meetings there as well related to program on marriage migrants, which has been evaluated under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM). It was an opportunity as well for us to mingle with the different organizations of Filipino domestic workers who spend their Sundays at the Central District of Hong Kong especially at Chatter Road and the surrounding places near St. John’s Anglican Church. It has been estimated that there are over 180,000 Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong. Due to the hot weather in Summer, many Overseas Filipino Workers gather under shades of buildings such as the HSBC building near the Chatter Road. Other groups occupy the sidewalks for their meetings and socialization.

2. In the previous weeks and the last few days we are appalled and overwhelmed by so many perplexing events and issues in our country and the world. The recent typhoon that visited the Philippines made its devastating impact where several people killed due to strong winds, heavy rains and storm surges and 1.6 million people are still trying to recover from the severe impact to their livelihood and homes. There has been the political issue of Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as irregular and unconstitutional. Then there has been Israel’s bombing of Gaza where many Palestinians mostly children and women died, and last Thursday evening Malaysian flight MH017 was downed by anti-aircraft missile in Ukraine killing all the 298 passengers and crew on board.

3. In this calamitous times, we inquire into our faith why do we and many people in the world have to go through all these threats and sufferings and death? Our Scripture texts gives a clue on how Jesus understood the world in which he lived in. The parable of the weeds and the wheat resonates the challenges to the kingdom of God wherein Jesus Christ represents the one who inaugurated it and the kingdom has been characterized as the growth of new faith and consciousness that was opposed to acquisitive and violent consciousness. The focus of the parable is the sower himself who generously sowed the wheat with the hope that a good harvest will come and that those who depend on the harvest for their sustenance will not be denied of the fruits of the land.

4. This parable has similarities with last Sunday's gospel reading, the parable of the sower, and Barbara Brown Taylor's made an eloquent rendering of it, I quote:

We emphasized that the parable is about God's gracious sowing over all kinds of soil. It's about God's unifying grace, not our divisiveness. In the parable, we have a Sower whose abundant sowing seems to indiscriminately gloss over the differences we like to hear about. In Jesus' explanation of the parable it seems to give them exactly what they want to hear, a judgmental focus on all the differences by focusing on the soils instead of the Sower. Moreover, before the explanation of the specific parable, Jesus gives them a general explanation of using parables which already plays right into the "us vs. them" ways reflected in their question in 13:10. And with tragic irony to boot. The disciples are the ones closest to the parable-giver. They get to see and hear everything firsthand. They are truly "blessed" in that regard (13:16). But are they also the ones who so hearing and seeing fulfill the prophecy: "'You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive'" (13:14)? (unquote)

5. The parable in focus tells of the good seeds sown in the soil and when they sprang up there were too many weeds which the farmers wondered where did it come from and the Owner said it was the enemy who have sown the weeds while the farmers were asleep. More so the owner instructed them not to pull out the weeds because they may include the wheat as well. So they have to wait until harvest time when they can separate the wheat from the weeds and when separated the weeds are burned while the wheat are brought to the barn. The weeds and the wheat grow together until harvest time, a very vivid illustration of the coexistence of the good and bad and expresses the dualistic tendencies of human existence, that of separating the material from the metaphysical or spiritual aspects of life.

6. The biblical concept of last judgement is also heard in this parable represented in the act of harvest where the weeds are thrown into the fire to be burned. The time of judgement is indefinite, or classified as the kairos or the peak time and a time of God's choosing that can be a beginning of a new history or the coming of a new age or eon. There is not one kairos but many and it has occurred in the past and is happening in the present and in the future. The period between the planting and the harvest is the time when the enemy sows the weeds, at the same time when the goodness, grace and love of God grow in the lives of people. Here we get into the challenging situation where faith and practice of love and compassion of believers are tested in a refiner's fire. The enemy referred here is both internal and external force of influences in the life of Christians. It can be likened to the film title "Sleeping with the enemy". This simply means that while the kingdom of God grows in our individual lives, there are external factors and influences that pulls us to the violent, destructive and vindictive stances in life that the goodness in us has been defeated by the enemy within. Thus when the kairos time comes judgement falls like one is thrown into a furnace or hell like situation.

7. We all know how the hell like situations the high ranking official of the Philippines have been going through because of the scandalous misuse and corruption of government funds. President Aquino himself has been grilled because of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). According to IBON News, President Benigno Aquino dispensed billions of pesos to legislators, agencies, local government units and beneficiaries at his discretion, for purposes that he defined unilaterally, and with only a semblance of legality. All these make the controversial DAP consistent with being pork barrel while not directly resulting in broad benefits to Filipinos, the group said. Pres. Aquino has admitted impatience with the prescribed budget process and short-cutting this to supposedly be able to deliver services more efficiently and immediately to the people. The profile of the projects funded by DAP do not fit with either delivering services to the people or stimulating the economy. The case of the DAP illustrates how the abuse of presidential powers and discretion makes hundreds of billions of pesos in public funds vulnerable to use for patronage and partisan politics and, at worst, corruption. (end)

8. Finally we who have been nurtured in the values of kingdom of God should not be discouraged of doing what is loving, what is just and what is compassionate that show forth the very person of Jesus Christ in our lives. Christians who matured in faith and live a just-righteous life be like blooms in Summer. The enemy or the those who work evil, destructive, violent schemes in our world today will be purged, but those who belong to Christ and live out their faith in acts of justice, love, mercy and peace will shine like the sun. I would add an important insight by N. T. Wright here, linking the righteous shining like the sun as one of the few references made by Jesus to resurrection by alluding to Daniel 12:3: "Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever" (Daniel also being the source for the "Son of Man" terminology). If we do read the "angels of the Son of Man" as those martyred in human fires of judgment, then they are also the resurrected righteous who shall someday shine like the sun. Therefore we should not be weary in doing good and in participating in the work of the kingdom of God. We are confident that we shall, in kairos time, overcome the enemy. Amen.

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Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
13:24 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;

13:25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.

13:26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.

13:27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?'

13:28 He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'

13:29 But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.

13:30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

13:36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field."

13:37 He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;

13:38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one,

13:39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

13:40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,

13:42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13:43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
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References:
1. http://www.textweek.com/
2. http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper11a.htm
3. http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper10a.htm#taylor
4. http://www.ibon.org/

A World Without Forced Migration: Why migrants should support the call for development justice

A world without forced migration
Why migrants should support the call for development justice
International Migrants Alliance (IMA)
Campaign for People’s Goals for Sustainable Development

Currently, there are 232 million international migrants in the world and this is projected to increase in the coming years. This includes migrant workers and immigrants who are mainly in agriculture, industries and the service sector. This number does not yet include the millions more irregular (or undocumented) migrants, as well as refugees.

Present-day migration is a result of inequities existing in the world perpetuated by policies of neoliberal globalization.

Migration pattern is mainly characterized by migration from less developed countries to the more developed ones such as the migration of people from Latin American and the Caribbean to North America, from Southeast Asia to the richer countries of East Asia, from South Asia to the Middle East, or Eastern Europe to Russia and to Western Europe.

The past four decades of implementing neoliberal globalization policies has deepened the maldevelopment of third world countries. The destruction of agriculture, deindustrialization, and contraction of public social services in the country of origin of migrants has led to mass displacement, dislocation and forced migration.

It has also heightened the need for a more “flexible” skilled, cheap, disempowered labour force that are sourced from the less developed countries always on the lookout for labour markets to absorb its ever expanding labour force that its regressive economy cannot absorb.

Within countries of origin, neoliberal economics only benefit the ruling elites that include the big traders of imported goods, exporters of raw materials and agricultural produce, local partners of giant multinational mining corporations, and the local land-owning classes. Through the labour export program used to prop up the constantly flagging economy and diffuse the social volcano created by an impoverished majority, the local elites not only maintain the status quo but even profit further from the labour export-related businesses recruitment agencies, financing agencies, medical facilities, and even real estates.

In receiving countries, migrants and immigrants are used as bargaining chips for capitalists to depress the wage of all workers, erode labour rights and even destroy unions. Migration ensures profits while the local working class and their families struggle for survival.

Current migration also demonstrates the inequities existing between men and women. For the past decades, female migration has shoot up and even surpassed male migration in some areas. This so-called “feminization” of migration is not an indication of uplifting the economic participation of women but is an indication of the worsening condition of women in sending countries. It also shows the contraction of overseas labour market that is now focused more on jobs perceived to be for women domestic work, care industry, and jobs in the service sector.

With a nominal recognition that neoliberal globalization has not brought development for the people, the United Nations, in 2000, formulated the Millennium Development Goals that consisted of concrete targets on major development themes.

Now, with just over a year before the target completion of the MDGs on 2015 comes, confidence on the delivery of the MDGs in the context of worsening and protracted economic, food, financial and climate crisis is not high.

When the MDGs were formulated, migration was not discussed as a context or as a theme to be addressed. In fact, even the 2013 Report on the MDGs did not mention the condition of migrants, immigrants and families as a measure of how the development goals are faring.

While the UN remains optimistic of the MDGs, the fact remains that since the MDG was formulated, international migration increased from 175 million to 232 million. In 1990 when conferences that served as bases of the MDG started, there were 154 million international migrants.

If development is indeed getting propelled, why is migration that even UN member states recognize as a forced one still very much on the rise?

Ironically, instead of treating migration as a development problem, it is now being considered as a development opportunity. The World Bank, various UN agencies and other multilateral and multi-stakeholder bodies such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development, all choose to emphasize the enormous contribution of migration for development. They are advancing the flawed strategy of using remittance as a motor for development: be it as part of the GDP, as a credit-rating booster, or as a means to increase social capital through economic capacity given to households of migrants.

Remittance that is even greater than official development aid and second only to foreign direct investments is targeted as a source of “new and additional” financing for sustainable development.

It is disturbing that current discussions on the Post-MDG agenda are geared towards developing and further systematizing migration and labour export programs. Migrant-sending countries are markedly pushing for an increase in migration flows and the lowering of restrictions in destination countries. Host countries, meanwhile, are pushing to attract skilled workers and professionals an agenda they’ve had since the GATS Mode 4 was introduced and is now being continued in the TISA negotiations and are perfecting their temporary workers/ guest workers programs.

The myth of migration for development is set to be perpetuated and further reinforced by its integration into the so-called Post-2015 development agenda.
The UN Global Migration Group (GMG) writes,
“The post-2015 UN Development Agenda provides a unique opportunity to remedy this omission [of migration in the MDGs]. Now that migration has become a global phenomenon affecting almost all countries in the world, and in view of its crucial links with development, the GMG believes that migration must become an integral part of the post-2015 UN Development Agenda, including through its integration in goals and targets, monitored by specific and appropriate indicators.”
Based on the ongoing deliberations in the inter-governmental Open Working Group (OWG) tasked to come up with a new set of global sustainable development goals (SDGs), there are three ways in which migration is being incorporated in the Post-2015 development agenda.

First is encouraging more migration. Pakistan, for instance has proposed increasing global migration flows by 10% by 2030, particularly of skilled labour from lower income to higher income countries supposedly to reduce inequality between countries. The Group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) likewise calls to remove restrictions on labor migration and deepen short-term, circular migration, particularly for migrant workers from LDCs.
Second, there are numerous proposals to increase remittance flows including reduction of transactions costs associated with these flows.

Third, there are a number of proposed targets meant to protect the rights of migrants, provide social protection, end discrimination and violence against migrants and refugees among other vulnerable groups. These also include proposals to end illegal trafficking.

It is becoming apparent that integrating migration into the Post-2015 development agenda is not about ensuring the end of forced migration and the conditions that perpetuate the super-exploitation of migrants. It is about facilitating, systematizing and legitimizing labor export that adheres to the neoliberal globalization prescriptions of labour flexibilization, justifying government cutbacks on social spending, and ostensibly protecting the rights of migrant and refugees without addressing the repressive measures in place in receiving countries.

While the UN GMG and their civil society partners, at best, profess to address the particular needs and problems of migrants as a growing demographic segment of the population that is vulnerable and marginalized, they also serve to instrumentalize migration for global capitalist accumulation.

Neoliberal globalization as a framework has only worsened the condition that forces people to migrate for survival and transgresses on the dignity of migrants. Radical shifts are needed if the Post-2015 development agenda are to induce a just, equitable and sustainable development for the people.

Development justice is the transformative development framework that aims to address the inequities between countries, between the rich and poor within countries, and between men and women that maintain the current nature of migration and the exploitation of migrants.

Through the following foundational shifts composing development justice, the condition for a development that shall address forced migration can be created:

1. Redistributive Justice will ensure that in countries of origin, resources and opportunities can be accessed by the people, and they will not be forced to seek them overseas

2. Economic Justice will ensure decent living including decent living for immigrants and their families in countries of destination

3. Social Justice eliminates all forms of discrimination and marginalization including the economic, political and social exclusion of migrants and immigrants in the host countries

4. Environmental Justice presses countries and elites historically responsible for climate degradation to own up to their greater responsibility to stop environmentally damaging production and consumption

5. Accountability to the People that will ensure that migrants are part of free, prior, and informed decision making in all stages of development processes.

Migrants should be present in the development discussions. We were left behind when development goals were set. We were still left behind when actions to achieve the set goals were implemented.

We shall make sure that in the post-2015 development agenda, migrants as stakeholders are involved and migration as a problem of maldevelopment is addressed.++

2014 KASAMMAKO LABOR DAY STATEMENT

2014 LABOR DAY STATEMENT

KASAMMAKO or the Unity of Filipino Migrant Workers Associations in Korea, on this Migrant Workers Labor event, expresses deep sympathy and condolences to the bereaved families of all casualties of the Sewol-ho ferry accident.

KASAMMAKO gives full support and solidarity to all migrant workers in Korea and around the world in asserting our labor and human rights and urge governments of the Republic of Korea and of our home countries to respect and uphold these rights. We believe that the proletarian working class is the leading force in the economic, political and social change in society and the world. We continue to work in alliance with other democratic and progressive forces that struggle to stop modern-day slavery of workers in the neo-liberal globalization.

Since last week, the US President Barack Obama is moving around the countries of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines to strengthen the United States’ stranglehold on national sovereignty, the coveting and exploitation of the natural resources of countries in the region, and ensures that these countries will remain strong defenders of the geo-political and military presence in Asia-Pacific. The US only secures its interests and does not care about the plight of ordinary people in Asia.

We oppose the US “Pivot to Asia”, which is a multi-layered offensive that includes the further deployment or “rebalancing” of US military forces and military bases into the region and the drive to forge a long-sought Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). This will also consolidate and expand its strategic alliances with selected countries in the region. These objectives are part of the long-term efforts of US imperialism to advance its economic, political and military interests and reassert its preeminent power in the region.

In same vein, we protest Barack Obama’s signing with BS Aquino of the “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement" (EDCA) between the US and the Philippines, despite questions on its constitutionality. "The agreement gives the US full access to Philippine facility and to set up US military bases within Philippine military camps, and to launch military operations in Philippine territory under the name of joint military exercises. When this agreement is signed this will intensify violations of human rights and of the international humanitarian law. More so the continuation of the dire economic situation of many Filipinos which is the main cause of forced migration.

Forced migration of many Filipinos and other Asians are caused by the unjust economic development in our home countries and in the world. Workers rights are violated by employers and corporations so they may gain maximum profits from the labor of workers and employees. Today, we, migrant workers in South Korea join forces together to express our real situation and present our demands for the respect and protection of our labor rights. Our demands are:

A.To the government of South Korea:

1.Repeal the policy revision on refund of severance/pension claims of migrant workers after their contract ends or deported from the country.
2.Replace the oppressive EPS policy with just and employment system, where migrant workers exercise freedom to choose jobs that fit them, where their labor and human rights are respected.
3.Repeal the Immigration Control Act that severely impact migrant workers, stop crackdown and deportations; transform immigration policies that grant migrant workers the right to live with families in Korea.
4.Legislate and guarantee equal pay for equal work.
5.Guarantee equal right to work and sojourn for overseas Korean migrant workers

B.To the government of the Philippines:

1.Put a halt to forced migration! Create jobs at home!
2.Approve the passage of the P125 Wage Hike Bill. Workers urgently need significant wage increase amidst soaring prices of commodities.
3.Stop crackdown! The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) should recall their memorandum on forced deportation of non-documented migrant workers in Korea which is in collaboration with the South Korean immigration office and the MOEL.
4.NO to return of US Bases in the Philippines and “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement" (EDCA). Uphold and respect national sovereignty and self-determination.
5.NO to U.S. Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)! This is an instrument of neo-colonization and imperialist pillage of national economies and people’s democratic rights for humane and just economic development
6.Resume peace talks between National Democratic Front-Philippines and the Government of Philippines.
7.Stop extra-judicial killings that already killed many labor, peasant, tribal community, youth and student leaders in the Philippines.
8.Prosecute and penalize all political leaders involved in Pork Barrel scam!

WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD UNITE! STRENGTHEN OUR SOLIDARITY TO END EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS!

KASAMMAKO
27 April 2014
Seoul, Korea

Statement Against Clampdown of Non-documented migrants in Korea

KASAMMAKO strongly condemns the January 03, 2014 directive ofLabor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine’s Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to reduce the number of non-documented OFWs in South Korea which allows the South Korea’s Immigration Bureau to intensify clampdown on migrant workers. We detest this act of DOLE Secretary Baldoz for this put the lives of OFWS in South Korea in alarming and precarious situation and exacerbate unemployment problem of millions of Filipinos and dim the right and hope of families of OFWs for a decent and honorable life. Anonline media revealed,

 

The Department of Labor and Employment seeks to reduce the estimated 8,000 overstaying overseas Filipino workers in South Korea so that it could increase its deployment in the north Asian country through its Employment Permit System (EPS). DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said South Korea’s annual quota for foreign workers under its EPS is decided by its Foreign Workers Policy Committee with due consideration on the number of overstaying workers, as well as labor market trends, level of labor shortages, and economic condition. In 2014, Baldoz said she will aggressively address the issue of illegally staying EPS Filipino workers in South Korea.

 

This DOLE directive in collusion with Seoul POLO is a reprehensibleconspiracy against the interest and welfare of OFWs in South Korea. We know that this year 2014 is the year for evaluation and review of the EPS Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between labor sending countries including the Philippines and the Human Resource Development (HRD-Korea). This is the main reason why DOLE andSeoul Philippine Overseas Labor Office (Seoul-POLO) are compelledand have gone overboard in their attempts at reducing the number of non-documented OFWs in Korea.

 

Following HRD-Korea’s impositions and allowing itself to be driven by conditions for renewal of EPS MOU the DOLE, POEA and POLOhave not been exercising their sovereign negotiating power and bias for the rights and welfare of OFWs but subservient to South Korea’s government interest to benefit from docile and cheap labor of Filipino migrant workers. The increase of non-documented migrant workers in South Korea has been due to the flaws in the EPS that limits the term of employment of migrant workers to four (4) years and ten (10) months, transfer of work places is only three times in three years, delayed ofunpaid wages, unpaid overtime work, discrimination in work places and physical and psychological abuses of employers.

 

In the same press statement, it purports that Secretary Baldoz instructed Labor Attaché to South Korea Felicitas Bay to coordinate and link with the Human Resource Development Service and Ministry ofEmployment and Labor of South Korea on measures to ensure that Filipino workers under the EPS leave South Korea at the end of their contracts. This is a go signal to the Korea’s Immigration Bureau to arrest and deport non-documented OFWs, even if the privacy and human rights of migrant workers have been violated in the conduct of arrest, which have been likened to raiding criminal syndicates in houses, city streets, factories and other places where clampdown have been conducted.

 

We despise this manner of treatment of non-documented migrant workers. Migrant workers are not criminals. They are economic refugees and their rights are protected under the United Nations Convention for the Protection of the Rights of Migrants and their Families.

 

Landlessness, poverty situation, unemployment and low wages are the main causes of forced labor migration of more than 8 million Filipinos and exacerbated by the government officials corruption and inutility to institute social justice and national industrialization. The Philippine Labor Export Policy (LEP) has been the culprit of the modern day slavery of Filipino migrant workers.

 

KASMAMAKO urge the governments of the Republic of Korea and the Republic of the Philippines to do or address the following:

 

1.

Stop clampdown of non-documented migrant workers for clampdown violates the right to decent life and employment of migrant workers and their families as enshrined in the United Nations Convention for the Protection of the Rights of Migrantsand their Families.

 

2.

President B.S. Aquino III should urgently implement programs that will provide decent jobs for all Filipino workers including OFWs and stop forced labor migration through the Labor Export Policy carried by the government agencies such the DOLE, POEA and its subordinate agencies such as the POLO in South Korea and many other countries around the world.

 

3.

The Philippine government agencies should provide economic and welfare support for deported OFWs. Many deportedOFWs are still poor even after staying in Korea for four or five years.

 

4.

Pursue legalization of non-documented migrant workers. The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea should enact lawsthat will provide for amnesty of non-documented migrants workers who have worked in the country for a definite period of time and has proven their competency and skills in their particular occupations.

 

5.

Change EPS to Work Permit System. The Employment Permit System (EPS) as mechanism for importing cheap labor in South Korea has been found faulty in many aspects as experienced by migrant workers. The EPS limits the term of employment of migrant workers to four (4) years and ten (10) months, transfer of work places is only three times in three years, delayed of unpaid wages, unpaid overtime work, discrimination in work places and physical and psychological abuses of employers. A Work Permit System should replace the EPS. It should be one that allows a continuous employment of migrant workers based on their skills,transfer of work places should not be limited to three times. Protection of the rights and welfare of migrant workers must be ensured by the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).

 

6.

Stop exploitation of migrant workers and grave violations of their human rights. These have taken numerous forms, including labor flexibilization, human trafficking, sexual abuse, harsh living and working conditions, social exclusion of migrants including marriage migrants, domestic workers, refugees, and child laborers. The abuse becomes even more tragic, and support and protection more acute among non-documented migrants.

 

 

FOR KASAMMAKO:

Mr. Pastor E. Galang, Jr.

Secretary Genera

l