This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 14, May 15-21, 2005
Sr. Mary Grenough: American
Sister to the Filipino People The
history of activism in the Philippines runs with the names of several Americans
who became endeared to Filipino activists as they stood in solidarity with the
quest for sovereignty and social justice. One of them is Sr. Mary Grenough, a
Maryknoll nun who is also a nurse. BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO “Why do you hate Americans
so much?” is a question that is often asked of Filipino activists. The question
is invariably elicited by the slogan “Ibagsak ang imperyalismong
U.S.!”
(Down with U.S. imperialism), which is often heard in rallies. Try asking a Filipino
activist that, and you are likely to get the answer: “We don’t hate Americans,
we hate U.S. imperialism.” Indeed, the history of
activism in the Philippines runs with the names of several Americans who became
endeared to Filipino activists because they stood in solidarity with the quest
for sovereignty and social justice. One of them is Sr. Mary
Grenough, a Maryknoll nun who is also a nurse. As this is being written, she is
set to leave the Philippines in less than two weeks for an assignment abroad.
She once served as co-chairperson, together with Dr. Wim de Ceukelaire of
Belgium, of the Philippine International Forum (PIF), a network of foreigners
working in solidarity with the Philippine progressive movement. She is also
known as having been among the pioneers of the Community-Based Health Program (CBHP).
Sr. Mayang, as she is
popularly known, came to the Philippines in 1963, when she was 30 years old. She
is now 71. (She was originally
assigned to Manila, to help staff a hospital and start a college of nursing.
Because the hospital construction wasn’t expected to be finished for some time,
she asked to be assigned instead to a province where she “could get a better
idea of the culture of the people.” Sr. Mayang was then assigned to a hospital
in Manapla, Negros Occidental, a province more than 600 kms south of Manila.) After a few years, she went
home to the United States to be with her dying mother, and while she was there
she wrote back to the Philippines, requesting to be assigned to a job where she
could “look around” instead of staying in the hospital. Her request was approved
and when she came back in 1969, she found herself working as a staff of the
Social Action Center of the Diocese of Bacolod, also in Negros Occidental. It
was there where she would meet and work with Fr. Luis Jalandoni and Bp. Antonio
Fortich, who would both later figure prominently in the Philippine struggle for
social reform. In particular, she worked
closely with Jalandoni and he contributed very much, she says, to her political
awakening. She learned from Jalandoni, she says, about the role of foreign
governments, especially the U.S., in influencing the decisions of the Philippine
government, among other things. Turning point That was the turning point
in her life, Sr. Mayang says. That was where she began to see clearly the face
of poverty in the Philippines. “In the beginning I
certainly had a sense of poverty, because the hospital we worked in (in Negros
Occidental) was owned by the Victorias Milling Company and it was primarily for
the workers in the mill,” she shares. “But we would occasionally have sugar
field workers and children there, and I could certainly see the poverty in these
people. But my life at that time was mostly within the hospital compound, and I
did not have an analysis of why people were poor.” Her experience in the
Social Action Committee, which also entailed working – even living – with the
people of Negros Occidental, of whom many were cane workers who were among the
country’s poorest of the poor, would teach her to ask why there were poor
people. “You had a few
hacienderos (plantation owners) who had a benevolent sense of responsibility
to the people and when their workers got sick they would pay for their care and
that type of thing,” she says, “but that was the exception.” If that were the exception,
what was the rule? Let’s hear it from her: “I remember I spent one
week working with the women in the field, I did that with a group of seminarians
who had come to Negros for an immersion; I spent one week, they spent six weeks.
And going to the fields with the women early in the morning – at that time they
were putting fertilizer, and they had to dig a little hole and drop the pellet
in, and we held the fertilizer in an apron, in front and it weighed about
probably at least 15 lbs., and my back was aching and of course I was tired and
so I said to the women, ‘Do you ever get used to the work?’ and the answer was:
‘Oh yes, we’re used to the work. What we’ll never get used to are the cries of
our children when they cannot sleep because they’re hungry.’ And this was the
everyday life of most of the sugar workers.” Debts and landowner
brutality Sometimes, she said, she
would be with the workers as they lined up for their pay at the end of a week.
Most of them would get no money but only a list of expenses they had incurred.
“To buy food or anything,
they had to buy from the company store, and it was deducted from their salary,”
she reveals. “But of course the cost of these supplies was much higher in the
hacienda than if they could have gone out to buy.” “And so many of them really
never got money, they only got their debts reduced,” she adds. She also tells the story of
a man who had lost four children, all to malnutrition and diseases he couldn’t
afford to buy medicine for. The man hailed from Antique province but worked in
Negros Occidental. The man owned land in Antique, she says, but didn’t go back
there. “We have land, but it’s not near the road and we could not earn anything
because if we grow food, we have no place to sell it,” she remembers the man
telling her when she asked why they didn’t go back. “Four children have died,
why don’t you at least go back where you could have food for your children and
live?” she remembers asking the man in return. And that was where she got
the real answer: “Because I cannot pay my debts, I cannot go back home.”
She also remembers having
talked with a hacienda owner who didn’t want the workers’ children to go to high
school because if they finished high school, she remembers him telling her,
there would be no one to work on the hacienda. “This was an attitude that was
very prevalent among the owners of the haciendas,” she says. “They really looked
upon the workers as implements of labor.” And she tells stories of
landowner brutality: of goons pointing their guns at peasants as they brought
landgrabbing cases to court, of a hacienda owner in La Carlota who, when the
workers he employed went on strike, sent goons to destroy the vegetables they
had planted to stave off hunger during the strike, and other similar instances. CBHP In the martial law years,
she helped establish the CBHP, which involves doctors, nurses, and other health
workers going to the remote areas where they heal the sick and harness the
potentials of community members – most of whom didn’t even get past elementary
school. From three pilot areas in
1973 – Iligan City, Lanao del Norte; Palo, Leyte; and Ilagan, Isabela – the CBHP
attracted scores of other health workers and sprouted in other areas throughout
the country. The growth of the CBHP led to the establishment in 1988 of the
Council for Health and Development (CHD), which serves as the national
organization of CBHPs, coordinates and consolidates the program, and provides
the services required by these. In the course of her work
in the CBHP, she would get to meet, among others, Dr. Bobby de la Paz – for whom
she has the highest esteem. A graduate of the
University of the Philippines (UP) College of Medicine, De la Paz ignored the
temptations of greener pastures abroad, which had lured many of his classmates.
He also diverted from the path taken by his relatives, who had opted to work in
private practice and hospitals. Instead he chose to work as a community doctor
in Samar, one of the country’s poorest provinces. It was as a community doctor
in Samar that De la Paz was felled by military bullets – accused of giving
medical aid to New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas and their suspected
supporters. Twenty-two bullets were pumped into the young doctor’s body. Faith and hope Her involvement in the
Philippine social movement both as missionary and community health worker, she
says, enriched her experience of Christianity. “I had grown up in an era
when we were taught catechism, and who is God, and this and that; but these
answers didn’t hold water anymore,” she says, “and then I really asked myself:
‘Do I believe? Am I only pretending to believe because I am afraid to say I’m
not a Christian?”’ But little by little, I began to find three qualities that I
believe could identify a God I could believe in: truth, justice, and loving
compassion. So in the future, when I would meet people and be invited to
participate in activities, I could just ask myself: ‘Is this helping to search
for truth? Is it working for justice? Are the actions of these people showing
love and compassion, particularly for the poor and the oppressed?’ Yes I still
believe in God, but very different from the God I believed in from my catechism
lessons.” In less than two weeks, she
leaves the Philippines – which has become a second home for her – for a new
assignment in Myanmar. What are her hopes for the Philippines, where she spent
more than 40 years? “My hope is that the
Philippines would finally have a democratic government, where its people could
enjoy the fruits of their love and labor,” she says. “I don’t think the
Philippines has ever had a democratic government. But I wish we could see that
before its rich resources and beautiful environment are totally destroyed.”
Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
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