A personal testimony to a remarkable story of resilience, hope and community action among the impoverished people of Smokey Mountain in Manila, the Philippines, was the inspirational backdrop to the SVD Australia Province’s third Jubilee Year Online Presentation held recently.

Fr Benigno Beltran SVD was the keynote speaker, sharing his experience of being part of a movement which saw the residents of Smokey Mountain move from scavenging on the city garbage dump to living in basic housing, accessing education, learning computer skills, and starting up a farming cooperative and eco-sustainability initiatives.

The webinar, which was chaired by Fr Francois d’Assise Andrianihantana SVD, explored the SVD’s Jubilee Theme of: Witnessing to the Light: From Everywhere for Everyone, from the perspective of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation.

Fr Ben, who serves as President of the National Coalition for Urban Transformation in the Philippines, has been working in the JPIC area for decades. He has a doctorate in Systematic Theology and taught for many years at the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City, as well as guest lecturing in Germany and the US. He worked among the scavengers of the Smokey Mountain garbage dump in Manila for more than 30 years and was engaged in computer-based learning among the out-of-school youth since 1987.

He has been doing research into theories of learning appropriate for digital natives and in building personalised and adaptive learning systems using videogames and AI to enhance learning among the poor and marginalised.

The respondent in the webinar was Fr Jun Perez SVD, who currently serves as the JPIC Coordinator for the SVD Australia Province. Fr Jun worked as a systems engineer before joining the SVD and becoming a missionary to Russia and Belarus, Liberia, South Korea, Malawi and Bangkok, spending many years working with refugees and migrants, and in JPIC ministries.

Fr Ben said the vision of the SVD’s work in Smokey Mountain was based on integrity, solidarity, and creativity.

“Our values could be rooted in the Trinity, social justice, integral, human development, sustainability, in the context of the social system, economic system and ecosystem,” he said.

He said that through community organising, the SVD was able to work with local people and government to deliver basic housing and to provide feeding programs, as well as work with organisations such as Caritas Manila to provide educational scholarships and computer training, resulting in a large number of college graduates.

Other initiatives included producing organic fertiliser for farmers and selling seedlings and planting trees to improve the local eco-system and water system.

Looking to the future, Fr Ben said the movement is now focusing on its ‘Billion Bamboo’ initiative.

“By 2030 we hope to be able to plant a billion bamboo siblings to stop erosion and flooding and to give jobs to the people,” he said.

“Second, apart from one billion bamboos, we are envisioning one million organic fertilisers, organic farmers using our organic fertiliser and networking with the whole Catholic community in the Diocese.”

This would be done through an initiative called the Laudato Si’ E-Trading Network, which is part of the SVD Philippines Central Province’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform.

“We will organise the farmers so that they will use our organic fertiliser, and then once they harvest, they post it in the Laudato Si’ E-Commerce Platform, and the 3.5 million Catholics in the city can see, and then they just click, click, click in their shopping cart, and then it will be delivered to their houses by the by the E-Trading Network,” he said.

Witnessing to the Light in terms of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation required people to work together for the common good of people and the planet, Fr Ben said.

“So, we would like to call on everyone to Witness to the Light, to everyone in the world, (to see) that this is the danger facing we are facing now,” he said.

“We stress interconnectedness of environmental and social issues. As I said, hearing the cry of Mother Earth and hearing the cry of the poor could not be separated in practice. So, we invite everyone to Care for Our Common Home, regardless of state or nationality.

“This is our action plan, to empower farmers and fishermen through digital marketing and the green supply chain distribution network, promote organic and climate smart agriculture practices, enhance food production and reduce waste with technology, agri-technology, AI, Internet of Things, Blockchain, then form partnerships, collaborate with government agencies and local communities for sustainable agriculture and fair trade.

“So, we provide training and build capacity among the poorest people. In this way, we hear the cry of the poor and hear the cry of Mother Earth.”

In his response to Fr Ben’s presentation, Fr Jun touched on a number of key points including stewardship in relation to the social teachings of the Church, as well as the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, and the establishment of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as an answer to the quest for sustainability.

On the question of stewardship, Fr Jun said the Bible clearly shows that God gives humankind dominion over the earth and all that is in it so that humans can take care of God's creation, not abuse or destroy it. This is backed up further in the teachings of the Church contained in the Catechism.

The principles of solidarity and subsidiarity were equally fundamental tenets in the Church’s social teaching, he said.

“Solidarity and subsidiarity are key components of our faith having the potential to place the laity on the path to discovering our supernatural destiny,” he said. “Solidarity and subsidiarity are both forms and expressions of human dignity, and both are absolutely central to the implementation of Catholic social doctrine.

“Solidarity is, first and foremost, a form of assistance to the human person, while subsidiarity respects personal dignity, by recognising in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others.”

Finally, he said that the establishment of the Conference of the Parties or the COP to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is an answer to this quest for sustainability.

“The UN climate change conferences serve as key forums for shaping global policy, where representatives of various countries jointly address the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions and support the states in enhancing the resilience of climate impacts,” he said.

Fr Jun said that the Laudato Si’ E-Trading Network described by Fr Ben in his presentation was putting into practice the principles outlined in three key documents released in 2015 – the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SGDS), the Paris agreement on climate change adopted by 196 nations with the aim of cutting global emissions, and Pope Francis’s Laudato Si encyclical on caring for our common home.

“The aim is to intensify organic food production while ensuring that the natural resource base on which agriculture depends is sustained and improved for future generations,” he said.

Fr Jun concluded by saying that the Church teaches that all creation is destined for the glory of God.

“That is why it is a challenge for us to care for home, our Mother Earth, for when it perishes, all of us will perish,” he said.

The next Jubilee Online Presentation will be held on August 7 exploring the Jubilee Theme from the perspective of Communications.