Ethics/Nonkilling/Leadership/Antonio Meloto


 * This Course is based mainly on Professor Jose V. Abueva (Kalayaan College) paper Antonio Meloto as Transforming Leader of Gawad Kalinga: Focusing on People, Community Development and Nation-Building—“The Subsidiarity Principle” prepared for the Global Summit of Gawad Kalinga, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June 13, 2009. The Course is part of the Program on Nonkilling Leadership Development at the School of Nonkilling Studies.

Introduction
Gawad Kalinga as conceived and evolved by Tony Meloto and its growing partners is a peaceful movement for radical citizenship and heroic leadership for social transformation anchored on love for our Creator, one another, the nation and humanity. It applies the organizing principle of “Subsidiarity” by people translating their own vision of the good life and the good society into action by themselves with the help of kindred souls everywhere. GK’s transforming leaders and followers “raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality.” They dare to transform the Philippines; even offer a model for ending poverty in the world.

In my already long life I have devoted nearly 60 years to teaching, research, university administration, reform advocacy, and occasional public service. My concerns as a student of politics and public administration include nation-building, democratization, and citizenship and leadership for good governance.

Now I am an inspired student and follower of Tony Meloto as a “transformative” or “transforming leader” in the conception of James MacGregor Burns. I have read Tony’s speeches, listened to him speak in public, and talked with him. I know of his immense impact on people and leaders here and abroad. I also share Tony’s ideas and experience with my students.

According to MacGregor Burns (Leadership, 1979), a transforming leader purposely achieves substantial and “real change in the direction of ‘higher’ values’ (p. 434) such as freedom, peace, justice, nationalism, morality “that meet people’s enduring needs (p. 461).” The transforming leader is thus morally elevating vis-à-vis other leaders and other followers whom he influences with his purpose, vision and example. He “taps the needs and raises the expectations and helps shape the values—and hence mobilizes the potential—of followers (p. 455).” “The result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents (p. 4).” “But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both (p. 20).” “Leaders and followers raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality (p. 20).” “That people can be lifted to their better self is the secret of transforming leadership…(p. 462).”

As a transforming leader of Gawad Kalinga, the growing social movement involving housing for the poor, community development and nation-building in the Philippines, Tony Meloto’s vision, mission and personal example are spreading beyond our shores. He compels attention and active response from people in various walks of life. For he addresses in distinctive ways some of our basic problems as a weak nation with a “soft state.” These include massive poverty, landlessness, homelessness and endemic corruption, and lack of self-confidence and nationalism. In this demoralizing situation, many people of goodwill who want to do something are dismayed if not also immobilized. Where to begin and make a personal difference? In Gawad Kalinga Tony Meloto and his fellow leaders and members show how it can be done.

The “Superiority Principle” of Colonial and Centralized Governance
Under Spain for over 350 years and then the United States for almost half a century (and three years under the Japanese) the colonial power wanted to control our people under a highly centralized unitary system. Since our independence in 1946 our own leaders have governed the country in essentially the same centralized and domineering unitary system with a powerful president, the legislature, the higher courts and the bureaucracy based in the national capital. The great majority of the people who live in local communities and our myriad local governments are heavily dependent upon and dominated by national government institutions and national leaders and officials.

Our political, economic and social development is organized under the “Superiority Principle.” This is marked by the dominance of the few wealthy and powerful families over the many people who are poor and powerless, by the dominance of the center of power over the weak and dependent periphery, by the primacy of the higher levels over the lower ones. This may also be called the “top down” or “trickle down” approach to governance and national development.

A new “Subsidiarity Movement” of Filipino reformers and organizers calls this the “Pinatulo.” This is the opposite of “Pinatubo” (growing, nurturing, or building from below), or organizing and developing along the “Subsidiarity Principle” initiated by Pope Pius XI in 1931 and adopted since then in various ways in different countries. Among the Filipino leaders of Pinatubo are Philip Camara and Sixto K. Roxas. The global scope and relevance of the “Superiority Principle” and the “Subsidiary Principle” are suggested in the Annex to this paper entitled “A Call for Vision Not Ambition: KILUSANG PINATUBO.”

With some notable exceptions many of our political and corporate leaders are too self-serving in governing our oligarchic democracy and business corporations. They tend to exploit our weaknesses as a nation instead of building on our potential strengths. Under our political class we still have a relatively thin middle class of educated, critical and independent members, and a large base of poor, insecure and vulnerable people.

Our fitful national struggle to modernize, democratize and develop has been hindered by lack of a critical mass of selfless, credible and inspiring leaders who can inspire, empower and unite the great majority of our citizens. But there is growing consciousness of what ought to be done and can be done to transform our traditional structures, institutions and modes of behavior—in search of free and fair elections, a new kind of politics, good citizenship, good leadership and good governance: the constitutional ideals of a “just and humane society, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” Gawad Kalinga is one bright star in the firmament of social innovations and organizations offering new ways, and new hope and confidence.

Unsustainable “Community Development” in the 1950s
Not long after the end of World War II and the ensuing rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country various innovations in rural development were introduced. These included the community schools, the community centers of NAMFREL (the National Movement for Free Elections), and the rural development projects of PRRM (Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement). With technical support from the United Nations and some U.S. Government assistance, the National Government through the Philippine Community Development Council launched a national community development program in 1955. This was during the term of the very popular and charismatic President Ramon Magsaysay. “The Man of the Masses” was known to champion the common man’s welfare and the development of the barrios where most citizens live.

Obstructive bureaucratic conflicts and inertia led Magsaysay to establish his Presidential Assistant on Community Development in place of the interdepartmental Council. Under Ramon P. Binamira as Presidential Assistant a cadre of community development workers were trained and deployed in barrios across the country. The CD workers organized citizens to initiate local development projects such as farm-to-market feeder roads, irrigation, and school houses. At the same time Magsaysay continued his program for re-settlement communities in Mindanao for former rebels in Luzon, the Huks.

As community self-help efforts aided by the government, the local people contributed their labor and local materials (like sand and gravel, wood and bamboo), while the government supplied the needed technicians, cement and equipment. This was unlike traditional government services and relief based mainly on direct government services, subsidies and political patronage. The innovation was called “aided community self-help.” Local leaders and residents were encouraged to meet the challenge. (My doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan in 1959 was about the formulation of the community development program under Magsaysay and was published as Focus on the Barrio.)

Before long, however, the political tradition and culture of political (governmental) patronage and citizen dependency on government and dole outs, and the weight and inertia of bureaucracy grounded the innovation of aided community self-help. In general most presidents after Magsaysay forgot about the idea of aided community self-help as an organizing principle consistent with the “Subsidiarity Principle.” The “Superiority Principle” of a highly centralized government and political patron-clientele relations has largely prevailed.

The Gawad Kalinga “Subsidiarity Approach:” Focus on People, Community Self-Help and Nation-Building
Unlike the “government aided community self-help” efforts in the 1950s and early 1960s, Tony Meloto led the Gawad Kalinga under the sponsorship of the Catholic Couple’s for Christ. As a leader of a nationwide lay religious and nongovernmental movement of Catholic activists, Tony is committed to make GK live out Jesus Christ’s fundamental command to the faithful: “Love God with all your heart and soul, with all your mind and strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself;” and especially to help and serve the poor among us.

Tony and his fellow GK volunteers have chosen to focus on organizing poor, landless and homeless people and helping them acquire the land on which to build their own homes. Beyond these basic human needs, GK volunteers then help the new communities to organize and sustain themselves socially and economically as well as politically.

As a consequence, the individual members and leaders of GK settlements have developed a new identity and sense of community and pride as challenged and self-sustaining groups of people, ever learning to do what they can do for themselves and for the common good in their community. In a sense, their communal lives, efforts and aspirations can be seen as integral parts, a microcosm, of a new mode of Filipino nation-building.

In turn the visible physical success and the palpable sense of individual and group fulfillment shown in the thousands of GK settlements and their members persuade more and more donors of land, money, materials, and voluntary labor around the Philippines and abroad to join the GK movement. Numerically, the original GK goal was to build 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities by 2010. Now it is to help some 50 million Filipinos move out of poverty by 2024. The GK model is being applied in parts of Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea. Volunteers and material support for GK have come from Filipinos and other benefactors in the U.S., Canada, Australia, East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

Tony Meloto’s Values and Vision
In its website Gawad Kalinga defines itself “to give care.” GK “is an alternative solution to the blatant poverty not just in the Philippines but in the world. GK’s vision for the Philippines is a slum-free, squatter-free nation through a simple strategy of providing land for the landless, homes for the homeless, food for the hungry, and as a result providing dignity and peace for every Filipino.” GK also has a global outlook: “In a world where there are enough resources for all but not enough sharing for all, our motto is ‘less for self, more for others, enough for all.’”

GK’s vision and mission reflect its origin as a project of the Catholic Couples for Christ, and these are informed and inspired in practice by Tony Meloto’s understanding of Christianity and democracy as applied to the conditions of his home country. To him the spirit of Gawad Kalinga “is bridging the disconnect between faith and action, between preaching and practice.” (“Gawad Kalinga: the Spirituality of Nation-Building.” Lecture at Ateneo de Manila, 5 October 2007.)

As a Filipino Catholic, Meloto diagnoses the basic weakness of the Philippines thus: “A strong nation needs a strong moral foundation. If we are a weak nation it must be because we are a weak people with nominal faith, lacking in character and moral conviction. A weak nation elects corrupt leaders who use immoral power for personal gain, who impose their will on the weak majority with the use of force and violence. Corruption, greed and violence that cause poverty are social ills that define us as a nation. In religion they are called sins. We cannot regain our pride as Filipinos unless we remove these ills.” (Op. cit.)

GK volunteers and local homeless people in a given location engage in “bayanihan.” They work together and learn values and skills as stewards in building homes for their own community. As they do, they become a “bayani” or hero to each other. As they build their own homes, the local people become empowered as individuals and as a self-sustaining community. They undertake educational, health, livelihood, and recreational activities and govern themselves. The ultimate end of widening “bayanihan” is to promote patriotism, societal renewal and nation-building for a just and caring society.

The ideal kind of leader is the “servant leader” who leads and sacrifices not to gain power for selfish ends. In Tony Meloto’s mind, with Jesus Christ as model exemplar, this is “padugo or bleeding for the cause—the passion to serve others out of love.” In his view: “development of conscience and character are cornerstones of good citizenship. Nation-building is about character building.” He compares citizenship to discipleship and to him “the essence of real manhood is honor. In a country of cheaters, honesty is of the highest value. In the land of the corrupt, a man of integrity is king. …truth is the way to real power and freedom.”

The Essence of the Gawad Kalinga model and Tony Meloto’s Leadership
At the heart of Tony’s transforming leadership and example and the inspired efforts of his legions of co-leaders, followers and supporters, is his conscious and determined fusion of his religious faith as a Catholic and his secular idealism as a citizen. He combines God’s teaching to love and help the poor among us with the secular vision of building a just and humane society in which all enjoy their human rights through good citizenship, good leadership and good governance. To him being a true believer is one with being a good citizen and a good leader in an aspiring democracy and a developing country in a troubled world. He demonstrates that through community self-help, cooperation and solidarity, this unity and integrity of faith, civic culture and practical reason can lead to the transformation of people, communities, and leaders from different spheres of life.

Tony’s widening appeal and recognition are traceable to his winning personality, his simplicity and humility, his passion for his vocation, his physical stature and good looks, and his ability to communicate to mixed audiences, and move them to believe and follow and support Gawad Kalinga as the people’s movement. All these are enhanced by his credible disavowal of political ambition. As such he is able to challenge people to know themselves and to effect change for the common good in pursuit of: the practical aims of decent homes, employment, and supportive communities; the lofty ideals of love of God, of one’s brethren, and especially the poor and lowly; and a unifying national identity and pride as Filipinos in a growing Global Filipino Nation of close to 90 million in the homeland and 9 million overseas, and counting.

In His Own Words: Tony Meloto as GK Leader
It is best to hear more and directly from Tony Meloto as GK leader through these excerpts from his book, Builder of Dreams.

To Conclude
Gawad Kalinga as conceived and evolved by Tony Meloto and its growing partners is a peaceful movement for radical citizenship and heroic leadership for social transformation anchored on love for our Creator, one another, the nation and humanity. It applies the organizing principle of “Subsidiarity” by people translating their own vision of the good life and the good society into action by themselves with the help of kindred souls everywhere. GK’s transforming leaders and followers “raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality.” They dare to transform the Philippines; even offer a model of ending poverty in the world.

Annex A: From Pinatulo to Pinatubo: A Call For Vision Not Ambition
From Decay to the WAY: The Philippines, coming from its colonial past, has strong vestiges of an imported organizing principle that may be best termed as "superiority" where the strong are strengthened in the hope that eventually benefits will trickle down to the majority The alternative is "subsidiarity" where the lowest unit, starting from the individual is empowered to address concerns at their own level, and if not, making it imperative for the next higher level to act. The over-reliance of the former to the detriment of the subsidiarity principle has resulted in an apathetic people and a laggard country. Here are ways of seeing our "Pinatulo" organized life; and how it could or should be: Pinatubo.

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