Gardens of faith - From The Stands

Instead of heading for the EDSA celebration, I joined a group of friends on a trip to Bo. San Isidro in Cabuyao, Laguna, to an agricultural farm that promises an end to hungry families - by having them raise gardens in 100 sq.m. lots. No one should ever go hungry, says Sister Pat Capwell, executive director of the Institute for Foundational Learning (IFL), whose project, Food Always in the Home (or Faith), is the model for backyard farms being adopted in the province of Laguna.

Sister Pat is convinced that Filipino families everywhere have houses built on 100 sq.m. lots. They can grow vegetables in them to have food on their tables all-year round. She showed us a sample garden at the IFL farm. Plots are grown to the vegetable needs of a six-member family: eggplants, okra, kangkong, siling pagsigang, ampalaya, string beans, radish, sitaw, bataw, and patani. Camote and cassava, too, for carbohydrates. They can grow corn, pechay, kinchay, tomatoes and cucumber. A 50-sq.m. pond with a structure above it houses a few ducks whose droppings fall into the water and turn to algae which the tilapia eat. Malunggay and neem trees were growing side by side. A huge squash was sitting on top of a trellis. You can imagine how healthy this country would be if everyone made backyards and idle lands into productive endeavors. Sister Pat thinks that's possible; give people motivation, training, and time.

Love of the soil is evident in the 2.2-hectare farm run by the IFL, a non-denominational project operated by volunteers. Another 2.5 hectares, leased without payment by a landowner, has been planted to rice which, like everything else grown in the farm, goes to feed the 80 school children "adopted" by IFL and the 23 or so IFL volunteers, including teachers, clerical staff, and Sister Pat. We saw teen-aged boys weeding a wide field enthusiastically, and one operating a rotary cultivator. Others were already planting lettuce seedlings. Still others were carrying sacks of compost they had made themselves to the planting site.

All around the squat buildings housing the administration staff, classrooms for prep up to high school students, sleeping quarters, mess hall and social hall were herbs and some 50 varieties of vegetables, some of which were growing on hanging plastic container, like lettuce, onions and celery.

Elementary-aged girls were weeding the plots. Like the boys, they have been "adopted" by IFL, and put in two hours of work in the fields each day (This summer a group of them will be going to the IFL Benguet training center to help propagate the gospel of the mustard seed multiplying beyond comprehension.) A handful of high school graduates have gone on to college, one to a seminary for pastoral training.

Pat, who comes from New York and California, began the project in Las Piñas, Laguna, 10 years ago, but moved it to Laguna in 1996. It was pure love of helping people that made her do it. There are 200 pre-schools run by IFL around the country today, but not all of them have the Faith gardens yet.

Whatever money comes to IFL is donated by organizations and groups who are impressed by the IFL work. "Everything comes from people in the Philippines," says Pat. There is no budget-planning in the official sense. "We operate on prayer," says Pat, who recounts the time there was nothing for the children to eat. At 10 a.m., there was nothing, at 11, nothing, and nearing 12 noon, someone came bringing Andok's chicken litson and other foodstuff, with the words, "I don't know, I just had the feeling that you might need food today."

Pat believes faith in God produces wonders. "You have to have faith in God. I look at a seed, and I say, one day you will be a tomato. It takes faith to believe that. So I am convinced that there is God who makes things possible."

On another front, the militant women's group GABRIELA continues its campaign against the Visiting Armed Forces war exercises, saying that the Balikatan war games "pose a most dangerous threat to Filipino women and children."

It decries the new modus operandi called "Sex for Delivery." It says, "It does not matter that they (American soldiers) have curfew or that they are not allowed to disembark or leave Balikatan premises. Women can and will always be made available through the 'Akyat Barko' and Sex for Delivery."

"Despite the so-called restrictions imposed upon Balikatan participants, this has not prevented night clubs, resorts and pimps from going about and expanding their businesses. Even worse, the most appalling of hypocrites - the health department and the local government - have started issuing pink sanitation slips and condoms in anticipation of the undeniable risks - exploitation and abuse - that these war games pose to women and children."