Catholics provide jobs

Title

Language

English

Year

1952

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

THE CROSS midst; and then, by a surprising coincidence, immediately after he left our shores, should violently attack him. Tlie Chronicle claims to be "The People's Newspaper", a brave courageous crusader for the right. In ths incident they hove not shown much For a complete answer to the Chronicle and its group, we refer our readers to the statement of our Bishops, published on page 3 of this WELL SAID, MR. ROCES! Much more to our liking is o paragraph by Joaquin Roces in his column, "My Daily Bread", of the Manila Times for April 28, — as follows: "When the Church speaks only of the soul and admonishes the poor people to be patient, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.. .it is accused of indifference towards worldly suffering, and the kind of religion it preaches is then called the opium of the people. When it takes an active hand towards the amelioration of the downtrodden, then the Church is said to be "interfering" with thot which is not within its province. Just what do we want?" Well said, Mr. Roces! CATHOLICS PROVIDE JOBS In one of our Catholic magazines recently, we read a lament about the lack of job opportunities for our people. It is pleasant to note that somie of our Catholic men are working herd *o remedy this defect. One of them told us recently: "My small business was farcied to close. The foreign firm who was supporting it refused to continue. Seventeen families were dependent on our employ." What did he do? He started a new local business and the seventeen families continued to draw their pay envelopes. Another quiet fellow told us: "My patriotism tells me I should provide work opportunities." How has he done it? In one single enterprise established since the war, he is supporting three thousand workmen, who in turn, of course, support th^ir 3,000 families which include 10,000 or 15,000 individuals. Recently, a Manila socialite was talking to us. Judging from the society pages, one might think he was a playboy with never a serious thought. He tolds us he was going away. "Where are you going?" we MAY, 1952 asked. "I'm on my way to Mindanao," he answered, "I think it's my duty to do something for my country." May their blessed tribe increase! A TIP FOR OUR FARMERS WHO and ECA officials it seems are indulging in too much verbosity. Their official reports carry an impressive array of figures presumably calculoled to convert any desert into a "land flowing with milk and honey." Perhaps it has worked out in certain isolated instances. But with all respect for the good that the WHO and ECA are doing the solution that could bring underdeveloped areas to the peak of production is startingly simple. In an article we have read, World Hunger and One Nun (see page 34 of this issue) a strip of barren land in China was brought up to its full production capacity by a group of enterprising convent nuns. Their only capital — common sense ond industry. ’ The story of these nuns should make our would-be economics and farmers who harp too much on their lock of capital blush with shame. In this simple story is the proof that a land no matter how poor its soil quality can be made amazingly productive with only those two requisites we have mentioned as capital—common sense and industry. And our soil in the Philippines is rich! 100 MEN AND A MANGO In the "Sunday Timas" for April 13, we read a story about the low per capita incom|p in the Philippines. Here, the statistics tell us, the overage annual wage is only P232.74, one of the lowest in the world. Every other country of which there is available records, with one single exception, have higher ■ wcges. Some countries are much higher, with the United States leading with a per capita income of P3,151.18. Surely this is lamentable. We agree that higher wages are needed and are most desirable. However, such situations ore not remedied by just talking about them or by waving a magic wand. The "Sunday Times" article foils to mention onother very important point, namely, that the per capita wealth in the Philippines is also very low. Compared to the United States, for example, the wealth of the average Filipino is only one-fifteenth of the average Americon. In other words, our per capita income has almost exactly the same proportion to our per capita wealth as the per capita income of the United States has to its per capita wealth.

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