Universal Destination of Goods, Anyone?

By Rev. EUTIQUIO ‘EULY’ B. BELIZAR, JR., SThD
August 10, 2006

Some scenes, played out daily in the Philippines, could break your heart. For instance, you’d see thousands of people cramped in airports, trying to leave the country out of desperation to look abroad for jobs and opportunities that are scarce at home. But you’d also witness those equally trying to return home from war-torn Lebanon, cruel working conditions and other tragic work-related experiences in other countries. There are impressive posh villages, malls, high rise buildings, state-of-the-art infrastructures and business establishments in our cities; but these are drowned out by the sheer number of shanties, aging buildings, makeshift homes and rather slimy enclaves of the urban and rural poor. You would think you are in the middle of two worlds, two countries that are always meeting (with apologies to Mark Twain) but barely changing.

Prior Principle

I have often thought that one big reason why the Philippines and the world are in such a sorry state today is simply that so few own so much. Of course, there is such a thing as a right to private property. Even the Church recognizes that. But it has also been her constant teaching that there exists a prior principle to which that right is subordinate. Most people (surprisingly, even otherwise responsible Catholics) rarely know it. Or if they do, it isn’t easy to tell. But here goes. The Church through the Second Vatican Council makes it clear that “God destined the earth and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity. No matter what the structures of property are in different peoples…we must never lose sight of the universal destination of earthly goods” (GS 69).

Unbelievable? Consider this: This teaching is founded on God’s original intention of entrusting “the earth and all its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits” (Gen. 1:26-29; CCC 2402). And how does this concern you and me? You guessed right. This principle is the basic limitation of the right to private property. It was not to one individual man that the earth was entrusted but to man as a whole, that is, the whole human collectivity, as implied in the Hebrew word adamah (from the earth) which describes the condition of all human persons, male or female, regardless of race, culture or creed that originated from and dwell on the earth.

On the other hand, the neglect of this fundamental truth by our society’s subtle overstating of the right to private property has created the current monstrous imbalances in the distribution of the world’s goods. In the Philippines alone, the ratio that assigns almost ninety percent of the nation’s wealth to only ten percent of its population has resulted in the continuing and dehumanizing poverty of the masses.

Recent studies confirm the observation that only those who have control of the ninety percent of the country’s wealth has had the lion’s share of the benefits from the supposed tiger status (which only groaned and not roared among the poor) of the economy during the Ramos administration till the present. The irony is not lost to many that a nation which prides itself in its Christian identity and heritage could be so blatantly inconsistent with the teachings of its faith. The goods originally meant for universal destination are, in the Philippines, destined only to a particular few. What the late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, judges to be “one of the greatest injustices in the contemporary world” (SRS 28) is a daily and ubiquitous reality in this Christian country.

The Need for a Concerted Effort Among Nations

Obviously the Philippines is not alone in the matter of imbalances in goods distribution. Hers is only one among many of such other imbalances in the whole world. Which is why the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines suggests a worldwide course of action to deal with the problem. “Because earthly goods are meant for all, there is a responsibility for developed countries to aid developing countries and to correct the terms of commercial relationships that presently favor the richer and more powerful countries” (PCP II 298).

To a poor nation this is necessary and to an objective observer, logical. But how does this sound to the collective ears (or hearts) of the world’s wealthier nations? In point of fact, it demands a collective movement from those nations in the upper rungs of the wealth pyramid, one that must address the present distribution imbalances in terms of offering concrete aids to the economies of poorer countries and, more radically, by making corrections to the existing one-sided commercial relationships in the world economy. Tall order? Indeed. Why? Because such an act has to be guided by a recognition of the social dimension of private property which sensitizes nations to the needs of the poorer portions of the human race and the injustice inherent in merely maintaining the status quo.

Such a recognition, admittedly, has very few adherents today except mostly in terms of lip service. Present realities do, however, admit of considerable efforts from developed countries to concretize the first proposition, that is, they offer certain types of economic aid to poorer counties. But the crux of the matter is that the world’s economic order is still a cross for poorer countries. The reason is as simple as it is stark: Very little is being done to correct it.

A Poor Country’s Courses of Action

Nothing is one-sided in the quest for social transformation. Poorer countries often learn the hard way that the needed action cannot come, and does not come, exclusively from the developed countries of the world. Not even the Church, immersed as always in everything local while struggling to fulfill a mission deemed universal, can remain on the sidelines. Besides, poorer countries realize that it helps to also help oneself find the way out of the woods.

For instance, the Philippine Church through PCP II already takes a serious look into the Philippine situation and makes suggestions of its own. It is good to look back and bring them into consideration. Fundamentally PCP II uses the principle of the universal destination of goods as a springboard. Setting the principle in the Philippine context the Council proposes a threefold course of action: (1) the avoidance of capital hoarding by using it instead to create employment for those who have no work or are underemployed; (2) the diffusion of the use and ownership of the goods of the land for the benefit of all; and (3) a truly comprehensive agrarian reform (PCP II 303).

Capital hoarding is still rampant but there are more signs of it being used now than before for employment generation and for re-energizing local businesses. But there is hardly a dent to the problem of the exclusive use and ownership of the goods of the land with the exception perhaps of more communal situations in the existing religious orders, in the Basic Ecclesial Communities and other communities of renewal. And, needless to say, a truly comprehensive agrarian reform remains an unrealized aspiration in the Philippines.

Conclusion

Our present situation is characterized by deep imbalances, disturbing but no longer surprising, considering that it is an outcome of an unjust economic and social order, now further driven by market forces that work by self-interest. The question is asked as to which should prompt the real changes? Forces from the outside seeking to break within? Or inside forces seeking to break out into the open? I say both. Our social concerns, after all, presuppose an informed social conscience. It is clear that PCP II’s suggested courses of action are possible only through a more mature, less profit-oriented and socially sensitive mindset among our economic, political and socio-cultural elite. We used to have a simpler term for this: UNSELFISH. But this mindset must be supported by appropriate laws and effective socio-economic-political structures.

In a word, the condition needed is nothing short of what the Christian faith calls a radical conversion or metanoia that must take place not only in the hearts of individual Filipinos, not only in the large majority of the population but also in those who influence structures that still prevail in our society and keep it from being truly free, equal and fraternal. To quote the late Pres. John F. Kennedy: “A society that cannot help the many who are poor cannot save the few who are rich.”