Many of us are familiar with the Trojan horse. The city of Troy was at war with the Greeks of Manaos Island. Feigning defeat and pretending to sail back to their island, the Greeks built and left a huge wooden horse at the main gate of Troy. Hidden inside the horse was an elite force of Greek warriors.
The Trojans fell for the trick. They brought the horse inside Troy and celebrated victory by carousing and drinking the night away. Once the Trojans were all in dreamland, the Greek warriors exited from the horse, opened the city’s gate and let the rest of their army into the city. They ransacked Troy and killed all Trojan warriors before these realized what was happening.
Thus, the Greeks won their war against Troy with a deadly gift. The now famous saying “Fear the Greeks when bearing gifts” was first uttered by a Trojan priest to remind his people of how the Greeks destroyed Troy and won the war by gifting them with a wooden horse that hid death inside.
As the Trojan horse so starkly teaches us, gifts can kill… and in more ways than one. A respected spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, wrote in his book “With Open Hands”: “Giving can easily become a means of manipulation where the one who receives a gift becomes dependent on the will of the one who gives it.” This is exactly what ayuda is doing to its recipients. It kills the recipients’ initiative, responsibility, freedom and the dignity to work for a living for themselves and their families.
Somebody posted on Facebook four reasons why he disliked ayuda. I readily agree with three but must disagree with the one that says ayuda is helping the lazy. I believe the opposite is happening. Ayuda is not a gift to the lazy but a gift that makes otherwise hardworking and responsible Filipinos lazy. I say this because I am quite sure Filipinos, with the usual exceptions, would prefer being provided with living-wage-paying jobs than living from ayuda to ayuda.
A veritable war against poverty involves structural reforms. Existing socio-economic structures cannot generate enough jobs for Filipinos. Yet our oligarchic government has never even tried a modicum of structural reform but has always relied on ayuda which temporarily alleviates poverty but does not solve it in any significant degree.
Sociologically speaking, ayuda is the oligarchy’s subconscious way of keeping poor Filipinos dependent. Politicians’ refusal to initiate structural reforms, their zero effort, for instance, to reform our money-denominated election system, are sure signs they want to keep enticing people with ayuda into voting for them, thus keeping political power exclusively in their grasp.
I would like to think Filipinos are as responsible and as hardworking as any other people on earth. We can take care of ourselves given the opportunity. We are, however, short on opportunity that comes only with structural reforms.
The lesson is clear. Like the Trojan horse, ayuda is a gift that kills. It perpetuates poverty and kills slowly but kill it does.