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15 Lazy and Resistant to Change

When we lack awareness of our own world, it is Tio Bading’s turn to talk, we are bombarded with the lies of the landlords and their spokesmen. We fail to see the truth of our own condition.

For instance, they tell us that we are poor because we are lazy. But have they ever seen us eat our breakfast? Tio Bading’s voice is now rising in anger. Because if they have seen us eat our breakfast, and they ate the same breakfast that we eat everyday, they’d be crazy if they were not lazy.

Hell, how many long, hard hours do we put in everyday at the fields – from early dawn to late sundown, under burning sun or heavy rain – all in order to survive?

In sugarlands, we know, even pregnant women have to work 10 to 12 hours a day cutting cane or hauling them – for a daily wage of less than four pesos ($ 0.55). Enough of these accusations of laziness!

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They also tell us that we are poor because we are resistant to change. But what kind of changes they want us to undertake, Tio Bading asks.

Well, maybe, I can remember a few examples, he continues.

One time, this lady from the Community Development Office attended a barrio meeting. In the course of the meeting she had to answer a call of nature. So she asked Agaton where she could find the toilet.

Now, my friends, don’t laugh. This really happened. When Agaton understood her question, he was embarrassed no end because, like many of us, Agaton has no toilet. Rather he owns a one-hectare toilet!

The group bursts into laughter; Come on, tell us, what happened then? Well, Tio Bading says, a month later when the Community Development worker returned to Agaton’s place, she had a big project for him. With a bit of financial help from her office, Agaton was persuaded to construct a flush-toilet.

But, Tio Bading grins, if you go there now to Agaton’s house, you 11 find that the toilet is very clean, indeed, for the simple reason that it is used only by visitors.

Agaton, however, is not really dumb, says Tio Bading. In fact, he’s rather clever. Do you know what he told me when I visited him last time? You know, Bading, he told me, our problem is not toilets. It is not one of subtraction but one of addition.

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In other words, what will you place in those toilets once you have them? That is our problem, don’t you think so?

Why then did you do as told by the CD worker if you did not really appreciate her perception of your problem, I asked Agaton. Don’t be silly, he said. I have to humor them from time to time or worse things might happen to me.

At .this point, Mang Pedring clears his throat indicating his desire to talk.

Speaking of changes they want us to undertake, Mang Pedring starts, I went with a group once to Santa Barbara town. There the landlords and the government have a model farm as they call it. They showed us around with the hope of our imitating the modern methods of production that are used there.

I tell you, my friends, I was kind of impressed with that model farm, except that I asked too many questions. I asked for the cost of the irrigation pump, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and what have you, I also noticed that they used what looked to me liked a mosquito net – well, a net really, which they explained was necessary to keep the birds from eating the seeds.

When my landlord visited me the week after, he asked why I was not about to adopt some of the modem methods I saw in Santa Barbara. Of course, he also took the opportunity to remind me that I am poor because I am resistant to change. The

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worse part, however, was when I answered him by saying: I can’t even afford to buy a mosquito net for my kids, how could I possibly afford to buy that net for the seeds? I tell you, at that point, be threatened to evict me from the land.

From that time on, says Mang Pedring, I have been thinking and thinking about this “resistance-to-change” accusation And I say it now clearly: it is the landlords and the government who arc resistant to change!

They only want us to undertake surface changes. But they refuse to accept the most, fundamental change of all which we and our ancestors have demanded for years and years now. I mean have they not done everything to fight our demand for a change in the ownership of the land?

Mang Pedring clears his throat again, and in the silence some are grinning and many heads nod in agreement.