Many church leaders connected immediately the call to do organizing as it victimized church leaders in the Philippines. It was this experience of meeting church leaders that the few passionate youth many coming from a third generation saw the church in a new way that as perceive before as nothing to do with advocacy work in communities and now became the viability hub in doing organizing in communities that Filipinos are well concentrated. Indeed there was a disconnect in the role of church among new generation of Filipinos here in the US. They may have been harboring the idea that the stage has become a hostage of a religious fervor that tries to divide people according to their
religious beliefs and that social and justice issues has nothing to do with church. While passionate enough to make and advocate changes they may in fact have embraced the dualist notion of separating spirit and the body or religious life to public life. With the stepping in of church role though, these notions had started to fade away and had even facilitated exploring new ways to do ministry combining the skills of a few to the majority who still remain in the confines the institutional church. These development however have been developed through the constant clash of view points whereby changes are in effect to people’s standpoints. This sustained contradiction is a healthy part of
discerning ways and means to reach out communities in especially how to carry on the struggle in terms of organizing in the heartland of the empire.

Thus this paper will tries to elucidate the basis for short term and long term methods of doing organizing here in the US.

Any passionate personal conviction starts with a center. It evolves a crystallization of experience summed up into a body of ideas. It may well be said that the criterion of having correct ideas that works in life comes from experience. This interconnection through space and time is growing. The unending development of ideas tested through practice are nurtured and is well integrated in doing theology. Thus each of us have our own lens to appreciate and view God based on ones experience. It is on this basis that theology is contextual and that goes along with understanding culture not coming from nowhere or a vacuum but an expression of one’s relation to ways of living.

In doing business too, centers of gravity are important. Business expands on the basis of consolidation. Not following this dictum spells disaster only thinning out returns in whatever investment is done. For in truth there is always a center to speak of . In Yoga or in martial arts, in sports a balance is needed. A center is needed. There is a pole to balance it, a center of gravity. This center connotes balancing both ends. In dialectics this is in fact what is called the unity of opposites.

Our faith in a sense is the same as that too in terms of its workings. Our perception and understanding of God is enriched and nurtured by our experience and that experiences are foiled back in our intention seeking God among people, in history, in our small experiential interstices when we have some glimpses of God work. The consolidation of our faith experience in fact makes us more human and being human makes us closer to understanding God. It is also having this balance of the dialectical interaction of experience in sustaining ourselves to walk in a beam and jump off intact just as gymnast does. Our vertical experiences with God are well understood how we estimate that balance not falling out of the beam. This horizontal view centers us understanding ourselves and God in our daily experience. Integration of our faith on the personal and societal is what makes the resurrection possible, a sense of liberation that even we fall there is another round of beam walk that can in fact be flawless. This crisscrossing of vertical and horizontal experience symbolizes the sign of the cross and our relationship to
God. This crisscrossing in fact is a never ending cycle we continue to worship God everyday in our lives in different ways we can. In fact in the Fil-Am Diaspora what makes this crisscrossing alive is defined it in terms of understanding how these stroke, the vertical and horizontal is all about in people’s lives. The symbolism involved requiring organizers to take a focused understanding of the roots and the plight of people.
It requires the scanning of surroundings such as societal ills that plague humankind. It requires and understanding of home front issues as well as issues in the international front. It requires an understanding to integrate this into a cohesive view, ones standpoint and viewpoint. It requires seeing the nitty-gritty understanding of circumstances through history the characteristic of the home front being a semi colonial and semi-feudal country[2] and a highly developed capital driven society in the heart of the empire

Basic problems of the Filipino people

The context determines reality and that theology being a reflection of that, an after thought wields its validity in how best it fits and summarizes God in the real world and not in the a bract world. Church pastoral programs are sometimes out of sync when it does not address the realities of life. Many churches fold up because it continues to deny reality as the foci of human experience. There are some churches I know not necessarily Fil-Am churches at has folded up because they went out not addressing the human experience. Many have sustained though by continuously denying reality and sustaining and building churches exploiting people’s fear and insecurities of the unknown.

In the Philippines, churches had played crucial role on the colonialization. In an epoch of conquest colonizers exploited people’s fears. It became a convenient tool in their campaign to conquer and impose domination when the tool of the sword does not work.

Before relegating the colonialist power, it had sent the cream of the crop of church leaders who will manage seminaries to the heartland of America to finish their doctoral programs and articulate a theology that well suit to justify that domination. Church role in maintaining a social set-up in favor to a more subtle way of running government into client states have deepened as well heightened the struggle of Filipinos. It also become a stop gap when resistance is so strong enticing the many of incentives to embrace a theology that does not carry the sentiments of the majority. Many church leaders just like cooks became trained chefs to make good recipes like butter and bread when many

Filipinos food was rice and fish. Many developed theologies that attune to the empire and not to the home front and the Diaspora. But his was not limited only among church people. Many Filipino technocrats came too to the US through scholarships taught in the art of cooking as well with recipes that taste good to the tongue of those in power. They came home representing the powers that be and well maintained a quid pro quo social setup. This gave to a neo-colonial frame of governance now Filipinos having leaders implemented, insuring that it remain in the course direction as they planned. But these set-ups spelled the basic evils that plague Philippine society, the basic problem of US
imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Imperialism is the expression of a heightened exploitation. These is characterized by concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this “finance capital,” of a financial oligarchy; the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; the formation of international monopoly capitalist combines which share the world among themselves; and the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. [3] In short this means the
total integration of the whole encompassing national boundaries. While at the same time integration is happening imperial powers had to maintain a social base for it to exist and continue to expand. It had to preserve a backward system basically feudal in character.

This is the case of the Philippines it had to tie down 85 percent to producing raw materials for further integration and accumulation to happen many of whom are poor peasants who’s livelihood is dependent to land. Many in fact work in wide scale mono cropping fields for export such as sugar plantations, coconut plantations, and newer crops needed such as cassava for the feeds industry and noodles industry and many more.[4]

Many big-landowners have in fact became contract growers on the production of the crops for export many of whom had in fact become compradors doing facilitating trading of these goods for export and receiving them in finished products for consumption. These are the present crop of people elected in government becoming bureaucrats and using their power to further accumulate capital. They are the same people making sure that an export-oriented and important dependent economy is at play sustained only by incurring more debt to the empire through its international financials institutions such as the World bank and the International Monetary Fund. This symbiotic relation between compradors, and big-landlords to US imperialist appetite for raw materials finding ways market and dump finished products have furthered caused gargantuan poverty among the people.

Whereby people resist such impositions, two forms of sustaining domination is done by those in power through overt form and latent form. The overt form is experienced by state’s use of its coercive state of whom many had been victimized by open repression as in the case of Martial Law during the Marcos time and even at present through government’s war on terror.[5] However majority had to experience latent cultural justifications to such horrible reality of which many succumb to experience. Many in fact have joined mainline church supported groups such as El Shaddai, or Couples for Christ and even Jesus is Lord and others embracing the idea that poverty or unequal access of
resources and wealth are normal and God had intended that to be. While many had started to realize the material basis of this unequal set-up has to be resisted many come to realize the only way to fight is to leave their motherland where exploitation is so intense without realizing even in the belly of the empire such exploitation still happen though with more sophistication and style. While it was an economic for the many leaving their country they are now thrown into a new dimension of struggle which has to do with their identity and race. Whereby many do not share the culture and color of their skin and the dominant norm was to echo the elite’s imposed definition to divide and control people, immigrants are victimized by discrimination in communities and in work. It is ironic that while immigrants have been considered as commodity by the country of origin being subjects for labor export it is their existence in these foreign land to props their country of origin. The Philippines for example receive billions of dollars repatriated back by immigrants and contract workers only to pay it back to the empire because the country which they used to belong have accumulated so huge a debt that what it can only pay is the interest and not the capital.

Trying to connect issues in the Diaspora in the US and the home front is not an easy task. As a matter of fact it requires understanding of Fil-Am concerns in the US. Among major concerns are the continued scapegoating of immigrants.[6] Immigrants as the main cause of
causes unemployment whereby because of their immigration the majority have no jobs or rate of wage is decreasing because immigrants receive whatever they are told to denying the fact that even before that immigrants came the economy has been failing. Along being scapegoats to those elites in power in the US, immigrants feel the brunt of economic, social and political discrimination due to its race come along it repression of culture and identity. It is this identity attack that Fil-Am communities are divided. Two poles of tendencies exist. One pole totally denies racial affiliation and identity while the affirms it. Those who deny dis-engages in diasporic activities that affirm identity and had become passive while the affirming are those who have founded community centers. Others become so selective in issues they will participate trying to contain their total exposure to their sense of identity. It is on this basis that Saul Alinsky type building coalitions building and issue based campaign had been so helpful to those want to affirm their identity just to reach those who want partial exposure.[7] As a way of doing consensus organizing as was way of doing sweeping organizing as a way to further deepen understanding of inner dynamics, this approach has well helped those who wants to assert their identity. In churches though it had become a vogue in reaching communities.
It had become a recipe to neutralize and win over the vacillating and the undecided. Yet until one goes beyond issues and goes down to structural causes why issues have been affecting them only one can move on to further settle to affirm their identities. These in fact requires discussing the basic evils in the homefront only to connect and establish as center where they are coming from and a fresh perspective of things. It does in fact is the role of theology to galvanize and harness and sum up peoples experiences out of this journey of doing organizing. It is its role to consolidate experiential gains to foil people’s determination as well encourage broadest support. It is in fact the role of organizers to articulate theology in order to strengthen the people’s resolve to find their own voices in the struggle.

Church as a Hub of People’s Struggle

In north bay area, Fil- Am churches are starting be open in the limelight, a hub where issues and concerns of the Diaspora are raised. The spectrum of issues vary from church to church, however from inward concerns many have started to go outward. Many are in fact recognizing secular groups like Filipino Community Centers which have been formed by Fil-Am not necessarily active in churches. These organizations have started to realize the important participation of faith based communities in carrying out community projects and programs believing that churches has a special niche in the community whereby many Filipinos are Christians. Philippines being predominantly
Roman Catholic many came here to find churches not necessarily the affiliation they have back home. Many search for a sense of belonging, identity in order to establish network and support system to survive in the US. Because of diverse background there is also a confluence of various theologies. These mix is critical in the survival of a Diasporic church in that leaders and pastors in these churches are required to understand where they are coming from. In a mixed generation complications theology with first generation and thirds generations coming together and interpreting theology is a great challenge. The pastor becomes the Joshua of his time identifying barriers in order to reach to that promised land. It fact consensus leadership works while trying to elevate a prophetic way. It would even be a struggle to take a discourse to see the empire from a Filipino- American perspective while other see it from an American- Filipino lens.

Whereby the first category of Fil-Am church members have well a grounding in terms of where they are coming from, understanding the roots why they are here in the heartland of the empire, American-Filipino which many came from First and second generation actually are resistant and would maintain a disconnect to their roots in order to posit justifying being here.

Of there is a disconnect the reliable way in is to connect. However connecting is not a simple process. In fact it requires going back to ones family history. For everyone has a reason coming here in the US. The early immigrants came as to work in farmlands thinking that America is a land of promise. It was only when the second generations worked in Mare island[8] working to fix and help develop ships for the second world war and later had the opportunity to join the Navy in the second world war that their status in the American society was elevated.

However since there is diversity in terms of faith background, theology plays an important role in the consolidation and cohesion of the church. There is a mix theology that from dualistic to progressive. Tension occurs as a basic element in the Diasporic ministry and leadership is well spelled out in terms of uniting and continuous dialogue. It is on this occasion that bible studies and discussion are so important in churches finding ways to discern and seek wisdom amid discernment to unite identity community along it social and political life as well.

Seeking Identity Amid Struggle

However identity is hinged to one’s cultural past and present milieu. In fact the sense of in between, not belong in this world or culture is an indication of s a struggle that tries to reclaim the sense of past be in culturally and socially. Thus the bamboo analogy of Filipino’s in the Diaspora trying to congregate yet with pliant with surroundings in fact an expression of individual assertion as well as cultural assertion. These sense of gathering together has its advantage as well as disadvantage. An advantage because the sense of gathering is a sense of having collective responsibility well engrained in cultural but is a character that is well reflected in a feudal cultural practice. In fact this sense of community a sense of having a barangay[9] type of mindset well serve Filipino’s in surviving in the US. Through extended families and a sense of responsibility like helping each other and a sense of indebtedness that has to be returned back well serve a Diaspora’s survival that against a dominant culture that give prime importance of individualism. It may be the secret menu why in inspite of hardship Filipino’s maintain to survive having triple jobs as necessary. Likewise when issues of concern such as the implementation of stringent immigration laws are implemented and making even immigrants as scapegoats in government’s failure to sustain employment and the economy, many Filipino’s are going in the open to register their opposition and have carried in practical steps to highlight it in the case of Sentosa nurses. These social cohesion is positive and can be harnessed in organizing further the Fil-Am Diapora in the US. On the other hand, while a sense of community is practiced a swing to adopt strong individualism is also seen. A crab mentality[10] well creeps in Filipinos culture trying to pull down each Filipino, a form of cynicism in relationships. While this is a reflection of a rat race in America it well mimics the cultural past of oppression. When the oppressed becomes for a long time have been experiencing oppression when put in a quick swift in the US garnering oneself a sense of economic success and stability it can reverse roles that of the oppressor, in particular giving value to the culture that have facilitated and given progress. Thus while Diaspora have a value of cultural cohesion on the other hand it also is confronted with the assimilation of individualism expressed in brute regression even of pushing back others. However these can well be deconstructed. This
deconstruction can only be possible by reversing individualism through further enhancement of reclaiming our cultural identity as a people. It requires to connect through disconnected. In requires a ministry of laying down a clear-cut concientization of the historical past which have been distorted or fragmented in the minds of Filipinos. It requires the understanding the of neo-colonials and semi-feudal character of the
Philippine economy that in fact while the Filipinos are in the heartland of the empire they well serve to be usherers for that set-up to continue to exist.

The task of developing our own theology, pastoral program and organization.

The discourse of having a theology that well reflects diasporic struggle and struggling to have an authentic theology to guide and illuminate the courses of action and the appreciation of our Christian faith is of prime importance. One, theology is a guiding factor in the cohesion of the church as pastoral programs is the expression how theologies are well expressed in people’s life. Theology in fact also determines the organization and how it galvanized itself in sustaining its existence. Solid organizing is fueled even by theology as a guiding tool. It determines approaches in how churches expressed its faith in the community with a wide range of possibilities. It departs from not only doing charity but a more rooted intervention to social experiences in a liberational way that not only uplifts people but illuminates them to appreciate the whole rather their particular circumstance. A theology that well express the needs of the people can guide evangelism
to greater heights which the goals of consolidation based on expansion.

The state is a representative of one class. In the evolution of society what determines a specific society to develop is primarily influenced by class struggle. It is by nature that state is dominated by a specific class. This specific class regulates society through either through coercive means and more subtlety through integrative means when coercive approach does not work. When the ruling classes cannot implement “ rule of law” which is defined by them, deception plays a key rule in subjugating the masses. In simple terms when the sword does not work, all it had to do is invert it and use the symbol of the cross to co-opt and subjugate the masses. For violence is more than the overt form people always associate it to be such as militarization and being put to prison. Violence is also the covert or latent form, not subjugating the physical but subjugating the mind and hearts of people. When people have no access of education, health and other social services, when the state deny people to live a decent life, when the state rob people of the dignity and right to life, that in fact is violence. For many people in the world die out of hunger, are relegated in the sidelines because they cannot afford education and basic necessities in life.

It All Redound correctly Reading the Mode of  Production.