“Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology toward the organic, the gentle, the elegant and beautiful.” ― E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful (1973).

Some many years ago, Schumacher wrote a small book on politics and economy entitled "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered". It was one of those small books that I read in college. I did not quite understand it fully then. But I already felt it must be prophetic.

It really is until today. When we were enamored with big cities, big malls, big business, it takes COVID-19 to deconstruct that and tell us the "small is in fact beautiful"... the small shop nearby, the small farmer, the small grocery by the roadside, the small community which is self-sustaining. For someone who comes from a very small barrio in the south of Cebu, I already know what that beauty means. Yet, it has not always been obvious when you live in and is lured by the big city.

Being in the big city, the people of Payatas has also been lured by the big developmental paradigm. In fact, it is there that they throw the waste of big capital, making these people the "wastes of capital" themselves, to borrow the phrase of the great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. As proof, you can only see the big mountains of garbage accumulated all through these years that is the cause of sickness and death of thousand children... plus the hunger and misery it brings.

But today, the same mothers of scavenging families, turn the tables around global capitalism, and start producing their own vegetables, their own food, their own organic and beautiful lives. They wake up every morning and share their lives and stories in front of these growing veggies and beautiful plants. And you can only imagine the beautiful joy it brings.

“The generosity of the Earth allows us to feed all mankind; we know enough about ecology to keep the Earth a healthy place; there is enough room on the Earth, and there are enough materials, so that everybody can have adequate shelter; we are quite competent enough to produce sufficient supplies of necessities so that no one need live in misery.”

― E.F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed

Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, C.M.
St Vincent School of Theology
Adamson University
danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com
08.20.2020