Metro Manila: Great Growth and Great Challenges
by Ian C.H. Prescott'Masaya at Magulo' were the words that sprang to mind as we arrived in Metro Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport in 1995. "Cheerful and Chaotic!" A lively, four-piece combo was playing in the airport corridor, but once outside we were bombarded by offers of taxis and accommodation as we pushed through the crowd to find the person meeting us. A little later, as we drove through the traffic with its delightful disregard for the rules, I knew we were back in the city of great growth and great challenges that we had learned to call home.
The Philippines'
Urban Half
The Philippines is half urban, half youth, and half poor (to be more exact,
48.5 percent urban, 50.6 percent under 20, and half with an income below the
poverty line (1) ).
Two-thirds of its urban dwellers are in relatively small cities scattered around
the archipelago. (2) The rest are
squeezed into the one dominant "primate" city of Metro Manila, made
up of thirteen cities splurged into one.
Metro Manila
Metro Manila is the center for nearly everything. It has the banks, the
businesses, and the hotels. In the 1980s it generated half the country's gross
domestic product. Each year enormous new shopping malls spring up, each with
a dozen large cinemas.
It has two-thirds of the country's vehicles and consequently most of its traffic jams. One innovative scheme had the directors of major corporations like IBM directing traffic but to little avail. Long-overdue projects now underway to build a new ring road and extend the mass transit railway system will probably only keep pace with the growth.
Metro Manila is the center of education, with 750,000 college and graduate students. Some of them are in colleges and universities that predate the first universities in the United States and are among the best in Asia, while others are little more than degree mills.
It is a place of great diversity, of great affluence, and great poverty. Just over the wall from wealthy, guarded suburbs of expensive homes and private clubs, you can find thousands of flimsy squatter shacks.
People Growth
in the City
Strictly speaking, there are about eight million people in Metro Manila
(that is, if you restrict your count to the artificial limits of the "National
Capital Region"). But when you include the parts of the city that don't
fall within those limits but are very much part of the urban mass of Metro Manila,
there are at least ten to twelve million people. That number is growing by about
750 a day, or another 5,000 a week, far more than the overburdened infrastructure
of the city can handle. Roughly half of that growth is biological. The rest
comes from migration to the city.
Like primate cities all over the world, this migration is driven by rural poverty and the lure of the city. In the Philippines it has been intensified by natural disasters and peace and order problems. The disastrous eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 sent thousands of refugees to Metro Manila, while each year five or six typhoons wreak serious damage, particularly on life and crops in rural and coastal areas.
"Peace and order" is really a euphemism for the lack of it, as the Philippine army and the communist New Peoples Army have battled it out, displacing many. Some of the displaced end up in the city. Though this problem is now much reduced, there is still a lot of violence and unrest in the southern island of Mindanao, particularly related to Muslim demands for autonomy.
Church Growth
in the City
The Philippines has been one of the world's hot spots for church growth.
Although in the first seventy years after Protestant Christianity reached these
islands in 1898 only 5,000 churches were established, in the last twenty-five
years a further 22,000 have begun. (3)
There have been many reasons for this surge in church growth, one of which may be the difference between the missionaries coming with the conquering American forces at the turn of the century, compared to those coming with the delivering American forces after World War II. However, the turnabout in church growth did not take place for another twenty years.
The DAWN Movement
One of the movements that has contributed most to this change is the DAWN movement
(Discipling A Whole Nation). In 1974 it succeeded in bringing together a significant
number of evangelical leaders from both church groups and missions, uniting
them with the vision of "a church in every barangay by the year
2000." (The barangay is the smallest administrative unit, typically
a village in the rural areas, or about 1,500 people in the cities.)
All Churches
Plant Churches
The most important result was a turnaround in the mentality of many churches
from a "maintenance theology," where the local congregation's most
important function was to keep itself going, to a "growth theology,"
where its focus is on starting new congregations. The result today is that the
"normal church" is one that is planting
daughter churches.
An example is Diliman Bible Church in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Started by OMF missionaries in 1971, it called its first Filipino pastor in 1982. Although it has not seen remarkable numerical growth, it has planted five daughter churches, who in turn have spawned three granddaughter churches. That adds up to a lot of real growth.
This type of strawberry plant growth is typical rather than exceptional. The resulting family structure of churches is often far more significant to individual churches than the denominational groups to which they belong.
Manila's Mega-Churches
While the average size of a church in Manila is about 100, a number of
mega-churches have sprung up with congregations numbering in the thousands.
They are usually focused around a charismatic leader and most often strongly
charismatic in theology. However, although they have all planted a few daughter
churches, their church-planting activity rarely exceeds that of churches with
just a few hundred members.
The notable exception is the Jesus is Lord Church of Rev. Eddie Vilanueva. In addition to the huge central church, the group has sizable congregations around Metro Manila and in many cities, large and small, throughout the Philippines. Their growth has been aided by a significant TV ministry. However, even more significant may be the appeal of their Pentecostalism to the poorer masses, compared to the more middle class appeal of most of the other mega-churches.
DAWN in the
City
In addition to its focus on churches planting churches, how does the DAWN
approach help in the city?
There are obvious difficulties in the strict application of the DAWN-Philippines concept of "a church in every barangay." In one part of Metro Manila, barangays can be as small as 200 people and in another they include 25,000. Even when they are equal in size, they are often fairly arbitrary divisions of the city. The absence of a church in one barangay may not be significant if the churches in the next one are only a block away. However, the fundamental DAWN idea of a church for every 1,500 (4) people does give us an excellent measure of how effectively an area has been reached.
This becomes even clearer when we consider church size. The typical urban church in the Philippines in 1993 had a regular attendance of 62 (OC Philippines 1994). Christian community is normally reckoned as about 2.5 times the attendance or membership. So an evangelical attendance of sixty-two suggests an evangelical community of 155. A goal of a church for every 1,500 people thus translates into an evangelical community of 10 percent of the population.
Because churches in the city often choose high visibility locations for their buildings, a few well-sited churches can give the impression that a city is reached. However, looking at the people-per-church ratio often reveals that there are still many thousands of unreached people per church. The DAWN analysis encourages us not to stop once the church is visibly present in the city, but to press on in planting new churches until the gospel has thoroughly penetrated the city.
The Challenge
of the Urban Poor
What about Metro Manila's poor in this overall picture of church growth?
One-third of the city's 10-12 million people live in depressed areas, squatter
communities, or slums. Many families have just a single-room hut made of secondhand
materials, occasionally of hollow concrete blocks.
Some make their living through the filthy and unattractive activity of sorting the city's garbage. Others depend on casual labor or tiny businesses. But out of their huts one will also see them emerge, immaculately turned out for a hard-won job that they hope might be a step up and out.
There are frequent conflicts with the government, regular resettlements of some areas, and various schemes to solve the problem of squatters (or the problems of squatters, depending on your perspective). However, the people keep coming to the city and it is likely that only a major economic recovery in both rural and urban areas could provide a setting in which a major improvement in their situation would be possible.
The Church Among
the Poor
The church among the poor is growing. Although they have often been neglected
and sometimes labeled hard or resistant, we have found them to be responsive
to the gospel. However, there are roughly 1,000 squatter or slum areas in Metro
Manila and still only half have a church.
In this context, OMF is working alongside Filipino coworkers and under existing Filipino churches to start new churches. As foreigners we believe our most strategic contribution is in a coach/trainer role. But that is not something you can step off the plane and step into. First, we must spend time living and working among the poor, feeling their pain, helping them in their struggles, and personally seeing people come to faith and new churches come to life.
Ministries of
Compassion
With all the urgent physical needs of the urban poor, you cannot preach
the gospel with compassion without getting involved in meeting some of those
needs. In OMF, as we have pursued our commitment to holistic church planting,
it has led us into small-loan banks, livelihood projects, cooperative drugstores,
and assistance with housing and education for the poorest of the poor.
Mixing Community
Development and Church Planting?
There is always tension between meeting immediate, physical felt needs
and the less tangible, but nonetheless real, spiritual needs. That tension particularly
comes to the fore in the issue of community development.
Community development ideally requires working with the whole community and getting them to move together on an issue or a project. When you mix this with evangelism and starting a new church, it complicates things. Evangelism calls for a decision. Some respond positively and others negatively. As Jesus warned us, the gospel will divide people. It is difficult to combine these two dynamics and, faced with this tension, evangelical groups have gone different ways.
One large evangelical aid agency has largely ceased to work through the small minority evangelical churches. Instead, as most people consider themselves Roman Catholic, it finds that partnering with the local Catholic parish church is much more effective as a bridge to the whole community.
Another group known for its pioneering work among the poor has deliberately shifted from its earlier focus on planting new churches in Manila's squatter communities to working with existing churches. Its missionaries now concentrate their efforts on helping to meet practical physical needs while continuing to encourage the churches they have started.
There is no easy answer. In OMF we are still trying to hold on to our vision for "holistic church planting among the urban poor." That means a focus on planting and nurturing new churches among the poor alongside a practical involvement in their daily struggles.
We are constantly challenged by Viv Grigg's description of churches that worked among the poor but had "given the poor bread but held back the bread of life" (Grigg 1987:15).
The Filipino
Church Among the Urban Poor
A number of relatively middle class churches have been involved in church
planting among the urban poor. Diliman Bible Church again is an example. Two
of its daughter churches and three of its granddaughter churches are among the
poor.
One of its struggles has been finding appropriate patterns of pastoral ministry for the new churches. The middle class pattern of a full-time pastor supported by the congregation is a bigger burden than most new urban poor churches can bear. The mother church helps, but if every new daughter means a permanent new addition to the payroll, it rapidly curtails further outreach.
In this context, it is exciting to see that even while they wrestle with this problem, the young urban poor churches are planting their own daughter churches. Two of these granddaughters have been born of urban poor mothers!
Video Training
Materials
With such rapid growth in the Filipino church, there is a great need for
training at all levels. There are gifted Filipino teachers but they are still
too few to cover the ground, particularly to meet the needs of small, urban,
poor churches.
As one approach to meeting that need, OMF has started to produce video training materials. Even the poor have video players! Our aim is to bring the excellent training already available within their reach. The priority is to provide Christian teaching for the church, but starting with the needs of the people. So the first videos made were, "How to Play the Drums" and "How to Run a Small Business," including biblical teaching on the use of money.
Other Peoples
in the City
Metro Manila has been a genuine melting pot for most lowland Filipinos.
Although they have distinct languages and have not forgotten what province or
region they came from, they have mingled easily and rarely divide on regional
lines (except perhaps in the matter of political allegiance).
However, some ethnic groups maintain a more distinct existence. While the ratio of people to churches gives a picture of progress in reaching the city's people as a whole, we need to focus on them as "people-groups" in order to see what progress is being made in reaching them.
The Challenge
of Ministry to Muslims
One such group is the Muslim Filipinos. There are about four million of
them in thirteen tribal groups in the southern island of Mindanao. They resisted
domination by the Spanish, have clashed with the incursion of lowland "Christian"
Filipinos migrating to Mindanao, and have proven to be very resistant to the
gospel.
Since the early seventies, an increasing number have migrated to Metro Manila. They usually come to seek better employment in Metro Manila or the Middle East, or simply to escape the violent tensions of Mindanao. Currently there are about 50-60,000, representing all thirteen groups, in eight different locations around the city. Their situations in those different locations vary immensely.
Varied Communities
One settlement is simply a small enclave of thirty Muslim families among
thousands of other urban poor families. However, they have a mosque, and a local
church has been allowed to set up a feeding center for the children of both
Muslim and "Christian" families.
Another community of around 2,000 had land bought for them by no less than Colonel Muammar Khadaffy of Libya. However, the ownership is disputed by the powerful Iglesia in Cristo sect, which has sometimes resorted to intimidation in its attempts to claim it.
The largest Islamic area is near the center of the city. It also functions as the center for Muslim politics in the capital and has many militantly Islamic elements. Further south, another group of several thousand live on land granted them by the National Housing Authority in the time of President Marcos. The land is owned, so the people are not squatters. The houses vary from small palaces to typical squatter shacks. The area has a relaxed, more provincial feel.
Varied Receptivity
Living in the city, cut off from your roots, away from the watchful eye
of more traditional relatives, can often make people more open spiritually.
This seems to be true in some of these situations. However, in other cases,
where life in the city has made these people even more defensive to outsiders
or more aware of their Islamic identity, the barriers seem as high as in their
original setting.
Challenges
The challenges are many. The difficult one of how to plant a Church among
Muslims is the most basic. This is further complicated by the question of how
to plant a church among such a mobile community. At least half of the people
are on the move, either on their way to or from jobs in the Middle East, or
moving back and forth from Metro Manila to the southern island of Mindanao.
Another challenge is how to plant a church that unites believers from the different Muslim tribal groups. In one of the larger settlements, they each have their own mosque. Should they each have their own church? Muslim believers are so few that this would be very difficult, yet the differences that they feel exist between their different groups are far from insignificant.
Finally, there is the challenge of how they should relate to the rest of the variegated body of Christ in Metro Manila. Should they develop a distinctly Muslim church separate from the existing churches? The lowland Filipino has always had a strong prejudice against the "Moro" (the Spanish name for the Muslims). But today a few of the capital's churches have set aside that prejudice and have a real vision for reaching these people.
The Challenge
of the Filipino Chinese
Another distinct group is the Filipino Chinese. There are approximately
one million of them in the Philippines and only about seventy-five churches
(Cheung 1994). This represents a church-to-population ratio of 1:14,000 - in
other words, very few churches!
Compared to the national average for the Philippines of one church for every 2,500 people, and even considering that some Chinese may be reached through ethnically Filipino churches, it is clear that the Filipino-Chinese are much less reached than the majority of the Philippine population.
The Chinese are the business people of Asia and almost exclusively urban. (5)The older generation (over 40s) speaks Chinese; the younger generation is often more at home in English or Tagalog.
OMF, in response to an invitation from an existing Chinese church, is working in partnership to establish churches in areas of Metro Manila where there are strong concentrations of Filipino-Chinese but still no Chinese Church.
Conclusion
The Philippines has seen great growth in the strength of the church and
this has been strong in Metro Manila. However, the task is not yet complete.
The DAWN goals give us a target that will ensure that the city will be thoroughly
reached. At the same time, there are groups that need special attention: the
desperately needy urban poor, the stoutly resistant Muslims, and the affluent
Filipino Chinese. There are still great challenges for discipling this great
city!
Ian Prescott has served since 1996 as Director for Overseas Ministries of Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Prior to taking up this post he served for almost ten years in the Philippines. There he was involved in church planting in Lucena City and Metro Manila as well as supervising workers in a variety of ministries.
From Urban Mission, published by Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, June 1998. Used by permission.
Endnotes
1. National
Census and Statistics Office (OC Philippines 1994).
2. The largest are Davao with 750,000, and Cebu with 550,000, but Davao's population figure is made artificially high by counting the whole province as one city.
3. Based on the report by "The DAWN 2000 1994 Church Update Survey." In 1994, 26,600 churches with an annual growth rate of the number of churches of 5.2 percent.
4. Jim Montgomery actually states the goal as "at least one small church in every small group of 400 to 1,000 to 1,500 people" (Montgomery 1989:92). By adopting a goal of "a church in every barangay" or "50,000 churches by the year 2000," the Philippines church is effectively working with a goal of a church for every 1,500 people.
5. According to the 1980 census, 97.5 percent of Chinese-speaking households were urban.
Works Cited
Cheung, David. "The Philippines Evangelical Church: 1903 to 1993."
Unpublished paper presented at the Philippines DAWN 2000 Conference, Tagaytay
City, 1994.
Grigg, Viv. "Sorry, the Frontier Moved," Urban Mission, Vol. 4, No. 4 (March 1987):12-25.
Montgomery, Jim. DAWN 2000: 7 Million Churches to Go. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1989.
OC Philippines, "DAWN 2000: 1994 Church Survey Update." Unpublished paper presented at the Philippines DAWN 2000 Conference, Tagaytay City, 1994.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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