Child Sponsorship and Christian Hegemony in Campo Muslim

The efforts of Sister Theresa to aid victims of the 1976 earthquake first brought representatives of the Catholic diocese to Campo Muslim. Their presence continued in a more institutionalized form after her departure in 1981 (it was widely rumored that the new bishop had removed the popular Sister Theresa because he disliked her independent manner). In 1983, Reconciliation House, the community service program established by Sister Theresa, was expanded and redesignated as "the Reconciliation Center." The new bishop secured external funding for the expanded community program from the Christian Children's Fund (CCF).

By 1986, the Reconciliation Center program supported 165 students in Campo Muslim, or one child each from just less than one-fourth of the households in the community. Operating with a monthly budget of fifteen hundred dollars, the program was intended to educate children, develop community leaders, train local health workers, and provide parental education in child care, nutrition, and home economics. As articulated by its director, the program guided recipient households in value formation and social responsibility. The principal form of assistance provided to recipient families was educational support for one child per household. CCF "scholars" received the equivalent of five to ten dollars a month in tuition fees (often for Catholic schools), clothing, and school supplies. Overseas funds were generated by means of individual sponsorship arrangements. Participating children received letters from their American sponsors and were required to respond to them with the assistance of program staff members. School clothing and supplies were purchased with vouchers at the Reconciliation Center store. Parents of supported children could also receive small loans and free instruction on topics such as money management and herbal medicine.

Although this support represented more material assistance than provided by any other agency or association in Campo Muslim, the tangible results of the program as of 1986 were questionable, even perverse.^[11] CCF-sponsored children did tend to be members of some of

the poorest families in the community, but after three years of participation in the program, the average monthly household income of CCF members remained well below the community average.^[12] Child sponsorship arrangements had also generated new tensions and dependencies in the community.

The often ambivalent attitudes of recipients toward the CCF program were revealed most clearly to me in a conversation I had with a couple living in the very poorest interior portion of Campo Muslim. When I arrived at their house seeking census information, Andig, a laborer caring for his four-month-old son while his wife was away, invited me in. While we were talking, his wife, Taya, returned from bathing. She wrapped her wet hair in a piece of cloth, then sat and began to breast-feed her baby. As the baby nursed, Taya took a small packet of tobacco from underneath her malong (skirt), sprinkled some tobacco on a strip of newspaper, and rolled a long thin cigarette. She joined the conversation, supplementing her husband's often hesitant responses with animated comments.

She told me, "I have borne seven children but only three survive. I have my own work as a labandera [washerwoman]. I earn as much in a day as my husband." When I asked her about CCF, Taya complained about the program and brought letters and pictures from her child's sponsor to show me. I translated the letters for her and she had questions: "Is it true, as some of the ustadzes say, that children in the CCF program are sometimes sold to foreigners"? I told her I didn't think that was true. "Is it true that the Sisters change the children's names to Christian names in their letters to their sponsors"? I told her I did not know whether that happened but that many of the sponsors were not aware that the children they sponsored were Muslims, or even that they lived with their families. "What is the real reason that the sponsors' names are torn off the envelopes before their letters are given to the children?" she asked. I said that I thought it was because the CCF wanted to be able to control the correspondence between sponsors and recipient families. "You know," she said, "the sponsor of the daughter of Babu Amina visited them a few months ago. She was an old woman from America. After that woman left, Amina and her husband enlarged their house. I heard she was given one hundred dollars by the sponsor. Tell me, how can I invite the sponsor of my child to visit?" I had no answer.

Program recipients viewed themselves as clients receiving resources from mysterious and powerful outsiders. They reciprocated with the

deference, obedience, and attendance required to maintain the relationship. They complained about their powerless position vis-à-vis the program workers above them and the foreign sponsors beyond their reach, but they also defended the program against those who would remove it from the community. As it was the only source of external funding available to them, recipient families expressed a strong material interest in its continuation.

The physical as well as fiscal presence of the Catholic diocese in Campo Muslim was a political affront to the MILF and the ulama. They were unable, however, to provide comparable resources to community residents. Disapproval of the CCF program by the MILF was a cause of some considerable anxiety among its participants. Two entries from my field notes provide illustration:

Nur [my research assistant] and I went to zone four this morning to interview a man who lived there. He was not at home so we left a message with his daughter. Nur told her vaguely that we wanted to talk to him, and we made an appointment for the next morning. We then went off to another interview and returned one hour later to our house. An older woman, somewhat agitated, arrived soon after and asked for Nur. She was the wife of the first man we had intended to interview. Her daughter told her we had been asking for her husband and had described us. She recognized Nur from the description and knew that he was active in rallies connected to the "inside" (she thought I was "an Arab"). Her daughter is a CCF scholar, and she knew that there were problems concerning the "inside" and the Reconciliation Center. She thought we had come from the MILF and was worried, so came looking for Nur to see what the problem was. We explained to her the purpose of the research. I hadn't anticipated that I would be mistaken for an MILF official.^[13]

[Kasan] told me that he was tired and had broken his [Ramadan] fast early today because he had made a long hard trip to Bumbaran to talk with the vice-chairman of the Kutawatu Political Office of the MILE The vice-chairman had sent him a typed letter in Magindanaon [four days earlier] asking him to come to talk about the CCF program in Campo Muslim. Kasan left very early in the morning. He went first to Parang, then took another long jeep ride east, then rode in a pedicab into the mountains to the "liberated area." At their meeting, the vice-chairman simply asked him for an "update" on the CCF program. Kasan gave him that and added his opinion that it would put great hardship on recipient families to remove the program. The vice-chairman replied that "it is best to be practical now," which Kasan took to mean that he thought that the CCF program should remain for the time being. Kasan also received an endorsement from him in the form of a signed, dated letter stating that they had met.

The most frequent services provided by the MILF involved adjudication. MILF courts heard cases on topics from homicide to land disputes to adultery. One outgrowth of the MILF's adjudication services was its registration of marriage contracts. Philippine Muslims very seldom registered births or marriages with governmental agencies. Muslim children became officially known to state authorities only when registered at public schools. Beginning in 1983 or so, the MILF provided a marriage contract form that asked for the names of the bride and groom and witnesses and the amount of the bridewealth. One copy of the contract was left with the bride and the other sent "inside" to the Kutawatu Regional Committee. Such MILF services, it may be noted, involved the direct participation of the ulama. All MILF adjudication was conducted by "inside" ulama, using Sharia (Islamic) law in a more stringent (although still locally modified) manner than it was traditionally applied. MILF marriage contract forms were provided to local ustadzes, who presided at most marriages.