THE WORLD AND THE AIDJ FOUNDATION, INC
More and more, the concept of economic assistance is being accepted as necessary consequence of a new philosophy of international responsibility. It is a philosophy which recognizes that just as within an individual nation the community has a responsibility to assist, develop and rehabilitate the less advantage citizens, the poor, the blinds, disabled and handicapped, so with the world community as a whole the rich nations have a responsibility to assist, develop and rehabilitate the less advantage nations. It is not sentimental question of Philanthropy. But it is straight forward issue of social justice.
The Country's Vital Problem To Solve
The most important but vital problems in our present generation system now and in all developing countries like the Philippines, is the provision of adequate school for education; hospital for medical, vocational for technical measures, and the churches, asylums and convents for spiritual, moral, social and cultural training and services available even to the less-privileged members of society, that needs completely rehabilitation program, particularly the financially poor segment of the general population as a whole. As we are witnessing now, because of the sophistication and euphemism of modern education and medical practices by too many specialist, sub-specialist, and even super-specialist of one kind or another, the cost of education, medical and hospital services, and the economic set-up are highly skyrocketed that even the rich people are now complaining. This situations call for immediate solutions in behalf of the indigent people and the less advantage citizens, specially the handicapped and disabled individuals.
The problem itself, however, remains but we must find ways - and find them soon- to secure for a greater measure of coordinated management of the combined capabilities of the national and international agencies participating in the development process. Such an objective is, in itself, one of the productive goals we could pursue as the new decade begins a better coordination between the rich and the poor people and the assessment of effort.
There are thousands of clinical facilities to be established; hundreds of thousand of staff workers to be recruited; trained and organized in the administration of the vast national life (humanitarian) programs; hundreds of millions of families to be informed and served; and well over one more billion births to be averted in the developing world alone.
Thus even with gigantic efforts, the problem is going to be with us for decades to come. But this fact, rather than being an excuse of or delay, is all the more an imperative for action - and for action now. Every day we fail to act on this matter makes the task more formidable the following day, tomorrow or forever.
There Must Be Feasible Goal
But what must we do? First, we must have a feasible goal. The achievement of this goal would mean a substantial increase in the quality of life of both the parents and the childrens of the developing countries - in the better health, better education, better nutrition, and many other ways.
It is in these areas that the international institutions can be most effective. Additional effort is required from all of us, including the banks. Many of our indigent and disabled members are crying and appealing for your greater financial support. They want your advice as well as your monetary assistance, and I propose to organize our capability to provide them with more or both.
It has one source and only one - the belief that without a slowing down and control of the population explosion, the life awaiting millions of this planet Earth's future inhabitants will be stunted, miserable, and tragic or, if you prefer the hackneyed but fitting phrase of the philosopher Hobbes, "Nasty brutish and short". we have to see the world population as a part - a vital, critical part but still we are a part.
We cannot divert these forces. They are an essential part of the process by which mankind is adapting the whole of its life to the advances in science and technology. About one-third (1/3) of humanity has moved far in the transfer toward modernization and relative affluence. Now the rest of the human species jostle behind. They certainly have no intention of renouncing or missing the wealth and prosperity, above all, the power locked up in modern technology.
The Modern Technology, But?
"Modernization" is a central thrust throughout the still-developing lands, but they are seeking to modernize under quite unprecedented conditions. Technological and scientific modernization is now more complicated, more hazardous than it was for the industrial nations a century ago. This is in fact the real root of all crisis throughout the world.
The World Cannot Survive, If?
On the contrary, I also agree with the philosophy of Lester Pearson's ( Pearson Commission) somber belief that "a planet cannot, anymore than a country, survive, half-slave, half-free, half-engulfed in misery, half-careening along towards the supposed joys of almost unlimited consumption". In that direction lies disaster, war, famines and pestilence or even the tidal waves of catastrophes, yet that is our direction today unless we are prepared to change our course and to do so in time.
More Military Hardwares
Let us look for a moment at this question of resources. For the so-called security of an ever spiraling arms race, the world is spending $180 billion annually and the figure steadily goes up.
More and more military hardwares does not provide more security. There is a point of diminishing returns beyond which further financial expenditure on military power does not yield increased returns and does not provide greater strenght. It is a truth, that most of the nations of both the developed and the developing world are beyond that point of diminishing returns.
If that is true, it is tragic that for the fundamental security of the world societies progressive enough not to explode into lethal revolution, the developed nations hesitate to maintain even the present numbers of billion of dollars of public aids expenditure. That twenty times or more should be spent on military power than on constructive progress appears to me to be the mark of an ultimate, and I sometimes fear, incurably fooly. If there were only a 5% shift from arms to development we would be within sight of the Person Target for official development assistance. And who among of us familiar with the methods and audits of arms planning, would not admit that such a margin could be provided from convertible waste alone?
But Lack Of Humanitarian Activities
How then should we react to this deepening risks? I must assume that we will react, for to carry on any of our humanitarian activities as political leaders, government officials, business and labor leaders, and as religious leaders or responsible citizens, that we must take for granted a certain minimum rationality in humanitarian affairs. And it is not rational to confront historical pressures on for a greater scale than those of the revolutionary periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries without accepting the consequences.
To Solve The Rising Unemployment
We do not want simply to say that rising unemployment is a "bad thing" but something must be done about it. We want to know its scale, its causes, it impact and the range of policies and options which are open to governments, international agencies and the private sector to deal with it.
To Set-Up The Standard Of Justice
Today, we are in fact an inescapable community, united by the forces of communication and interdependence in our new technological order of modern discovery. The conclusion is inevitable: We must therefore apply at the world level that same moral responsibility, that same sharing of wealth, that same standard of justice and compassion, without which our own national societies would surely fall apart.
This Is The Great Challenge
Thus the challenge of the scientific revolution is not a tremendous technological conundrum like putting a man on the moon. It is much more a straight forward moral obligation, like getting him out of a ghetto, out of a favella, out of illiteracy, and hunger and despair. We can meet this challenge if we have the wisdom, the will power and moral energy to do so. But if we lack these qualities, then I fear, we lack the means of survival on this planet earth.
The Foundation And Its Objectives
To attain this humanitarian and general welfare reform objectives (to increase the number of qualified and competent general public servants) , the Divine Filipino Catholic Church and the Philippine Patriarch of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ jointly together under its aegis had established the " ASSISTANCE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR JESUS FOUNDATION, INC., (for Disabled Program) " as a non-profit agency duly approved and registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission No. 80695, Republic of the Philippines.
In brief, this foundation will be the funding arm of the academy for raising funds to subsidize its main objectives like scholarships and residency programs for deserving students, indigent people, and disabled handicapped individuals, the establishment of school for education; hospital for medical and spiritual healing centers combined; asylums and convents for old aged, indigents, orphans, destitutes, afflicted and invalids, and a community of religious recluses; and church for spiritual and religious worship, to enrich group life and to encourage research in the field of humanity. With these general objectives it is hoped that both the private and government sectors will give their fullhearted support to the AIDJ FOUNDATION, INC., for Disabled Program.
All donations and proceed received by the foundation will be used to assist the Philippine Government for the development and rehabilitation of the disabled, old aged and indigent people throughout the country, and until we can finally establish our own business sources of incomes for the disabled program, and that the foundation will be no longer depending solely from the donations and contributions of others in the future.
Plan Of Financing Projects