“Development… is people transforming the world and creating their own future, thus, participating in God’s redemptive plan for (hu)mankind” – (The Angono Document of 1974)
“Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you…” (Leviticus 25:10, NIV)
We, representatives of member churches, associate members, regional and provincial ecumenical formations, and ecumenical partners, have gathered to celebrate the Angono Document, written by our predecessors in a similar gathering 50 years ago that reflected on how churches can work on development and formulate plans accordingly. Similar gatherings since have resulted in guideposts for the development work of churches and church-related organizations: The Tagaytay Covenant of 1985, The Los Baños Document of 1996 and the Jubilee Statement of 2014.1
Reviewing each of these guideposts and situating them within the global and national contexts when they were written, we affirm that development:2
- begins with a clear analysis of the political, economic and social realities of Philippine society in its global context, undertaken from the perspective of the basic sectors of society;
- needs to be viewed and evaluated from the perspective of what it means for the most disadvantaged and marginalized within the society;
- has at its core genuine participation by the basic sectors of society, where churches support such participation through community organizing and accompanying the people in identifying their own problems, developing their own solutions, discovering their own potential, making their own decisions, and achieving agency to shape their own lives and future;
- involves raising awareness of the basic structural issues that obstruct the flourishing of justice and equity in our society, which the educational programs of the NCCP and its member churches can facilitate;
- involves a commitment to research, sharing of experiences and information exchange to better understand the problems, processes, objectives, and programs of development;
- becomes sustainable only when it is accompanied by a fundamental transformation in the social and economic structures that perpetuate inequality in wealth and power.
Our Present Context
The Church echoes the cries of the people now — on the jubilee of the Angono Document — where there is still no significant fundamental or radical change. A Marcos is in Malacañang. Journalists are still being targeted and killed. People are forcibly disappeared with impunity.3 The United States wages proxy wars in Asia.
But crises have evolved and become more sophisticated. Neoliberalism has led to decades of decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in both manufacturing and agriculture as well as increases in GDP from services, a trend linked with decades of poverty.
The maldevelopment and inequality between the haves and have-nots, observed 50 years ago during the Martial Law years, has been further exacerbated and has degenerated all the more under the grip of neoliberalism, with entrenched dynastic politics, corruption, oligarchic systems, and escalating political repression that continue to keep the Filipino people in the clutches of historical and systemic poverty.
Civic space is constricted with red-tagging and ‘weaponization’ of the anti-terrorism law against activists and human rights defenders including church people. Anti-terrorist financing measures have also been used to arbitrarily harass development workers and freeze accounts or assets of civil society and church-based organizations.4
Cases of violations of international humanitarian law including the bombing of civilian rural communities has grown increasingly widespread, forcing countless people to abandon their homes and livelihoods. The militarization of the countryside illustrates a deepening crisis, one that terrorizes peasant communities while devastating farmlands and wreaking havoc on the natural environment, leaving deep dents in the people’s lives.
Violence against women and children has become even more pervasive. The Philippines is a hotspot for online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) because OSAEC is profitable.
The overwhelming, uncompromising pursuit of profit also fuels the climate crisis. Climate disasters hurt poor countries the most, and the Philippines has been identified as the most at-risk for the 16th straight year.5
Even the movement for renewable energy has been coopted by capital, with frenzied extraction of critical minerals, like those needed for batteries and land-grabbing in locations useful in the energy transition, which is dominated by transnational corporations.
Global economic stagnation has hurt working people the most, with massive unemployment worldwide, one-third of the population in poverty, and half of the world’s wealth in the hands of 80 people.
Gaza is in rubble. The United States has wielded its superpower status to wage wars — including proxy wars — of aggression, provocation, and in many cases, genocide, of which Palestine is the current flashpoint. At the bottom of it all, lies a grim truth: for imperialist countries, war is profitable.
Amid this multi-crisis, the NCCP and its member churches express frustration at the lack of fundamental change.
Committing to a Diakonia of Peace
This 50th year after the Angono Document, a new generation of ecumenical leaders have been called to reflect on Leviticus 25, which speaks of the Year of the Lord, the Jubilee. Discerning the signs of the times, we find ourselves in multifaceted crises that appear even more complicated than they were five decades ago. In the spirit of Angono and with evolving discernment, we study and confront our contextual realities, seeking opportunities to deepen our hope for the transformation and renewal of faith.
We find inspiration that every 50 years, God commanded the people to liberate all slaves, cancel all debts, let everyone return to their ancestral lands, and let the land rest — that God affirms land and liberty, which should always come together, in stark contrast to the prevalent culture of extraction and exploitation. In particular, we echo what we learned about Jesus’ parables during our consultation — that we have to refrain from allegorizing the characters in the parables and instead read the texts which critiques extraction and exploitation by the Roman empire. Reaffirming the relevance of the Angono Document and our call for Jubilee, we (re)commit to spreading the good news and proclaiming the gospel of the poor and marginalized in resistance to empire.
This is our Kairos moment, a time to assure that all are welcome at the eschatological table, a time loaded with promises and hopes for a new and pulsating peaceful future based on Jesus Christ’s promise of an abundant life for all (John 10:10) — a just, egalitarian, participatory, self-reliant and sustainable society6.
We affirm that the work for genuine development is a work that requires a shared, ecumenical diakonia. We embrace a diakonia that comes from different traditions, confessions and faith reflections, all leading to God’s restoring care for creation and humanity. We celebrate how diakonia among us churches evolved, is evolving, and is being challenged to evolve in response to the signs of the times.
We affirm the diversity in gifts and graces, the richness and opportunities that the different diaconal practices of churches offer. We also commit to helping each other to more deeply understand how these different responses are also seen as blessings: as acts of mercy and acts of justice that ultimately contribute to fundamental change in our country, birthing and ushering in a society where peace based on justice and the promise of abundant life genuinely thrive and flourish.
We affirm that a vision of peace is the centerpiece of our development work. Peace must be based on justice, thus, we will strive to work in solidarity, to defend the rights and dignity of the poor and oppressed, and to pursue people-led development by building just relationships between humankind and the whole of Creation.
Concretely, we are challenged to:
- Persevere and improve our public witness through all diaconal actions and programs in local, national, and international venues and build worldwide solidarity
- Strengthen our ecumenical humanitarian response to intensifying disasters and conflict-related crises
- Expand our understanding and efforts in pursuing climate justice amid the context of a planetary crisis
- Nurture and equip ecumenical spaces for healing and reconciliation among our Christian siblings and wider community by fostering an inclusive and safe space that contributes to exemplifying gender justice
- Support and advocate for our migrant workers and their families
- Accompany and minister to persons deprived of liberty
- Develop and strengthen structures and mechanisms for ecumenical action, especially at the grassroots level through local ecumenical formations, by creating inclusive and participatory spaces of learning, exchange, and united action
- Deepen our capacity to accompany the families of victims of extrajudicial killings in the ‘war on drugs’, as well as of peace activists, human rights defenders, farmers, fisherfolks, and workers as they seek justice
We recognize that development is a diaconal work, a pilgrimage towards the fuller reign of God’s justice and peace. The vision of God for an egalitarian, inclusive, and liberating community must be at the heart of our mission for genuine development — shaping and informing our framework, strategies, structures, and ways of being. We, therefore, recommit ourselves to seek, hope, and act for genuine development that will ultimately lead us to just and enduring peace.
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1 In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the NCCP
2 This summary was lifted from the NCCP Jubilee Statement on Development of 2014.
3 3.4 million victims of threats, harassment and intimidation, including red-tagging, many of them ending up as among the 105 victims of extrajudicial killings, 12 victims of enforced disappearance, 754 political prisoners, 381 illegally arrested, 112 charged with terror law violations, 44,065 victims of indiscriminate bombings and 558 victims of forced surrender (www.karapatan.org)
5 According to the 2024 World Risk Report by Denmark’s Institute of for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict of the Ruhr University Bochum, the Philippines had the highest World Risk Index (WRI).
6 As expressed in the Tagaytay Covenant of 1985
