Fair-Trade and organic can help end dire poverty

WHEN I first came to the Philippines in 1969 as Columban missionary from Ireland, I was made to feel welcome and accepted by the Filipino people. They are an intelligent friendly and a proud people, that suffer poverty today as a consequence of conquest by colonial powers that subjugated them politically and economically.

This is the great injustice and historical wrong that has made this a nation of “perpetual poverty” where 1 percent of the population rules the rest. To this day some 14O elite families and thousands of their cronies and relatives dominate congress and all aspects of government and economic life.