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Introduction

The National Secretariat for Social Actions (NASSA)/Caritas Philippines is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is one of the 160 members of Caritas Internationalis and represents the Philippines. It was founded by the advocacy arm of the Catholic Church in 1966 by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)[1]. The Caritas Philippines/NASSA mission is to respond to communities that are in distress and advocate for the Filipinos on eco-political and social issues. For example, NASSA improves women's and children's rights that are affected by globalization, protect the environment and educate Filipinos on a democratic government. NASSA also works to develop programs and create partnerships in order to promote development in the Philippines.

History/ Politics

In 1965, a Priest Institute of Social Action (PISA) conference in Hong-Kong developed regulations about linking religion to social issues. The CBCP adopted these regulationshttps://www.nassa.org.ph/our-history/ and the universal Catholic church calls for social transformation in deciding to create the NASSA in 1966.

In 1969, NASSA became a member of the Securities and Exchange Commissions registered as a non-governmental and non-profit organisation. From there on, it maintained the roles of 'Justice and Peace' as an NGO.

In July- August 1972, two typhoons struck Central Luzon and the NASSA played one of its first major roles to support the 11 provinces of the Philippines that were affected. Of the population, 2.4 million Filipinos were directly affected, 653 deceased, 7,000 had to be hospitalized and 370,647 people became homeless. The total damage was valued at $220 million. The rain went on for 16 consecutive days from July 8-16 and caused a total of 6 feet of rain on rice lands and 16 feet in the mountain ranges.

In 1972, NASSA and the population were creating movements to resist the Marcos regime. Catholics had ideological ideas but the population had different ones. The institutions and the different groups in the population would not come to a term. The whole country was considered to be in disorder amidst left wing challenges. President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law to extend his presidency and to stop the left wing from growing in power. The liberation front and Senator Benigno Aquino were rapidly growing in popularity to the point that Marcos exiled Aquino from the Philippines. Later on, when Aquino returned back to his country, he was shot in the head at the Manila International Airport. Once Marcos changed the constitution to claim full power, tensions increased within the Catholic church and its institutions. NASSA and the CBCP had different views on martial law. The CBCP was conservative. On the other hand NASSA was not conservative but took a radical position meaning that they opposed the imposition of the martial law and claimed independence from the bishops.

Due to those two main events, Caritas Internationalis funded NASSA.[2] In May 1975, NASSA was designated to become part of Caritas Internationalis to represent the Philippines in the Catholic confederation Caritas. In 2016, NASSA celebrated 50 years of operations.

Structure

Caritas Philippines/ NASSA was designated to represent the Philippines on a global scale as a member of Caritas Internationalis. It is one of 160 members, each of them representing a country in the Caritas Internationalis confederation. All those members of Caritas Internationalis, including Caritas Philippines, share one goal: to help the poor who struggle with legitimate issues and their daily lives.

Governance

The NASSA works with a total of 85 dioceses in the Philippines. Every other year, the social action workers from the diocese meet at the conference of National Social Action General Assembly (NASAGA) to discuss the social actions of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Caritas Internationalis is currently directed by a Filipino president: Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle.

The Board Members of NASSA:

Chairperson

Most Rev. Rolando J. Tria tirona, OCD

Vice-Chairperson

Most Rev. Emmanuel C. Trance, DD

Corporate Secretary

Most Rev. Jose Colin M. Bagaforo, DD

Treasurer

Most. Rev. John F. Du, DD

Members

Most Rev. Jose F. Advincula, DD

Most Rev. Sofronio A. .Bancud, SSS, DD

Most Rev. Martin S. Jumoad, DD

Most. Rev. Valentin Dimoc, DD

Executive Secretary

Rev. Fr. Edwin A. Gariguez

Social Action Network Representative

Rev. Fr. Rex Paul Arjona

Activities

Humanitarian Activities

• Yolanda Rehabilitation Program: REACHPhilippines

In November 2013, the Philippines were hit by a typhoon named Haiyan, locally named Yolanda, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded. It was Category 5 storm. The three-year Yolanda Rehabilitation program was intended to help the communities to have a more sustainable and resilient life.

In June 2016, the president of Caritas Internationalis, Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, made a symbolic visit to the survivors in Basey to close the rehabilitation program.

• Emergency Responses

NASSA has mostly helped families who needed shelter and sent food, medication and hygiene kits after the many storms and typhoons that hit the country. The Philippines are one of the countries that is the most affected by climate disasters even though it is one of the countries that has the least impact on climate change.

• Marawi Response

On May 23, 2017, in the city of Marawi, an armed conflict between the Philippines Government and the ISIS came up. More than 100,000 families had to escape to nearby provinces and the government had to declare Martial law. The NASSA with the Diocese of Illigan took care of 3,000 families by sending them hygiene kits, food medications and many other supplies in order to help them survive.

• Typhoon Nina (Nook-Ten)

One of the strongest typhoons in the Philippines hit in 2016 around Christmas time. The government had a hard time convincing the people to abandon their places but managed to do so. The typhoon caused huge infrastructural and agricultural ravages and affected 446,496 families. NASSA is partnering with Caritas Australia to help provide food supplies and repairs of the infrastructures in order to help the 4,177 households.

• Typhoon Lawin (Haima)

This was another super typhoon that mostly affected 200,000 people in Northern Luzon. NASSA intervened by making infrastructure repairs, sending emergency kits, food and shelter to help 23,500 Filipinos.

• Typhoon Nona (Melor)

On December 18 2015, this typhoon affected 165,554 families in the Philippines in the provinces of Northern Samar, Sorsogon, Masbate, Romblon and Oriental Mindoro. NASSA created a nine-month program to help them recover from this catastrophe in partnership with affected dioceses of Catarman, Romblon and Sorsogon.

• Project Shared

Because of many of the environmental disasters, NASSA decided to create a program that help Filipinos undergo Emergency Preparedness and Response Training Modules on planning, designing, implementing and monitoring. The program started in March 2016 and will end in December 2018.

Developmental Activities

• Sustainable Agriculture

The Sustainable Agriculture program is a program that helps promote the practice of sustainable farming for the environment. For example, NASSA helps the population by projecting initiatives to make organic farming and encourage the consumer to buy the organic goods. They also try to promote farmers' rights. Lastly, skills are transferred to them making new ways to make farming possible.

• FarmFirst

The Farming and Resource Management for Increased Resilience and Technical Skills for Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation (FARMFIRST) is a five year program that helps prepare the population for an eventual climate disaster through managing food and being able to handle natural resources on their own.

• Self Help group

Advocacy Activities

• Ecological Campaigns

These campaigns address the issues of deforestation, coal mining, marine exploitation and solid waster disposal by gathering environmental activists to prevent those dangerous activities.

• Peacefully Building, Human Rights and Good Governance

The Philippines is a country that is not considered to be a foreign policy promoter since its democratic rating and human development index is too poor to be considered as one. This program addresses the issues of general human rights in the country. Activities are organized to advocate for these rights.

• HIV-AIDS Prevention

On average, there are 26 cases of HIV per day in the Philippines. Therefore, in order to decrease the amount of cases the NASSA decided to launch a campaign to bring awareness.

• Agrarian Justice

The NASSA decided to develop two Reform Agrarian Projects, which aim to help ratify the whole agricultural system by making policies for farmers' land rights. This is usually done by redistributing land to the farmers that they have worked on for years.This program is funded by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, and MISEREOR of Germany. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of 1988 (CARP) was not very successful towards the landless. Therefore, through those reforms, NASSA helped farmers to own the lands that they have worked on for a long time.

Philosophy

The philosophy of NASSA can be shown through the example of the natural disaster that happened in the Philippines in 2013 with the cyclone Typhoon Haiyan. In response to this catastrophe Development and Peace and NASSA and many other NGOs within Caritas combined their efforts to help the Philippines to reach a more sustainable life.[3] Their program included creating a sustainable living for the population through steps such as constructing houses for families. They also created Community Organizations that helped Filipinos to express themselves on the local and national scale. These communities strive to work together in order counter the problems of the country. However, the main goal of this project is to address the vicious circle of poverty (meaning the poorer do not become poorer) and to address the vulnerability of the Filipinos to natural disasters. Development and Peace and NASSA are driven to create an "Integrated, Driven and Model Community" for the Filipinos, where resident homes are to be build and be able to cope with the future natural disasters.

Both NGOs aim to reduce as many inequalities possible and ensure local people can live a sustainable life in a long term.

See also

Caritas Internationalis

https://www.caritas.org/who-we-are/

https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/asia/philippines/

comment

I know that some source problems slowed this down and I am confident you can do a good job on this topic. The lead section gives the facts, which is useful. As you develop it, do be sure to keep the focus on the National Secretariat in the Philippines more than Caritas International (though Caritas will of course be relevant throughout.) Dwebsterbu (talk) 14:53, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review:

My advice would be to re-work the introduction by removing words such as “lastly” since this is a wikipedia article and does not require an essay form writing. Further, I would broaden the introduction, if possible. Some information seems to be lacking, for instance, when discussing HIV/AIDS what campaign was launched to bring awareness and did it end up being successful? This seems to be an interesting topic, good work!

Peer Review #2

Great work so far, I think it can be turned into a great article. Some formatting needs to be done, take advantage of Wikipedia's bulletpoint system rather than making your own hashmarks with the ' - ' symbol. Activities section is excellent, very well researched and put together. Your introduction needs to be reworked for some simple word changes and grammatical errors, but otherwise is fine - move it above the table of contents rather than below your first subsection. I assume the 'draft' subsection is temporary? If not, move those links under a "see also" section. Overall, very well done! Keep up the good work!

Aidan Cooke