Dignity, Not Endorsements: When Aid Becomes a Tool of Control

Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David has once again struck a nerve — and this time, the wound is moral.

Calling the MAIFIP budget hike a “violation of human dignity,” the Cardinal exposed a truth many Filipinos quietly live with:
when access to health care depends on a politician’s signature, dignity is already lost.

MAIFIP, on paper, sounds compassionate.
In practice, it risks becoming another health pork barrel — aid dispensed not by need, but by loyalty.
Not by urgency, but by endorsement.
Not by rights, but by gratitude politics.

And that’s the danger.

The Cardinal warned that systems like these normalize begging — forcing the poor to ask favors for services they are already entitled to as citizens. That is not charity. That is control.

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Scripture speaks plainly:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws… who deprive the poor of their rights.” — Isaiah 10:1–2

A government that truly serves does not make the sick line up for signatures.
A just system does not turn illness into a campaign opportunity.
And a dignified society does not teach its poorest citizens that survival depends on knowing the right politician.

Here’s the uncomfortable question many are now asking:

Why expand discretionary aid programs when PhilHealth and DOH systems already exist to deliver universal care — without political mediation?

Under past reforms, health services were meant to be institutional, automatic, and dignified.
But when politicians reinsert themselves into the process, aid stops being public service and becomes utang-na-loob politics.

This is where faith must speak — not as opposition, but as conscience.

The Cardinal’s message is not anti-government.
It is anti-humiliation.
Anti-dependence.
Anti-systems that quietly train citizens to kneel instead of stand.

Because when the poor are taught to beg for what is rightfully theirs,
the problem is no longer budget size —
the problem is the soul of governance itself.

A nation restores dignity not by louder speeches,
but by building systems where help is given because it is just — not because someone endorsed it.