New City - Dialogue

Never, as in these last few years, has the
present economic system proven to be so fragile and unsustainable; the financial downturn of many large corporations and the energy crisis all point to the fact that the world economy, as conceived over the past two centuries, is gravely ill. At the same time, never as in these years has there been such a blossoming of new forms of social economics, such as equitable commerce, ethical financing, and critical consumption. Such phenomena give hope that a sustainable economy and development is possible. One of these initiatives is the Economy of Communion project.
Chiara Lubich launched the project in 1991, after having seen the plight of the poor in Brazil. Since then around 750 businesses around the world operate to make profits… and share them with the poor. Chiara recently commented: “Unlike the consumer economy, which is based on a culture of acquisition, the Economy of Communion is an economy of giving. This might appear difficult, arduous, even heroic, but it is not so: the human person created in the image of God, who is love, finds fulfillment in loving, in giving. Believer and non-believer alike experience this same yearning in the depths of their being. It is this knowledge, springing from our experience, that gives us hope for a universal spread of the Economy of Communion.” The signs of this freedom, and the roots of a new economy, lie within each person.

The Economy of Communion (EoC) also immediately attracted some Filipino Focolare members. Tita Puangco for instance, left her good paying job to start Ancilla, a training and management consulting company that tries to lend a helping hand to leaders, organizations and enterprises. “We help them develop their corporate strategy, to manage programs of change to meet those strategies and to develop their people so that they become capable of implementing them.” Ancilla’s Business Training Center handles behavioral and management programs. One of its leading products is “the Rainbow Life” which helps people gain integration as well as enabling them to achieve work and life balance. Team building is essential to the program. Tita also offers advice through a column in the business section of a popular national newspaper.

   Other companies that were already established also joined the EoC project. Since 1986 Floro Flores had been running Asia/Pacific Circulation Exponents, Inc. (APCEI), a small business marketing and distributing foreign publications. “When I heard Chiara’s proposal, I was still the minor partner in our company. But immediately, my wife Tess and I agreed that we would commit ourselves to share all that we had, no matter how small it was. Even before we could give the first centavo to the Economy of Communion, my partner came to me in September of that year and told me he wanted to sell me his share in the company. So a year later, in September 1992, our family became the principal owner of the company.”
   Today, APCEI employs around 130 people, and has been able to share part of its profits with the poor, while providing good benefits to its employees. “As any employer would do,” Floro says, “we hire people who are qualified for the job. We pay them well and extend benefits because this is part of our role as an employer and our duty as Christians. If they become better employees, then we are happy.”
   Recently, Floro and Tess have moved to South Africa, to share the life of unity in that country. But they left their company in good hands. “We left Manila with a deep sense of gratitude to God,” Tess says, “for giving us the grace to leave everything for His glory… In Johannesburg, we realized that we had not really left anything behind—in fact we found the same ‘people of the Gospel’ we were living with in the Focolare community of the Philippines.”

   Another company involved in EoC is Bangko Kabayan—a small family-owned but professionally managed business set up in 1957. However, with the passing of time, the bank encountered many problems. It was experiencing difficulty when Francis and Tess Ganzon got involved in 1977. It took more than ten years of hard work to reestablish client confidence and avert the closure of the bank. Francis and Tess consider their involvement in the Economy of Communion project of the Focolare a milestone in the history of the Bank. “In 1991,” Francis says, “when we heard of the Economy of Communion, it refocused our vision, in so far as the business enterprise is concerned. Among other things, it meant part of the profits of the organization would be utilized for the needs of the poor. And not only that, the other part of the profit would be invested in structures that would inculcate, develop and sustain a new culture, the ‘Culture of Giving’ as it’s called, which would be the very foundation of the Economy of Communion. And this we liked very much.”
   During the Asian financial crisis in 1997 when markets for loans dropped dramatically, the bank had to explore new markets. This, and their concern to help alleviate poverty, drove the Ganzons to venture into micro-financing, catering to the so-called “unbankables,” like small entrepreneurs who don’t have collateral to put up as security. Tess Ganzon shares: “We were very cautious because of past experiences with unpaid loans. So we first tried it out through the social arm of the bank, which is the Foundation. And in a short period of time, we realized it could really be a viable product for the bank.”
   Based on the Grameen Bank’s micro-credit initiative conceived in Bangladesh in 1976 by Mohammed Yunus, Bangko Kabayan’s microfinance project addresses the need for training and working together as a community, thus guaranteeing repayment of loans to a great extent. Women are organized into cells and bigger groups called centers. Almost 4,000 families have already benefited from the program. Bangko Kabayan is now the largest rural bank in the region and the sixth most profitable rural bank of the over 700 rural banks in the country. “In conducting our business as part of the Economy of Communion,” Tess concludes, “we have become aware of an unseen hand helping in our operations, or what we call Providence.”