About ALAGADs Founding President

Diogenes Dodgie Osabel heads the ALAGAD Party-List, the party that he founded and envisioned to be the vehicle for urban poor representation in Congress. Dodgies engagement with the basic sectors (including the Dumagats of Antipolo, workers, farmers, and fisherfolk) spans almost four decades. As ALAGAD Representative in the 11th Congress, Dodgie championed the Urban Poor Agenda and pushed for the implementation of the Urban Development and Housing Act (R.A. 7279), an endeavor at the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) that he relentlessly pursued with the Bishops-Businessmens Conference, Senator Joey Lina and Rep. Consuelo Baby Puyat-Reyes. During the dark days of martial rule, Dodgie was a church and human rights worker. After the EDSA Revolution, he joined government. As PCUP Commissioner, he used his office to defend the urban poors rights with more vigor, often risking his own life. He personally looked into the complaints of the poor and visited slums and depressed communities unescorted. He once got mugged at Quezon City Hall while trying to stop the building official from illegally and forcibly demolishing urban poor dwellings. For him, the language of the Constitution is clear: Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwellings demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner. Dodgie favors dialog, and win-win mutually beneficial non-violent ways of settling disputes involving informal settlers and private landowners: Both parties must acknowledge that they are part of the problem. With a credible pro-poor but fair intermediary and competent person in authority (e.g., the mayor or barangay chairman), a smiling solution in all cases would be found. Dodgie was a working student at UP-Diliman. Despite being needy himself, many thought he was well-to-do, as he always found ways of helping others. He took up Political Science, wrote for the Philippine Collegian, and served as Chairman of the Universitys Committee on Student Affairs, the student body that replaced the university student council banned by martial law. Dodgies weekends with the Dumagats of Sierra Madre (from 1973-76) strengthened his love for the poor. He once saved the Dumagats from hunger after a terrible typhoon wiped out their crops. He led a group of UPSCAns in hiking the mountain and crossing two rivers to bring rice and medical supplies for the Dumagats. After UP, Dodgie helped organize farmers, fisherfolk, and workers, and documented the plight of the sacadas (sugar plantation workers), coconut farmers, and brutal cases of human rights abuses during martial law working with Fr. Benigno Mayo, SJ, the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Men in the Philippines, and the La Ignaciana Apostolic Center. He edited with former Senator Rene Saguisag the first opposition newspaper, Malayang Pilpinas, shut down by the military after five issues. To implement socialized housing projects for the poor needs political will, and a little imagination and resourcefulness. Dodgie had publicly challenged local executives who could only offer excuses and who still do not have any socialized housing project: Lend me the authority of your office for two weeks, and I will help your city find a solution. On one condition: should I be able to design a viable socialized housing project within two weeks, then you resign. If I fail, then I resign as Congressman... By Gods grace, when he returns to Congress, Dodgie vows to find better and more compelling ways to engage local government executives in fully implementing the Urban Development and Housing Act. Dodgie may be reached at (0939) 920-2458 or (0917) 885-1155; email dsosabel@yahoo.com.