In several key speeches he called for a new partnership between the developed and the developing worlds that would reflect their mutual dependence. The human costs of the international debt burden is intolerable. Its effects are evil and sinful. The discussion quickly moved beyond abstractions as bishops offered personal testimonies of the effects of the debt trap. A bishop from Zambia said that the rural poor of his country are lucky to have one meal a day and the extended family is breaking down in the struggle to survive.
Many children take to city streets to beg in an effort to help.
Much of the debt was incurred during the corrupt Marcos regime. We are fighting to live with dignity and cannot win this war because we do not have the power to win it on the streets of Manila alone. But it can be won in the streets of London and Washington by those who have the power. Several bishops pointed to the underlying economic order as a major source of the problem. He is convinced that it will be necessary to change the underlying unjust global structures for people to become fully human.