Caritas Philippines warned against normalized injustice and called Filipinos to move beyond charity toward systemic change as it launched the 2026 Alay Kapwa Lenten Campaign on Ash Wednesday.
In a circular dated February 18, 2026, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos, president of Caritas Philippines, said Lent is a season that demands more than personal devotion, describing it as a time for “communal and structural conversion.”
The campaign theme, “Sulong Padayon: Pananagutan sa Pagbabago, Pag-asa ng Pilipino,” combines Filipino and Visayan terms that translate to “Move Forward: Accountability in Change, Hope of the Filipino.”
“Alay Kapwa,” a long-running Lenten program whose name means “offering to one’s neighbor,” is marking its 51st year.
Alminaza stressed that the most meaningful “offering” during Lent is “not just spare change, but a commitment to be agents of structural change.”
“Almsgiving becomes more than charity. It becomes stewardship. It becomes participation in transforming our nation’s future,” the prelate said.
Quoting Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 Lenten message, he said, “Lent is a time in which the Church, guided by a sense of maternal care, invites us to place the mystery of God back in the center of our lives.”
“I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry,” Alminaza added.
Citing the papal document Dilexi Te, the bishop reminded the faithful that the condition of the poor “is a cry that, throughout human history, constantly challenges our lives, societies, political and economic systems, and, not least, the Church.”
He also acknowledged that “the commitment to the poor and to removing the social and structural causes of poverty… remains insufficient.”
Alminaza warned of a culture “that discards others without even realizing it and tolerates with indifference that millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings.”
“These are tolerated evils,” the circular said, describing them as “normalized inequalities” and “systems that exclude,” he said.
The bishop also connected fasting to social accountability, quoting the Holy Father’s teaching that fasting “makes it easier to recognize what we ‘hunger’ for and what we deem necessary for our sustenance.”
He added that fasting keeps “our hunger and thirst for justice alive and freeing us from complacency.”
As Alay Kapwa approaches its 51st anniversary, Alminaza described the milestone not as a conclusion but as “an ‘unfinished symphony’.”
Through seven legacy programs grouped under themes translated as Forging Hope (Pag-asa), Forging Accountability (Pananagutan), and Forging Transformation (Pagbabago), the campaign seeks to move “from relief to resilience, from charity to transformation.”
The prelate called on the faithful to “choose hope over despair and action over indifference,” to “fast from complacency,” and to respond in ways that are “faithful, accountable, and transformative.”
