Unlearning, relearning and learning anew

This piece forms part of a series of essays about Possible Now, see the others:

• Blossoming at a new dawn – 30 years of Indonesia for Humanity
• Coming alongside Possible Now: From social innovation to a good society
• Dignity isn’t the by-product of development. It’s the foundation.
• Exploring the future of a good society – relational networks focused on collective change and transformation
• From garden minds to garden practice: Supporting organizational regeneration while the ground is still shaking
• Possible Now and the journey from machine mind to garden mind). 

The moment calls for it

Loreine B. Dela Cruz & Michael Vincent Mercado, Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) Foundation

For those working in philanthropy, development and humanitarian action, the scale of disruption over the past years needs little introduction. The unprecedented crisis is affecting local and national actors worldwide, including in the Philippines. This moment is prompting an uncomfortable but necessary reflection for all actors – civil society organizations, government, and communities alike. At the Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) Foundation, we will not be waiting for new funding streams to emerge. What we are instead focusing on is something that has always been there: the power of communities to support themselves and each other. We are also choosing to embrace transformation in a time of crisis. We will be journeying together in pursuit of systems change, with our national and international partners alike, and asking ourselves, “What is Possible Now?”

What systems change means for us: A necessary shift in mindset

Systems change is not only about reforming structures; it must begin with transforming the way we think, imagine, and act. At its heart lies a mindset shift: the courage to let go of old assumptions, reclaim overlooked wisdom, and embrace new ways of seeing and doing. We must move from control to collaboration, from scarcity to possibility, from exclusion to dignity. We must be challenged to replace resignation with imagination, fear with courage, and fragmentation with solidarity. Naming these shifts, in our own house first, is where the journey has to begin.

A mindset shift serves as the gateway to the journey of change. It is not linear but cyclical – a continual turning away from the old logic of command and compliance toward a new logic of participation, shared responsibility, and imagination. It invites us to dream differently, embody futures beyond what seems possible, and anchor those dreams in collective action.

By centering a mindset shift, we recognize that systems change requires more than technical fixes. It demands cultural renewal, narrative reframing, and empowering actors at every level. This is how transformation becomes sustainable: when people themselves become the authors of change. Without a mindset shift, change remains technical and fragile. With it, change becomes cultural and enduring, woven into how people see themselves, each other, and the future. It is the difference between tinkering at the edges and rewriting the story of what is Possible Now.

Movements of transformation

We are very much aware that mindsets rarely shift by argument. They shift when people do something differently with real resources and find that it holds. So, moving forward on this journey, there are three specific and concrete movements of transformation that we are undertaking as an organization:

• Unlearning, which is releasing patterns that sustain broken systems and no longer serve – habits of scarcity, control, and exclusion that keep us bound to outdated logics.
• Relearning, which is recovering truths that have been side lined – interdependence, dignity, and community as the foundations of resilient systems.
• Learning anew, which is cultivating practices of collaboration, creativity and trust that allow us to build systems that are just, life-giving and sustainable. It is also about learning anew how to act with imagination, solidarity and hope.

Unlearning: The habits the old system installed in all of us

We should be specific about what we’re shifting away from, or the shift remains simply a slogan. The traditional development and humanitarian aid system not only misallocates money. It taught all of us, including our organization, a set of working habits that now feel like an affront to plain common sense:

• That a community’s story begins with what it lacks. Almost every proposal, report, and film opens with need, and that single convention does more than any other to erase what was already there.
• That money must pass through an intermediary able to absorb compliance, which quietly turns registration papers into the price of admission and places a broker between a community and its own resources.
• That the project cycle is the natural unit of change. Five-year cycles produce five-year institutions, and we have our own records to prove this.
• That themes are set where the money is raised, and communities are expected to fit into these themes.
• That capacity flows in one direction, from those who hold funds towards those who do not.
• That consultation is participation, and that being heard is the same as deciding.
• That accountability points upward to the funder, rather than sideways to peers and downward to the people most affected.
• That size is seriousness, and that budget, scale, and an organization’s asset base become more important than whether that organization’s work actually matters.

Relearning: What was already here before the system arrived

Relearning starts with the recognition that this country was never short of practice. 78% of Filipinos gave in 2025, against a global average of 61%, and 54% gave directly to a person or family in need rather than through an organization. Overseas Filipinos sent home a record US $35.63 billion in the same year. Bayanihan, damayan, abuloy, pagkakaloob, paluwagan, the hermano and hermana mayor, and the community pantries of 2021 are not sentiment. They are working local mechanisms for pooling and allocating resources, with rules, sanctions, and accountability that people actually observe.

Humanitarian and development systems did not remove generosity; they simply rendered it invisible because it did not travel through a vehicle a donor recognizes, audits, or counts. Relearning, therefore, means treating these practices as infrastructure rather than as culture, and asking of them the practical questions we would ask of any financial mechanism: who decides, who is accountable to whom, what the running costs are, and what would have to be true for it to hold money in its own right? The cooperative Community Development Fund in the Philippines – mandated in law and governed by members – is the clearest case of an instrument that has been in front of us the whole time, and that the philanthropy conversation has never counted.

Learning anew: What neither the old system nor our own traditions already answer

Unlearning and relearning are not sufficient on their own, and nostalgia is a trap of its own making. Part of what we face is genuinely new, and nobody in the room holds the answer yet. Which Philippine legal form can hold community money when an unregistered peoples’ organization cannot open a bank account, own property, or receive most grants? Whether the cooperative Community Development Fund can carry community grantmaking, and what would it take to do so? How do communities access digital giving platforms that already reach almost everyone but are gated by accreditation thresholds they cannot meet? What does honest cost recovery look like when the funder is a community rather than an institution? How public sponsorship is kept from sliding back into patronage in a country where the sponsor’s role is already political? These are all open questions that we look forward to discussing with partners and allies.

What we ask of those who resource this work

We cannot ask only the people closest to a crisis to unlearn, relearn, and learn anew. If we are asked as intermediaries, we also ask those who are up for resourcing this kind of work. In practice, that means resourcing institutions rather than projects, accepting a harvest that contradicts the proposal it was paid for, allowing an allocation decision to sit outside the organization that holds the grant, and judging “results” by whether the work outlives the funding rather than by how much money moved. We choose to name this explicitly, as while resources are appreciated, those that ask only communities to change would be the old system speaking in newer language.

The systems change journey is both personal and collective. Unlearning, relearning, and learning anew are not isolated steps, but a shared rhythm of renewal. By taking these steps together, we can become the constellations of people who can sustain transformation collectively.

When crisis becomes renewal

We must be vigilant: old patterns reappear quickly in new clothes. Localization becomes decentralized delivery, participation becomes consultation, and community philanthropy becomes a gentler version of the same aid relationship.

But we remain convinced that choosing transformation, committing to systems change, and continuing to question what is Possible Now is choosing courage. It is refusing to resign and, instead, resolving to build anew. In a world gripped by converging crises, it is the only path that matches the urgency of our time. This journey is not easy, but it is the foundation of transformation – the crucible where constraint becomes possibility, crisis becomes renewal, and humanity rises together toward life, justice, and hope.

By: Loreine B. Dela Cruz, Executive Director, and Michael Vincent Mercado, Program Manager at the Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) Foundation in the Philippines.