Velasco is known for his painting, Hapag ng Pagasa (“Table of Hope”). A quick Internet search will reveal countless blogs entries and forum threads dedicated to it. It has inspired and influenced people to reflect on the country’s worsening poverty. Many have been moved enough to donate to charitable institutions dedicated to helping the poor.

One of them is Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga fame, an anti-poverty program meant to uplift the pitiful conditions of the homeless. In his foreword in Velasco’s book, They Have Jesus: The Story of the Children of Hapag, Meloto writes, “I first saw a replica of the Hapag painting on a billboard along Edsa near the Guadalupe bridge. The faces and appearances of the children in the painting look all too familiar. I see them everywhere. They march in and out of our consciousness without evoking emotions of pity or disgust. They are simply part of the landscape, their numbers growing every day. Poverty stares at us in every corner of the land daily that we no longer see it.”

Velasco was impelled to paint Hapag ng Pag-asa by his children. He said he wanted to give them a constant, visual reminder to never waste food, never to be picky, and never to complain about the food they are eating. “I chose the real street children as subjects so that my kids can relate to them.”

In choosing his subjects, he went around Payatas, North Cemetery, and even under bridges, and handpicked 11 children that he described as the most hungry-looking. He took photos of them, treating them to snacks in exchange. The outcome was a depiction of the Last Supper of Christ but with a twist: real street urchins portray the disciples surrounding Christ. “The only fictional character is the 12^th child under the table, although he symbolizes me as a person,” Velasco stressed.

Little did he know that his painting would spark a moral, visual and Internet revolution. No less than the Archbishop of Manila Gaudencio Rosales was moved. Rosales has said that Velasco’s portrait of the young compels us to ask ourselves questions: “Rather than ask ‘why’ these young people live in such an unkind and violent world, the challenge to the beholder of the portrait should be ‘how’ in a Christian community the poor children could be helped out of such misery,” the cardinal said.

The Catholic Church’s admiration for Joey’s painting has made it a favorite symbol of poverty. It has been exhibited numerous times in churches all over the country. Some of Velasco’s paintings have also been used by Gawad Kalinga as symbols of their housing programs.

Velasco claims his paintings are not done by him but by a higher power, explaining that God only uses him as His instrument to propagate goodness. He started painting in 2005 when he was stricken with a kidney disease, which left him in crutches. Because of this, he became depressed and locked himself up for months in his room. “I couldn’t accept my faith at that time. I simply cannot fathom myself being dependent on others,” he said. But when he started painting, it became his catharsis.