All in the Neighborhood
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By Jo-Ann Q. Magpilon
In our neighborhood, there is a bunch of four girls, ages ranging from five to eight, always in the same clothes, that goes around pressing doorbells. Even when a storm is threatening and everyone is panicking to get inside, they're out there pressing doorbells. And every time, their line is: "Pahingi lang po nang kahit anong tulong."
One day recently a neighbor passed by them at a street corner. All four were squatting and stuffing themselves with biscuits they'd solicited. It was past 1 p.m. and this was their lunch. My neighbor backed up her car and, although everyone has told her not to give, that giving encourages mendicancy, that a syndicate runs these things, she handed them a 100-peso bill. She wanted them to go get soft drinks or whatever, said she, because in her mind she imagined them choking on the biscuits! They were eating those things so fast, white powdery stuff had caked their faces. And the four thanked her profusely.
Anyway, in a few minutes the girls had resumed walking, eventually getting to my neighbor's gate. The girls recognized her car and, smiling shyly, backed off. But as they walked away, my neighbor made her own pitch: "Puede kaya, huwag niyo namang araw-arawin?"
One of them smiled sweetly and asked, "E kelan niyo po kami gustong magbalik?"
To which my neighbor laughed and said, "Sineryoso niyo naman. E asan ba ang mga magulang niyo?"
One of the girls answered, "Nasa bahay po."
It turned out that they lived in the squatters' place around UP Bliss, their mother took in laundry, and their father couldn't find a job. My neighbor guessed that there was little chance things would be changing for these kids in the next several months. So, mendicancy or not, she knew she would be giving them something again when they returned. It simply didn't feel right, said she, that she can buy herself a 27-inch TV while these kids were out there grateful just to have biscuit to stuff themselves with at one in the afternoon.
It can get overwhelming.
I just found out that the men who completed work on my roof deck are all without jobs these days. Their prospects have all fallen by the wayside. One family that needed them for a wall through which water was seeping went for a cheaper team. A mother that wanted them to fix a fence which crashed to the ground completely has yet to put her money together. A doctor who initially wanted them to build him a steel gate was now demanding that the carpenters come up with a complete design of it first.
Pilo, one of the fellows, says they can't find anyone who even wants small repairs done on their homes these days. "Lahat ho yata ayaw maglabas ng pera," he theorizes. And because of this, some days his children have had to skip school. Just the other day, it was because he had no money for their jeepney fare.
There is no returning to his old job at the factory because the management-union problems there are still ongoing. Although, he says, scabs have been keeping the factory going. Anyway, these days he's thinking of feeding his family by buying and selling fish and vegetables, but he needs a P2,000 capital. And the company where his wife works will not hire her until close to Christmas when there is more business to be made.
Several blocks away, the group FIND-Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance-is itself decimated. It's supposed to have sure funds from the national budget. When Edcel Lagman was a congressman, he had made certain of that. But all of its follow-ups with the Department of Budget and Management have resulted in nothing; the DBM says it just doesn't have the money.
Already, FIND has let go of all its fulltime staff. Its remaining staff can only be paid for work done three days a week. And although everyone keeps reporting for work anyway, it's not likely things will remain this way. Many, if not all, of its people are without rich parents or rich spouses to subsidize their politics.
And FIND is political work. It is about completing documentation work on at least 1,600 cases of disappearances. It is about training volunteers in Cebu and Davao and elsewhere on wherefores of investigation that can stand up to legal scrutiny. It is also about getting blanket authorization from government agencies to locate and identify and exhume. And it is again about working closely with forensic experts and foreign supporters. Without regular staff, who is to do all this work?
What's the point to all this?
Well, I just thought I needed reminding that there are real wants and needs out there-lest, with the sound and fury all around of powerful men wanting more power, I fail to hear.-Reprinted from The Manila Times
Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon writes the column "Tall Tales" for The Manila Times. She is also the author of a collection of essays entitled Primed (Anvil Publishing, Inc.).
