Avenida cruising

published 16 March 2007

Most evenings when I don’t have a ride, I take the jeep straight from Port Area to Valenzuela. After passing by SM City Manila and the Sta. Cruz area, the vehicle then traverses the entire length of Rizal Avenue.

There is a strip of that avenue, sometimes before the Blumentritt junction and sometimes after, when a child, usually barefoot and dressed in tattered, filthy clothes, startles passengers as he wipes their shoes with an equally filthy piece of cloth, purporting to shine them.

Then, after wiping the shoes of everybody inside the vehicle, the child does the rounds of passengers a second time. This time, he looks imploringly at each person and outstretches his tiny, grimy hands.

If he’s lucky, one or two passengers fish for coins from their bags or pockets. Then he leaps off the jeepney, not seeming to mind the danger of being run over by incoming vehicles.

In the school I attended from kindergarten to fourth year high, we were taught not to give to beggars. We were told that poverty should not be addressed piecemeal but in a systematic, organized manner. The nuns said that was what parishes, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, non-government organizations and many charity groups were already attempting to do.

We were warned that beggars were controlled by syndicates, and our dole-outs would not even go to the person who asked for them.

We were advised that the best way to deal with poverty was to contribute time or money to any of these organizations, study hard, and, in the silence of hearts (whatever the hell that means), pray.

The warnings worked well. Now, many years after I’ve gone out to the real world, looking at those asking for help with distrust has been like a reflex thing. It is like my teachers’ words play automatically when there is someone beside me, nudging me for spare change.

It’s not so difficult all the time. For example, it is easy to play deaf, dumb, or sleepy to those people who climb into public vehicles handing you envelopes or lengthy letters for such and such cause.

It is also not difficult to say no to vendors of sampaguitas outside of churches or in the streets. After all, they could easily sell their goods to other people. Assuming you don’t think you really need or want sampaguitas at all.

But how can you say no to this boy of five who looks you straight in the eye, pleading as though his life depended on whatever it is you’re going to give him? And doesn’t he remind you of your own little boy, who is about the same age and who is at that moment probably glued to Nickelodeon while waiting for you to arrive with a pack of Jellyace from the nearby convenience store?

It helps if you’ve got some food, albeit leftover, in your bag. Food is always good. It is never a currency, so it always goes straight to its beneficiary. It nourishes, both literally and figuratively. So even if you can’t fill up this hungry child every day, you can do so that moment, that particular meal. In doing so you can also hope to lift up his spirits a little.

But chances are, you’ll have coins and not biscuits to give away. Struggle for a moment with the nuns’ warnings again in your ear. Those coins will probably never do them any good. They will probably go to the jars of the burly men in leather jackets, those who control the syndicates, just like in the movies. Or they may go to preying rugby dealers.

Then, remember, too, that you don’t really know whether perhaps these coins would go to the children’s mothers to add to their funds to buy food to tide them through that mealtime.

And, even if the child really belonged to some syndicate, wouldn’t those coins perhaps save him from the wrath of the big guys, if we are to go by stereotype that these guys hit or punish their members who don’t “produce?”

You decide to part with your five-peso coin.

***

Poverty, just like corruption, is a very formidable enemy. The two are inextricable, especially in third world countries like ours. I believe, however, that poverty is more pressing, as it is depressing. The premise of corruption is the presence of something to grab, however wrongfully. On the other hand, poverty deals with Nothing—the absence of basic satisfaction, the presence of perennial want.

This is not to say that nothing is being done. The Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations say much about the international community’s desire to make life and living better for more people, regardless of boundaries. Here in the Philippines, government agencies such as the National Anti-Poverty Commission employ more scientific and objective methods to make the disparity between the rich and the poor narrower. The social welfare department undertakes the development of various segments of people who are, in one way or the other, desolate. And the nuns were right, too, many organizations make it their mission to provide help on a longer-term basis, through programs, projects and the like.

In spite of all these, “helping the poor” still seems like the mother of all motherhood statements. It sounds like something a character like Eddie Gil would utter with a straight face.

So we are overcome by our helplessness in making life better for more people. The fight would take a lot of time. A lot of planning. A lot of disappointments and sacrifice. Chances are, we won’t see the difference in this lifetime. Chances are, some would realize this was an exercise in futility and go back to dreaming of fancy cars and posh villas, and maybe decide to abandon the Philippines for greener pastures.

But to some, the memory of the imploring eyes of the boy in the jeep lingers. And we comfort ourselves with the thought that, hey, perhaps I made a difference to this one.

And we decide to take jeepney rides more often, not because they are cheap, but because we need to be reminded how very lucky we really are, and that there is something terribly wrong in just sitting there