‘Ber’ months and the race for survival

The orange tint from the sunset outside peeks through the window blinds. The “ber” months have finally come.

Evenings are becoming brighter and more beautiful, filled with Christmas lights carefully hung outside commercial establishments.

The weather is still quite unpredictable, but the nights are getting longer and colder.

Days come by so quickly, don’t they?

At times, I still can’t believe that seven months have already passed since my community practicum in a rural area in Cavite ended.

We were assigned to the area to analyze the community’s local nutrition situation and launch the planning, implementation and monitoring of nutrition programs.

For six weeks, I woke up in an uncomfortable bed with my three group mates. Every morning, we carefully treaded the steep, seemingly unstable wooden stairs of our foster home.

But those days of being warmly welcomed into secluded houses and being offered hot three-in-one coffee and stale bread by families with eight children who were almost always either sick, stick-thin, stunted, or any combination of which, are gone.

Mornings then were peaceful and filled with genuine smiles as people greeted each other.

The afternoon sun emitted intense, hot rays, but the nights were serene and the cloudless sky was like a canvas beautifully painted with clear, twinkling stars.

Seven months have already passed since I came back to the comfort of a stable concrete home; since I started waking up again at six in the morning to the sound of buzzing cars and beeping jeepneys eager to reach their daily quota.

The beggars by the footbridge, clad in ripped and dirty clothes, kneel with one arm extended to every passerby every day without fail.

The people continue to walk past them, either indifferent or in too much hurry to be bothered to give alms.

The air, whatever time of the day it may be, is always thick with smoke and dust. Everyone looks fatigued and the city never rests.

Days come by as quickly as things change. The daily news is full of stories about how the rich keep getting richer, how those elected in government positions continue to point fingers at each other, and how our people are getting murdered.

Aside from these, the prices of food items and transport fares are increasing drastically.

Every drop in the peso’s value is reflected in the faces of poor people who are becoming more and more desperate. The beggars’ tin cans contain fewer than usual coins. The people that pass by them, with bags under their eyes, catch up on sleep while stuck in heavy traffic.

In this cruel race for survival, the sick, the poor and the marginalized have no fighting chance on their own. Regardless of where you live or what kind of mornings you may wake up to, this has become our undeniable reality. No one knows what tomorrow will bring.

The sun sets and its orange tint settles first. The “ber” months have finally come.

For some, the evenings are brighter and more beautiful. The darkness emphasizes how the night is filled with Christmas lights carefully hung outside commercial establishments.

But for many others, nothing has changed, except that the grim nights are, without a doubt, getting longer and colder.

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Ma. Angelica S. Garcia, 20, is a fresh graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman.