Give the kids a chance

What an extraordinary life Cris “Kesz” Valdez has lived—and he’s only 13! Physically abused by his father, he began scavenging in garbage dumps when he was two years old, and was living in the streets by the time he was four. It was only after he fell into a pile of burning tires that an encounter with community worker Harnin Manalaysay turned his life around. When he was seven, Kesz founded Championing Community Children, a charity organization that distributed “Gifts of Hope”—packages containing toys, slippers and candy—to thousands of other street children.

For his achievement, Kesz received the International Children’s Peace Prize from Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu last month in a ceremony organized by the Dutch organization KidsRight in The Hague. “My motto is ‘We can change the world one heart at a time,’” Kesz said. “You are wonderful,” Bishop Tutu said.

Kesz’s story is perfectly timed for the Philippines’ observance of National Children’s Month. In 1993 then President Fidel V. Ramos issued Presidential Proclamation No. 267, which ensures that October of every year will be spent recognizing “the importance of the role of the child within the Filipino family and within Philippine society.”

The Council for the Welfare of Children heads the month-long focus on the state of Filipino children, and the statistics it provides serve to highlight the dire realities faced by the hope of the motherland. Quite simply, it is not easy to be a child in this society that is traditionally presented as treasuring its offspring. There is a frightening infant mortality rate of 25 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Almost half of Filipino children are impoverished, with 40.8 per 100 children (or 14.4 million kids) living below the poverty line. As many as 246,011 children live in the streets, with over 11,000 in Metro Manila alone—children who grapple with the same adversity as Kesz once did, but do not have the opportunity to escape it.

There are almost six million child laborers in the country, with 2.99 million of them working in what are considered hazardous professions. Do these numbers include the kids employed in the production of firecrackers, or in the deep-sea fishing technique known as “muro-ami,” or in the sex trade? There are 20,000-50,000 children being trafficked for sexual and working exploitation. Many others are trapped in situations of armed conflict, with 30,000-50,000 children displaced by armed conflict over the last four years alone.

Even on the home front, it is clear that steps have to be taken to protect the children. There were 5,691 cases of child abuse served by the Department of Social Welfare and Development since 2001; since 1984, a total of 8,850 youths have been found afflicted with HIV-AIDS, resulting in 345 deaths. To be sure, important legislation has been passed, such as Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence  Against Women and their Children Act of 2004, and RA 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009. And a number of helpful programs for health (Supplementary Feeding Program, as a single example), education (Alternative Learning System) and protection (day care centers, among others) have also been established.

Yet there are the continuing challenges posed by the sheer number of children brought into this world by parents unable or unequipped to plan their families and thus care properly for their offspring—a situation that obliges the government, particularly lawmakers, to take a long-term, proactive stance in protecting and saving Filipino children (and their mothers) by passing the long-delayed Reproductive Health bill.

The protection of children is a priority that should continue to be stressed no matter what month it is, but National Children’s Month provides the best starting point for planning and doing everything possible for the present and future generations. Each one of us has to do more to give every child a chance, to continue the kind of change that can happen when inspired by the stirring example of Kesz Valdez, who, despite his tender years, has managed to extend help to his fellows. “I pray for the people who will listen to me speak. May I inspire them to do some good for the street children of the world,” Kesz said. “This is what I want to give to as many street children as possible… I want children in the streets to get the same chance that I had.”