Moral poverty

Yesterday, a little under midnight, I was walking through the streets of Malate. And in that mad place, he was there.

Nothing about him might strike one as odd. In fact, he is seen there every day, everywhere: an emaciated little boy with dirty rims around his eyes, dressed in oversized shorts and a tank top that was once white. He sat rocking back and forth on the curb, mostly a skeleton in skin. A sight daily seen, daily ignored.

I had barely noticed him. Yet he had his eyes on me. In my hand was something that probably meant his life.

As I passed him by, I heard his small voice pleading for food—“Kuya, pang-ulam lang po”—and as too many of us are, I was desensitized to it. I ignored him. His words were unheeded. His plea didn’t work.

The boy trailed me like a bloodhound hunting a scent. I crossed the street, quickened my pace, slowed down, reversed, but nothing threw him off. He was getting aggressive. He tugged at my sleeve, and I elbowed him—just the slightest—to nudge him back. His fingers were choking my arm, applying smudges where they gripped.

There were only the dim headlights of a passing car to illuminate the scene when, suddenly, he snatched what seemed like the one salvation of his life right out of my hand.

A banana. My banana.

“That thief!” was my automatic thought. In my angered state, I was convinced to throw all hell after him. He ran. I screamed after him and took a few steps forward. But he was too fast. He disappeared in a maze of eskinitas, and I could do nothing but curse at his shadow.

It was early morning when I got home, still in a rotten mood. I sat by the kitchen counter searching for a pick-me-up. I had before me a can of sardines, a loaf of bread and a half-eaten chocolate bar. I had a much wider selection in the fridge. Yet nothing seemed to placate the sense of loss.

I searched some more. Then I saw tucked neatly into a corner of the kitchen counter, half obscured by the toaster, a whole bunch of bananas, ripe and fat with nutrition. There was a caved-in stump with still some fibers of fruit where I had plucked a piece just hours ago. For a moment I could only stare at the eight deliciously yellow others. Then, like thunder, I felt a pang of guilt in my nauseous, burning conscience.

Little boy, you will never read this. You have forgotten I even existed. But I want to say this regardless.

I’m sorry. When you grabbed my arm, I saw only your sooty palms and your bare feet; now I think of your face, your humanity, your plainly dying eyes. How could I have hated you? Yet, in my blind rage, what heinous thoughts had brewed? Had I resolved to kick your teeth in for a theft so trivial? God forbid it. You are a man like me. We are no different.

But now I understand. Like many others, I had been oblivious to your suffering and pain—a great curse for those living in perpetual excess. How could I fathom the hunger that stabbed at your stomach? What do I know of the reasons that drove you to steal? Such different lives we live, that our paths may never have crossed. Only, last night you came begging for your life. Now I come begging for your forgiveness.

Dear readers, how can we abide this? Hundreds of thousands of Filipino children live in and off the streets. Think—children, children: little boys and girls who have never known a softer pillow than concrete. Over the decades, how many millions of would-be Eulers and Einsteins have we lost? How many able-bodied, clear-minded, strong-willed men and women have been snapped up by the jaws of poverty? How many of their children—living right now with us, crawling on the sidewalks—might have gone on to change the world had the winds of chance and circumstance favored them the tiniest bit better? Age, religion, socioeconomic status aside, we must help them.

But each day we pass them by, our fellow Filipinos, without so much as a glance. They rattle their tin cups by our feet, asking for the mercy of spare change, but we only quicken our pace. We look down, spit on, and trample upon them. We voluntarily shut ourselves out of their misery to save us a bit of soul-searching. We lose interest in social issues and matters of importance when every new distraction is so much more appealing and much less miserable.

Indeed, the problem is so unimaginably massive that it’s tempting to chuck it somewhere dark and unseen and thereafter ignore its existence. But we can’t strangle our empathy. We can’t hide or escape from this. I know, it is far more pleasant to forget that other people like you and me are starving in a city that gorges itself in eat-all-you-can buffets and other feats of remarkable extravagance. It is a sad reality to accept. But this is where it starts: in us, with us. We can change this only if we care enough to.

The years have been hard on us all. Since childhood, we have known shanties—and not trees—to line our boulevards. We have become apathetic and calloused. Ultimately, we ourselves have fallen into a poverty of our own—that is, the moral poverty. And the only real solace to this is not money, not alcohol, but altruism. In the words of Mother Teresa: “Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely, and the unwanted according to the graces we have received, and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

Lance Spencer Ting Yu, 17, is currently enrolled in The Master’s Academy Homeschool, Grade 9.