...i stumbled upon this year-old paper...about poverty...ewan, malamang hindi ito binasa nung prof ko na kamukha ni hedo turkoglu ...

The TV screen flickered Philippine life in its bare essence, a scene stripped naked by harsh realities in the truest form of everyday living, and a nation far different from a nation in an economic growth, as the government proudly quips in every question concerning poverty in our nation. Somewhere, far away from the slums, in some air-conditioned room, I witnessed the miserable life of an innocent little girl oblivious to the hardship of her family, oblivious to the world, in her world revolving along with her family’s desperation, clinging on sins to let their world, her innocent world, maintain its sad revolution.

 

            It’s sad enough to witness such miserable state of living, but much more disappointing is the fact that million others are also suffering through poverty, and perhaps like the family in the documentary, are also resorting into unlawful acts, unmindful of its consequences, just to live for a day, in their life where opportunities are disintegrating faster than their hopes of finding a better place, a sanctuary that could save them from such misfortune. The mother was pressured, and problems piled up, and soon after, her life was a tragedy waiting to unfold. Without something to seek help, she then was enraptured in a critical decision-making, with future in despair; she sold herself to the lust of others, for the prize of another day in their life of her family. With poverty still rampant in their miserable home, in despair and under the ambiance of false hope, others followed suit. It was a family in shambles, with big dreams, kept afloat by their nocturne activities that illustrate how they succumb to their sinful situations, and to their moral dilemma compensated with the beautiful smile innocently glimmered by an infant upon them.

 

 
            Subjective judgment tends to let me believe that indeed they were the victims of social inequity, of the obviously depicted poverty, and all they did is just an act of desperation, desperate to show love in any means necessary, to the point of selling their soul, dipping their wholeness to the sins they know they are committing. It was the nature of their life, impervious from the outside world, where striving to live is to forget yourself, your dignity, the right or wrong. In the act of desperation, our lenses are auto focused to seek only the good, for the sake of others, of you, to survive the world, which in the mind of cynics, is synonymous to hell.  

 

            Government also has a big responsibility with regards to poverty. The avarice of some corrupt officials, clad in the whitest barong, in the most respectable display of eloquence in front of the whole adoring masses, and their deceptions. It’s really disappointing to think that really some highly respectable official that are drowned with power and are fueled by greed, with their insides rotting with guilt, undaunted with the stiff price of their sinful attitude. In every million of cash that fatten up their wallets or increasing their car collections, a million lives are suffering somewhere, unsheltered and starving.

 

Quite possibly, I guess the most erratic proposition is to blame God for our suffering, to blame Him for every ebb and flow we need to endure, for every obstacle that hinders our longevity. If you do blame Him though, I guess you are missing the whole point of life, looking closer, you would realize that it was basically our mistakes, our misjudgments misattributed to Him, for the purpose of relieving ourselves of the brunt of our irresponsibility. Yes we are prone to mistakes, we are imperfect, but to purposely commit ourselves to sins, to the greed spawning beneath, without thinking of others' lives, is beyond the merit of our imperfection. It’s succumbing to evil, negligence, and pure injustice. As I read somewhere, evil is an absence, not a presence, it’s the absence of love.

 

 And then there was the teenager, the young lad in threshold of maturity, being dissuaded by a home in an organized chaos, a home in dystopia. In search of peace, seeking refuge, he found himself deaf to the heed of his conscience, escaping his importuned life through vices. But still, somewhere within his soul, a life is waiting for a chance of a better life; a metaphor to his family and to the million of poor people nationwide deprived of opportunities and stalled by poverty.

 

 The last part also depicted a vivid metaphor of today’s life, a scene of a family in church, a child baptized, and perhaps each of them repenting every sin, and most importantly forgetting the hardship that they’re enduring, even for just a single day of a tedious week, a Sunday, in a church no less. God is still there for us, and He will indeed save us, sometime, even from the depths of sins.










"Our paths and our futures are hidden in mists that are stretching out over impossible distances, totally obscured."