You don’t know what it’s like!

This piece had been few years back in courtesy of the UNICEF to share success stories of the lives of the former street children who had attended the three congresses it sponsored. I was lucky to be one of those chosen to participate in the writeshop despite the fact that I myself am not a writer. But because of some circumstances this was not publish together with other autobiography of five other participants of the writeshop. The writeshop was held last April 29-May 1, 2001 at Quamtum Beach Resort, Lapu-lapu City, Cebu, Philippines. Inspired to express again my roller coaster emotions and feelings, I started writing again just recently. And to totally debrief of the things that been happening to me, I started a thought why not post it and this is it.

SUCCESS...

Do you know what I this all about? No, you don’t! You always associate it gold! With fame! With Glory! Success is achieving something. This is what we mean as lay people as we are. Success is contentment too, being happy with everything. But when all you have is emptiness you cannot be contented, you cannot be successful. Am I successful if through the years what I have felt was instability and emptiness?

Do you how it feels to be abandoned?

It was May 1, 1988 when I realized that my mother was actually leaving me. I was 7, my parents for two or three weeks earlier. My mother kept telling me that she wanted to taste the other side of life, the one free from pain and suffering. The life that only the elite lived, complete and in conformity with the worlds fashion. It was a greener pasture that beckoned to her, “Come with me!” But what is true is that she is leaving us to live with another man. The man I saw she was playing with in that slippery kitchen one traitorous night. I didn’t understand it, even ignored that moment just to keep her with us. I crawled towards her asking not to leave me. Crying and crying. I was telling her, “Don’t go.” But she is dumb! She didn’t hear the rain as it poured from my eyes-the eyes of pain and suffering. She was carrying her luggage then, calling the tricycle that cross along that hot dusty street. I was running ahead of her, wishing she would let me go with her… pleading and pleading. But before I knew it, she had pushed me out from the vehicle and had instructed the driver to move on. I was covered by heaven that time. A hand caught me before I hit my head on the street. It was our landlady.

I was alone. I felt I was the reason why my mother left.

Nahan ka Nahan ka

Aking Ina Nahan ka

Ako ba ang Dahilan

At tatay ko ay Iniwan

Nahan Ka Nahan Ka

I longed for her like a chick derived of the love of its mother hen. It’s very, very hard!!! I could see the pain my father bore. He even attempted to end his life by hanging himself, taking a poison and even eating batteries. I was too young to carry the pain myself. It was a torture. I was very down, very, very, very down.

Have you experienced being treated like a pig? Or a dog?

I was left with my mother’s sister. Life went smoothly at first, but the tides swelled and, Moira, the Greek goddess of fate was bitter towards me. I had to do all the house chores despite my poor health. I was almost always running out of breath. I ate leftovers intended for the pig just to calm my growling stomach. Life, you are cruel. You are unfair! I’ve told myself.

Have you ever walked and slept in a desert so dry that is sucks water? No, you’ve not.

My father and I transferred to the house of his younger brother, whose wife was a tiger. One day, he and my uncle left to see if life had other had other dimensions. My cousin and I were left behind. My father left some penny for our daily needs but it wasn’t enough and my aunt raged a war against us. She made us sleep on the ground near the road. It would be very hot at daytime and very cold at night till dawn. In the morning we had to fetch water and deliver this from house to house. We got 25 to 50 centavos for each delivery made on our bare feet.

Have you ever stopped schooling? Maybe you have once, but not thrice.

The first time my parents broke up, I had to stop second grade because my father decided to move to what he hoped would be a more peaceful life in Tagum. It was August 1987. The following school year I was enrolled in second grade again at Bliss Elementary School, only to quit again after two months. This time we had to return to Davao City because we received news that my uncle, my father’s younger brother, had died. My father left me with autie at Coronon, a fishing village just outside Davao City where I enrolled at the Coronon Elementary School as a second grader. But by November, my body was wracked with unexplainable pain. I wasn’t eating properly. At my aunt’s house, what I had was mostly the spoiled food. I had to stop again. My father got me and moved to General Santos City. There we lived in his younger brother’s place with his tiger wife and cousin. From November to June, I was out of school; instead we sold water in the neighborhood, pushing a cart with huge containers in that very hot-dusty-water-absorbing street. Clearly there is reasons for why that place is called Uhaw. When school opened, my uncle enrolled me in Grade III even if I hadn’t finished Grade II. He bragged that I would top the class. I didn’t fail him. Brut cruel January came and I was required to submit a copy of my form 138 from Grade II. Since I didn’t have it, I was force to stop studying again. My stay was invalidated even if I top the class. I carried the pain inside me as we moved back to Davao City. That was January of 1990.

Have you ever wrenched of the arms of love?

When we moved back to Davao City, my mother and father started living together again. My mother brought her daughter from the other man. I was jealous of her. I felt she had taken my mother’s love away. It crushed my heart even more because I had to look after her. She had totally taken my mother from me.

Now can you tell me that success is simply achieving something? No, you can’t! After all, it’s not you who suffers, but me. But will I rejoice anyhow?

Let me tell you about this home… my birthplace… it is a proton of electricity… ready to ignite to give me light. And so I take you back to Davao City, to where I accompany my father at the church gate while he begs. Don’t you know?... I’m a daughter of a beggar… a beggar who is blind. I used to beg with him. Sometimes I sold sweepstakes tickets at the San Pedro Cathedral, sometimes I roamed the city to sell a sheet of tickets at P6.00 per sheet. At times, I sold steamed peanuts, pricing them at P5.00 per glass. I got paid P50.00 if I sold an entire basket. Or I sold bananas at the stand of a family friend who paid me P20.00 a day. This was usually on Sundays when people flocked to the Cathedral to attend mass or simply to watch the shows some radio station would sponsor. Those plastic cups and other empty containers that are everywhere-we learned to dig them and sell them to earn a little extra. Before I was old enough to sell anything, I was put on the top of a table and there I would sing for a few centavos.

I’m used to life in the street. Before my mother left, she was a street vendor. My father told me that they used to put me on some leaves and blanket under the flowers that my mother used to sell. This way she did not have to miss a day selling outside the church.

The first time I heard of a program for us children working in the street, I thought it was mere propaganda. But Ate Neneng, the parish social worker, explained to me and eventually I became a beneficiary. My luck started here. I became a scholar of Davao City’s Send a Street Child to School (SASS) program headed by Councilor Leonardo Avila III in cooperation with the Inter-Agency Working Committee on Street and Urban Working Children. This was the school year 1990-91 and I was a Grade II pupil at the Magallanes Elementary School. At the end of the school year they made me a PTA scholar.

Street educators opened up opportunities for me. Ate Neneng and Kuya Robin included me in activities to hone my gifts in singing, dancing and acting. Kuya Robin paid attention to how I could improve my acting and theatre arts skills. There were awareness seminars on child’s rights with sessions on how to build our self-confidence. I had been discovered! From here on, I was given leadership roles. First I was chosen one of the city’s delegates to the First Visayas-Mindanao Regional Cluster Congress on Street Children held last November 26-28, 1990 in Cagayan de Oro City. There I learned that children should be cared for because they are the future of our nation. I thought it would just be one meeting, but right after the regional meeting came the First National Congress on Street Children. The selection process was tough and hectic. The one who would be sent had to be articulate enough to voice the cry of the street children in our city. I was chosen to be among the eight delegates to that congress held last April 14-19, 1991, at La Salle Greenhills. I was very excited. For the first time, I was going to ride a plane, go to Manila, and mingle with top people in our national government. I was able to met Sec. Oscar Orbos, Speaker Ramon Mitra where I sung in his lap the theme song of the rights of the child, One Small Voice, Senate President Jovito Salonga with collegues Senator Herrera, Senator Estrada, Senator Tatad and many others. It was a real break.

When we returned to Davao City, we became local stars. There was an audition for the local movie “Rugby Boys” sponsored by the Davao City Anti-Drug Watch. With luck, I became part of the cast. It didn’t end here. In December of the same year, thanks to Kuya Paul, our full time street educator, I took a placement test. At 11 years old, I was too old for Grade III. But goodness gracious, In July 2002, I was allowed to enter sixth grade. I agree to sit in the second section simply because the first section refused to take me. I poured my energies into proving that I worth the acceleration. And I wasn’t a failure. Despite the bitter sweat, the harvest was so sweet. I graduated with honors and merits.

But amidst all this activity, I never missed selling popcorn outside the San Pedro Cathedral after school. And on Sundays and special occasions, we fought the cold to start our early and prepare the display.

Before the school year ended, I took a scholarship exam for high school in Cebu. Luckily, I passed the test, thereby earning a four-year stay-in scholarship. We didn’t have to pay a single centavo for dormitory food, clothing, and other personal needs. Everything was free from head to foot. On May 11, 1993, I and 11 other companion, seven girls and five boys, journeyed to the Sisters of Mary Girlstown School, my “heaven on earth”. It was so heavenly, peaceful, calm and fresh and soothing. The ambiance was so holy that I started to think that I didn’t belong there. This is not the place where I used to live. It was not noisy but placid, not dusty but dainty.

There I developed the virtues that would guide me further. I learned to forgive my mother for the pain she caused me. I learned to accept her, after all she is still my mother and I was borne of her. I did my best and graduated from high school with merit.

After high school, I returned to the place I called “My Hope” – Davao City- and into the arms of my loving father. Even if the world deprived him the sight, his heart is filled with beauty and love. I am very proud of him.

Davao City nurtured me, too. From Ate Neneng, I learned that the Holy Cross of Davao College was looking for workscholars who were academically able but financially unable. With other Sisters of Mary scholars-graduates, I took the exam and topped it. I was the pride of my family, my school, and the other workers who worked for me. It was tough having to work five to six hours a day like all the other employees and then starting 3pm to act like all other professional students around. Like any other scholarship programs, we needed to maintain an average of 80% per subject. I needed to adjust to this new way of life to cope with the demands of work and study. I really had a hard time coping with my needs. The school could not give all I needed neither could my parents. But college is not a game; it’s a decision for your future. I knew I had to face it squarely.

At first, I took BS in Education major in Math to give to my father who wanted me to be a teacher. But my heart belongs to Engineering- maybe Electronic Communication or Computer. But after my first semester, I shifted to AB Math because I’m dead in love with numbers, too. I knew after this course I could pursue Engineering if I wished. As the years passed, however, I become an education fanatic. I saw the value of looking at the future and was moved by the desire to mold the minds of children.

When the first semester is over, I was invited to participate in the Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Council-Youth Congress 5 where we discussed the key role of the youth as carriers of God’s Good News of salvation. This grew out of my earlier participation in a 49-day Christian-Citizenship leadership training seminar called the Operation Build-Up or Kapisanan ng Diwang Sambayanihan. It aimed at helping build self-confidence. I’m glad that through this I was able to identify my role as a carrier of the Good News.

A year later, Ate Venus, another street educator, asked me to join a group of children who wanted their voices heard. Although I was not yet 18 years old and thus still a child, but I was no longer considered a participant, but as a junior facilitator. Sad to say, however, I did not enjoy the entire congress because I was tied up wit my responsibilities as a working scholar.

The days passed quickly, and with God’s help and my cooperation I graduated from college with the degree of Bachelor of Arts major in Mathematics. Few people understand why I took up Math. Some say that Math is so intellectual, that it doesn’t need a heart. It uses so many puzzles and has shown me that it is not easy to solve problems. I have learned that if you do them one step at a time you can become absolutely accurate. I’m a Math student graduate. Math is the way I express myself, yet in my heart, I want to teach and serve.

I still don’t know what the future holds. But with the virtues and values I’ve imbued, I am sure it will be bright. I also know that in my hands is my most important asset, my experience, my weapon in facing life.

As I take another step in my journey, I ask myself: did the congresses and exposure I had served their purpose? I am pretty sure that many of the children’s cries have not been heard and that their dreams are mostly unrealized. Who to blame? Is it the children? Are the people behind the scenes and in the frontlines of the program? I am asking YOU who read this and have followed my life, were the program goals realized?

Now tell me, can I say that I am successful?

Following my themes of the different colors of life, I rate this piece with color red for its intensity and variety of emotions and the years that the piece put into one.