How different can we be?

I remember the first time I tried to work on my column for the next issue of the newspaper, it was two weeks ago. And for two weeks, I’ve been trying to open the document that I have saved in my laptop but all I ever really did was stare at the blinking cursor, tire my eyes, type a few sentences and then delete them.

I don’t understand why suddenly, I don’t know what to say, let alone what to think.

I just am not in touch with my emotions anymore. I am now equivalent to a book with empty pages, a bucket without water, a body without soul.

I wanted so bad to identify the root of this sudden numbness and that’s when I figured out that for quite some time, I’ve seen and heard much from my surroundings and my little brain has had enough. My little heart has felt so much, I am now disillusioned.

My thoughts may be hazy but there are a couple of faces I’ve seen not too long ago that seem to haunt me.

Pepe’s eyes

I remember my trip to Iloilo about two months ago. I left the city along with my fellow student writers early in the morning and on my way to the port, I chanced upon a young boy who was carrying his younger sister on his back while holding out a rusty can to passersby. I wondered if he and his sister have had breakfast but I didn’t bother to ask. When I got to Iloilo, I saw another kid whom I thought looked so much like the boy I passed by at the port. I looked closely but then I realized that they don’t actually look alike, they just have the same history of hunger written in their eyes. I knew I’ll eventually just forget about those kids, and I did. But only for a while.

Tatay Ben

He is an old man who first worked as gardener in the high school I went to but then he got sick and for some time, I didn’t see him. When I got to college, that’s when I saw him in the university where I go, picking plastic bottles from the garbage cans around the campus. When he retired, he was given an amount of money as retirement fee. This would have been a great help for Tatay Ben had a relative of his not tricked him and stolen his money. The last time I saw him, he was standing outside the second gate, I found out he is only allowed to enter the campus to attend the morning mass but he is not allowed to linger after some people reported to the school administration that he’s been begging money from students. Now, this is something that I couldn't really seem to accept as a fact for I am a 'friend' to the old man and yet he doesn't even asks for anything from me, so why would he from the others? And if indeed he is begging, and though mendicacy laws disallow us to give alms to, well, of course, mendicants, I however understand that for someone like him who does not have a family of his own and who is too old and sickly to be accepted even as a gardener somewhere, begging might be a more convenient resort.

The Innocent Bek-Bek

She is this carefree, bubbly, and ‘eternally innocent’ lady who can sometimes be seen begging money or playing with younger children in the streets near the University. She was featured in one of the school publication's magazine issues years back. Just reading about her, I thought she is the kind who will someday just grow old physically but would always remain a child by heart forever. 

Bek-Bek happens to manifest a certain delusion of grandeur. She believes herself to be a student of a prestigious university in the city, has several kids and is currently pregnant. She is usually the butt of jokes of passers by who have already considered her as nothing more than a laughing stock. It's a good thing that despite every insult and mockery she gets from people, our Bek-Bek is still strong enough to defend herself. 

But the point is, she is sick and due to her status in the society, she will remain as nothing more but an amusement for many of us who fail to see the rub beyond the joke. 

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True enough.

Three stories of unknown struggles and three faces of people that represent the sad realities suffered by many other little Pepes who can barely eat one meal a day, many other Tatay Bens who grow old without anyone to take care of them, and many other Bek-Beks whose ignorance serve as amusement for the mean ones.

Now, we could all just pretend these people don’t exist and go on living our lives. But if we do, how different can we be from those crocodiles in the government who enjoy comfort, power and prestige while millions of people starve every day?