Surviving street life without begging
Thirty-eight-year-old Estela Arcamo dreamt of becoming a teacher or a successful businesswoman, but she ended up rearing all by herself three children who live under a makeshift shanty mounted on a trisikad, a three-wheeled vehicle.
Arcamo shared that she finds the trisikad helpful every time the City Hall’s demolition team would arrive to clear the sidewalks of illegal structures or obstructions. She said she just pushes the trisikad to another place to evade the clearing team.
While Arcamo and her three children are not enjoying the comfort and decency of a real home, she is neither bent on begging for alms to survive. She sells cigarettes and candies in front of a bar near the
“Ang gamay nako nga ganansya maoy akong ipalit og pagkaon sa tulo nako ka mga anak,” she said when interviewed last Saturday while she was preoccupied attending to her wares near the pharmacy.
Last Saturday was also the fourth birthday of her second child, Rudolph Jay. Arcamo said she hadn’t even bought ice cream for the boy.
When this reporter handed over to the boy a certain amount so Arcamo could buy food, like “pansit” or ice cream for him, Rudolph Jay uttered “’lamat” in an amusing, tenderly moving manner with that tone of innocence.
Arcamo also shared she used to live in Lahug where her parents are living until now. But after she graduated in high school, her parents told her they could no longer afford to send her to college, which prompted her to work as a household help in Guadalupe.
Later, she met Ronaldo. They decided to live together. At first, the couple was renting a room in Capitol Site, near the pharmacy where her husband worked as a janitor.
Arcamo later gave birth to Maria Lou, now six years old. Then Rudolph Jay came. But while she was conceiving their third child, Rojay Mar, who is now two years old, her husband, for no apparent reason, committed suicide inside their rented room.
“Hilomon kaayo to siya. Gidibdib lang siguro niya ang among mga problema,” Arcamo said.
Since she could no longer afford to pay the room rental, Arcamo decided to leave the place and seek a life on the street with her three children.
It was Christmas 2005 when her children received cash gifts from their godparents. She said she used the amount to start her small business. She bought packs of cigarettes and candies and sold the items in retail.
Later, she decided to purchase a trisikad done through installment basis which now serves as their home, with space that is only about a meter in width and about four feet in length that a person could hardly stretch out in there.
“Basta dili gyod ko magpakilimos. Modawat ko kon naay manghatag, pero dili ko magpangayo. Ang ako lang dakong problema kon mangasakit mi, wa ra ba mi health cards,” she said.
It is said that every person dreams of owning a house where he/she could live comfortably together with his/her family, but poverty has prevented most from pursuing this dream. Poverty drives thousands onto the streets where makeshift shelters are created by the end of the day.
But this is not at all surprising as homeless families are found even in developing countries because many people leave their lands in the provinces, or the countryside, to migrate to nearby major cities in search for the proverbial greener pastures, only to end up jobless and homeless.
Also, a recent study on homelessness showed that two factors help account for increasing poverty. One is the eroding employment opportunities for large segments of the work force; the other is the declining value of the availability of public assistance. — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV
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