My workload is peanuts compared to most people I encounter in my stories.
Quite recently, I featured Ernesto Tongol and a group of people who call themselves canvassers in The Correspondents. They go to different parts of the country selling practically anything you could possibly need in your house: from cooking utensils to pails to wooden cabinets – door to door!
They are the poor’s version of the Electrolux man, the salesman of the masses.
Most of them were farmers in Pampanga before Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991. Their homes and livelihood were all buried in lahar but they saw hope in being a canvasser.
Like gypsies, these men left their hometown Pampanga to go to Cavite on board a jeep filled with wooden cabinets. They stay in Cavite for weeks, in a small house rented out by their employer. It looked more like a warehouse for the cabinets than a dwelling place for humans. The house was bare, with no furniture except for the cabinets for sale that stood at the corner of the room.
Their day starts at 4 a.m. for breakfast. Wearing worn-out slippers and a cap to shield them from the sun’s heat, they set off to remote areas carrying wooden cabinets. It weighs a load, but they carry it as if it was as light as paper. They waste no time because they get paid on commission basis: P100 to P200 per cabinet sold.
I thought it was a crazy idea to sell cabinets like they were taho or balut. Who would actually buy them? I watched as they proceeded in different directions, going through alleys and corners carrying the cabinets, while shouting "Pahulugan!" Before I knew it, they were dispersed all over the place.
Two canvassers were fortunate to sell cabinets, but most of them, including Mang Ernesto, were not. Teary-eyed, he admitted that he was frustrated because he walked eight kilometers that morning and thought a customer would buy from him. Their only consolation is they get to eat for free.
They were served liempo for lunch, but Mang Ernesto felt guilty his family back home partakes on talbos ng camote or tuyo.
Home to Mang Ernesto is a resettlement area for Mt. Pinatubo victims in San Simon, Pampanga where his wife and three children live. They subsist on credit extended by the neighborhood sari-sari store while Mang Ernesto is away.
Whenever he arrives from a trip, the miniscule Mang Ernesto earned is immediately spent on debt.
It was painful to hear him say he was resigned to poverty despite all his hard work. And I hate to admit that he could be right. They were working to the hilt and going places, and yet they were getting nowhere. Their only reward is survival.
Special thanks to the TFC subscriber who sent money to Mang Ernesto and the other canvassers featured in the documentary, Pahulugan.