Eleven-year-old Buknoy beamed with happiness as Gawad Kalinga benefactors formally turned over to his family their new house at the GK Cabrera village in Novaliches last Thursday.
“This is the most beautiful Christmas gift. Thank you very much. We will never forget this. We have been so used to so much poverty and we weren’t expecting this,” said Buknoy’s mother, Aling Nita, who couldn’t stop crying at the ceremony.
Along with his new house is hope for a brighter future and Buknoy is optimistic that he can fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor.
Two years ago, Buknoy and his family were scraping by on the P50 Buknoy took home daily from scavenging plastic bottles, newspapers and garbage.
At age 10, Buknoy was out on the streets earning a living for his family. His mother was ill at the time and could not work. Buknoy went home to their hardscrabble shack at midnight after buying noodles, sardines and rice for his mother and three siblings.
Buknoy, too, had never been in school. But his fate was to change.
In 2005, painter Joey Velasco asked him and 10 other street urchins to pose for the Hapag ng Pag-asa painting, a modern retake of the Last Supper showing street children dining with Jesus.
The painting drew accolades for its scathing social commentary and Joey, the painter, who admitted being disturbed by the poverty in his painting, decided to help the Hapag kids get a better life.
Today, the Hapag children have been given their new GK homes and are all enrolled in school. Their parents are now also employed.
Buknoy’s fellow Hapag kids are also glad for their blessings.
Onse is a nine-year-old lad who sits at the hapag (table) with his plate cleaned to the last crumb, and has a drug-addict father and a club-stripper mother. Itok is an 11-year-old scavenger, who has gone to jail many times for petty thievery while Tinay is a sexually abused child. The others are scavengers Emong, Jun, Roselle, Nene and Joyce.
Jun and Roselle’s mother, Rose, said they are very excited to transfer to their new house, especially now that she is expecting another child. The house, she said, is perfect for their growing family.
“I thank Gawad Kalinga for the new life and new hope that they have given us,” said Rose, adding that it is indeed a happy thought to celebrate Christmas in their new, beautiful and sturdy GK house.
Donations and support keep pouring
Joey said there is a continuing stream of support from donors all over the world to the Hapag children.
He said many of the donors are struggling, middle-class families.
He cited an anonymous donor from San Francisco, California who donated $1,350 for the homes of the Hapag kids.
Joey learned later that the donor was a casual worker in the US who has four children and lives in a basement with his family. Still, he shared whatever he had saved to help build the houses.
Lilia Contemplacion, a Filipina-Australian, who sells jewelry in Australia, was touched by the plight of the Hapag kids. She was struck that a piece of jewelry she sells for $1,200, could actually be the equivalent of a house for a poor family in the Philippines.
She sold some of her jewelry and gave the proceeds to the house fund of the Hapag kids.
Another donor from Las Vegas was moved when she saw how one of the kids, Buknoy, resembled her dead father. She also donated a sum for the house of the children.
There was also an anonymous donor who asked her children to give homes for the Hapag kids as their Christmas gift to her while Señor Lorenzo, an Italian Focolarino, requested his guests at his wedding day to just donate for the houses of the Hapag kids instead of giving gifts.
Joey is amazed at the generosity of people towards the Hapag children.
“We never ask for donations or for fund-raising but these people go out of their way to help in any way they can. People who donate here are not even from the ranks of millionaires, but are mostly from the middle class, and they went out of their way to help. There are many people who are willing to help but can’t find the channel. In GK, they found the right vehicle to help,” Joey said.
But more than material donations, Joey is warmed by the concern and prayers of various people for the Hapag children.
Building the houses
Joey is also proud of the parents of the Hapag children who themselves built the homes as part of their so-called “sweat equity.”
Since the start of construction, the families have participated in building the foundation and painting the homes.
Joey, himself, helped in the manual labor.
He said he would never forget the journey he took with the Hapag children and how it changed his life and made him a better person.
“Whenever I finish a painting, I ask myself how the art piece can help for the betterment of our society,” Joey said.
“It’s tiring to become a painter, there used to be no direction. But because of the Hapag children and the GK, it’s like I traveled and saw myself in the canvas of society,” Joey said.
Scholarship for the children
Meanwhile, Batang Bayani, a non-government organization/foundation, will be in charge of the donations for the education of the Hapag children.
The livelihood will be provided by GK.
Joey reiterated that he would continue to guide the children.
“We don’t play heroes, we are not messiahs here, we are here to guide because these people are empowered. GK workers are not in the field to become heroes, or to achieve gratification. We are doing these things as a response to God who loves us,” Joey said.
Joey also gave credit to GK champion Tony Meloto.
He recounts an instance when he told his son Marco about finding real heroes, not the statues of our dead fallen heroes.
“Two years ago, we were invited to have breakfast with Meloto. I wanted my son to see heroes, and I told him about Meloto. He said he is already aware of heroes and pointed to me and my wife Queeny. But I told him, there is another hero worth knowing and that is Meloto. He has not just been a good father to his own family but a good father to thousands of Filipinos who are in need of someone who will help them rise from poverty, gain dignity as a people. Meloto is a real hero,” Joey said.