Out of sight – out of mind

Within our comfort zones in Imperial Metro Manila, we go about attending to work, socials, family, and other "really important matters".

"It’s important" that we get to work on time, that we do the job expected of us. "It’s important" to keep ourselves abreast of the news, even the gossips. "It’s important" that we know the latest developments, the "IN" trends.

Sometimes work and social expectations become even more important than family time, marital bonding, and building both dreams and memories.

Being aware and connected "is so important" that we even go to the toilet with our cell phones. We keep laptops all night just to stay connected to the world.

Unfortunately with all the technology we developed to stay connected, we have created a counter-productive behavior called Constant Partial Attention or CPA. That is what clinicians would call it. The boy in the hood would tell you its Dissing as in being disrespectful!

But with all our efforts at global connectivity, I wonder just how connected we are with our true selves. How much of the REAL US is left. Underneath all the false burdens, standards and compromises how much of the Real YOU have you kept pure? kept alive?

Remember the child who use to think TIME was something that always made having fun a lot shorter.

Remember the child who felt grown up about having a watch. Burdened and fearful about losing or breaking the watch, and experienced some measure of discomfort trying to read the time right but wondering why grown ups always made a big deal about the time since they were always late on Filipino time.

It’s funny how much time we waste in cafes talking about business, work, politics and sometimes family but never accomplished anything except gain weight, spend money, waste time we can never regain and then agree to do the same thing again.

If at all, the only purpose to these things seem to be to stay connected (yet again), or to do a comparison of our status versus our old classmates, and the vain hope of maybe making some money or closing a deal.

I recently went through one of those temporary journeys of life where you sense God telling you something and actually follow through. It began early this year when I kept getting a message, "For Others".

Do things for others, don’t worry about the regular stuff, focus on doing things for others. Then a quotation from Kirk Douglas, of all people, hit me like a letter of intent.

"Obey the voice within. It commands us to give of ourselves and help others. As long as we have the capacity to give, we are alive."

Here I was recently "retired" from television, trying very hard to get back into corporate life and GOD sends a message for personal sacrifice.

My dialogue was quite predictable: I’ve got a 6-year old about to go to big school, I don’t have much money in the bank, I just turned 50 and desperately trying to avoid mid-life crisis and YOU want ME to be like some missionary?!

They say "God works in mysterious ways" and He was just being consistent. It took ten months, about 5 best sellers on self empowerment, discovery, focus, and prioritization and a freeze on potential business to finally get my butt in gear.

I ended up in a small patch of land where the caretaker had stayed on 12 years after the owner passed away. His house was run down, no running water, or electricity. Just roughly done vegetable plots.

The graphic picture would have been a scene from "Sakada." Behind his tattered shack was a remnant of a badly built house that fell apart years ago. The place was simply too far, too hard to reach to be of interest.

But here were people just like you and me. Not livestock but people. Here was land. Usable, productive, God-given land.

The place was overrun by weeds, wild vines, ant hills visibility across was five meters. The obvious move was to get some people, clear the area (don’t you ever give that order to a marine!) Last time I did, they burned the place down!).

THEN I UNDERSTOOD.

Like people from a forgotten time, the would-be workers, both men and women started coming through the vegetation. They knew the little known pathways I didn’t notice, they wore bolos in handmade sheaths, they wore one shirt over the other to minimize cuts from prickly vines, they had cut up socks to lessen sun burn and ant bite.

They worked silently, effortlessly, doing the only thing they knew because they never finished school, their sons and daughters will never finish school. Here if you don’t get married or elope by 18 you’re either ugly, used, or too picky.

They came from everywhere, first suspicious then imploring, "please Sir, let me work even for just two days". All in the hope that their skills and good work would earn them a longer term.

They know every tree. They know its use. They know the land. But they have NONE. They were all born here but forgotten by the Philippine government. They are registered just for elections and budget padding purposes. Good enough to vote but too poor to own.

All the talk of land reform never really included them. It was simply a property and political war between those who had most of the land, the politicians/legislators who despised the power and influence of the landowner over the little people. And opportunistic false socialists who have yet to give of their own wealth or practice what they preach.

With thousands of hectares of idle land in all provinces, why have we not set aside "settlement areas" where these forgotten people can at least have their own hoes like the Gawad Kalinga is trying to do?

Without the forgotten people no one would do the farm work, look after livestock or clean up fields. Yet they are permanent squatters still subject to the FEUDAL realities of the Philippines.

President Arroyo may understandably be slighted when surveys point out that starvation and poverty is serious in the Philippines. But she didn’t cause it. Whether or not she contributed to it would be just the same waste of time and breath people do in cafes.

The truth is we all contributed to the problem. Many would like to think that the so-called Hacienderos or Big Business should be blamed. Sorry, like I said we are all to blame.

People who have 1 to 5 hectares always excuse themselves by saying their land is not big enough or they don’t have big capital. Well, consider this; I just paid 31 pesos for a piece of ampalaya. 15 pesos for two pieces of eggplant.

How much money could we all save if we planted vegetables even for personal consumption in our "tiny properties". It would be ENOUGH MONEY TO GIVE EMPLOYMENT, it would be enough money saved which we could spend on other things which would propel the economy half an inch forward.

Rather than sit in some café shooting the breeze, I’m enjoying real mountain breeze, sipping the famous Barako coffee while motivating people to buy 7 papaya hybrid seeds rather than bet on the lotto or jueteng.

In the time it takes to put together a business proposal, we have cleared one hectare of land, planted seedlings, and began building a house for the caretaker, Rather than pitch a concept we have given him 200 square meters.

Rather than put on the latest fashion wear for working out and going to the gym, I work out with the shovel, the hoe, the pick, and use hollow blocks for weights. No skin whiteners, no moisturizes. Just water and sweat.

More than muscles, I have the PRIVILEGE to give hope, build people’s future, and eventually find my true place with people God has not forgotten.

"In doing for others, I have found my true self."