Please explain

Saturday before last, during what turned out to be the start of the great deluge of August 2013, an elderly man walked past the Kaisa Heritage Center/Bahay Tsinoy in Intramuros. Soaking wet and not looking at all well, the ground floor staff asked him to come in out of the pouring rain. The staff got the man a change of clothes and offered him some food. He was grateful for the dry clothes but declined the food, saying with difficulty that he would just throw up if he ate anything.

He could hardly speak, but eventually managed to explain that he had walked in the rain all the way from the Ospital ng Maynila on Quirino Avenue, down the length of Roxas Blvd., to get to Plaza Lawton hoping to catch a bus back home to Macabebe, Pampanga. He had a catheter attached because of a prostate condition, which was why he was at the hospital. The staff chipped in and managed to collect P400 for his transportation fare and accompanied him to Lawton and put him on a bus home. (As an aside, a Kaisa officer who learned about the incident paid the staff back.)

I tell this story because it shows the two sides of life in these here islands. The innate kindness and goodness of the Filipino come to the fore when confronted with great need. When they saw the man, the staff did not think twice about asking him in and helping him. They gave what they could – out of their own pockets, perhaps some of the money they gave was their own transportation fare or food money – and did what they could to help a fellow man in need, expecting no recognition or reward. (I am writing about this without their knowing I am doing so.)

As another calamity is upon us, we are again challenged to meet urgent needs. Those of us still with a roof over our heads, with dry clothes to wear and hot food to eat cannot ignore the plight of those forced to leave their homes or who have been isolated by raging floodwaters. There are many, many groups doing relief work; find one to donate to or volunteer at. There is no excuse not to pitch in and help.

The other side of this story is a sad one. I don’t know the full circumstances of why and how the man ended up in the rain in Manila in his condition, but his experience shows just how inadequate our health care and other basic services are. I have said time and again that our people ask for so little, and yet many don’t even have the most basic of their needs met.

May I ask our “tong-ressmen” and “sin-ators” and that woman with the 415 bank accounts, 28 houses and goodness knows how many luxury vehicles to explain to that poor man why he could not get treated in a hospital in his province, why he had to walk in the rain to get to the bus station, and why he had to rely on the kindness of strangers instead of getting what is due him as a citizen from supposed public servants getting fat on “pork” funded by money from hardworking taxpayers.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints – the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.  Colossians 1:3-6