While stuck in a monstrous traffic jam along Matina’s highway, a child of no more than ten years suddenly entered our jeepney and deftly placed little white envelopes on the laps of each passenger. Scribbled on the front of each was a message, “give me money for food”, written in the dialect. He then proceeded to stand behind the driver facing us and played a few notes on a rusty harmonica. As most of the passengers were students at a university nearby, only a few among us directly passed their loose change toward the boy, while a few put their contribution inside the envelope. Before the vehicle could crawl forward, his short recital was over. He calmly collected each envelope and disembarked from our jeepney without a word. My eyes followed him as he ran under the shadow of a giant billboard that ironically advertised a food chain, filled with pictures of hamburgers and hotdogs. There, he deposited his meager earnings to a man who sat in the shade. After a short pause, he was off again toward another stalled jeep.
I would have preferred the little boy’s tale ended at the moment he alit from our vehicle. My mind raced, who was that man, a parent? Friend? Or a handler? Was this a syndicate operation? As we slowly moved forward, there was suddenly more I wanted to know. What ran through my mind most of all was, did he get to eat at all?
Then years ago, in Tagum, I witnessed a ragtag group of indigenous youth, in native costumes and toting makeshift percussion instruments and lutes, alight from a jeepney along the highway crossing entry to the city. As they quickly dispersed into small groups of twos and threes, I distinctly heard the driver’s companion call out that they rendezvous at the same junction around six that evening. Even as these show poverty as a common subject, they nonetheless reveal lesser-known facets of the social problem.
In contrast, my partner and I we’re walking along a one-way street and passed by two traffic cops standing near a cigarette vendor. Suddenly a Willy’s jeep entered the street from the far end, unaware it was going in the wrong direction. I heard one say, ‘Hep, I saw it first, this is my collar’, while rubbing his palms together. Anticipated money in the making, perhaps? How could they eat with that?
There’s got to be connect somewhere in the different scenarios but I just couldn’t put a finger on it. So, I’m just leaving it here, to add under street realities.
