A culture of ‘wala’

"Forgive me Ate Ann if I have to approach you again," wrote a Nasugbu friend of mine in Filipino.

She lives only nearby but felt compelled to write rather than to talk to me because, "I am already swallowing my pride. We have nothing to eat but I cannot approach anybody anymore. You are the only one I could think of." She had apparently approached as many people as she possibly could until there was no one left to turn to.

I understood her. Wala na, eh.

It can be shocking when you come face to face with it, with this culture of "wala." I have chosen to use this Filipino word since it aptly captures the Filipinos’ experience today. Like it or not, poverty has so seeped into our society that it is becoming more and more a stark reality that will tend to blow into our faces any moment. Is it 80 percent or more of Filipinos now live in poverty level? Give or take a few points, the picture is grim.

I’ve been meditating on this reality while staying almost daily in the past nine months here in my hometown of Nasugbu, Batangas. Fortunately, my education gave me the privilege of mingling with members of the lower to the higher levels of society, both in our hometown and in schools where I finished outside Nasugbu (BS Psychology in Assumption College, Makati and then Medicine at De La Salle in Dasmarinas, Cavite).

In my growing years, I would hear neighbors and friends say kinakapos sila (they were in dire straits); nagigipit sila (they were constrained to spend); or at worst they were in a situation so urgent they needed to borrow money. Although I do not remember it, maybe I did hear about an incident of someone going hungry – maybe nagkukulang sila, pero hindi nawawalan (maybe they may lack in quantity but food does not disappear) – but never as frequently as I have been hearing these past days. We are awash in poverty.

"Nanay has just been hospitalized, wala lang kaming pambili ng gamot," a townmate beseeched to me just recently.

Wala, eh.

Other variations I have heard: "Pasensiya ka na, Anna Marie, wala lang pang-tuition/school supplies ang aking mga anak."

Wala, eh.

Or, "I’ve just paid off our debts, I’m paying off for another one. Our electricity will be cut off!"

Wala na talaga, eh!

But worse is still when families have nothing to eat.

What great irony! How has it come to pass for the Philippines that her sons and daughters are going hungry? How has it come to pass when fish teem abundantly in our seas, when the fields are abloom with coconuts, rice stalks, sugarcanes, fruit-bearing trees and more, when the Lord in His mercy has made sure that if He took care of the lowly birds, what more of us His sons and daughters? It has come to pass simply because we have allowed it to.

Then you turn on the TV and see congressmen and senators arguing so vociferously over concerns known to be self and politically motivated anyway, and you could weep with disgust and anger. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, what and where are your PRIORITIES? To all the government leaders or those in power in the private sectors, have you looked around you and seen the poor? My dream is for Congress to some day pass a bill which will require their members to attend, for a minimum of a month, a seminar in which the congressmen will actually live in and immerse themselves in poor communities. Perhaps the main curriculum here should be compassion and charity.

Hunger – there is nothing to put in the stomach. After which everything follows – malnutrition, a family’s low quality of life, criminality, addictions, depressions and other indicators of mental instability, low prioritization of moral values and principals. Hunger is not merely a lack of food; it is an abomination to our very souls. It is shunting God to the periphery of our lives, and then our nation's spirituality and morality dissipate.

So we may ask: As overwhelming as it is, what can we – each one of us – do to fight and deal with poverty? Here are some food for thought:

Clarify Your Objectives.

Ask yourself why you want to "help." There are dime a dozen politicians or aspirants who "help" for publicity, to have their "donations" prominently displayed for praise, to go after good survey results, to have it said that they were "men of action." They want to be thought of as reliable "benefactors."

God knows what’s in our hearts and why we do what we do. He does not care one bit if we donate a peso or a million because they did not come from you, they came from HIM. So what He looks at is how we orient ourselves properly when it comes to helping our neighbors. He wants to see in us a genuine desire to better the life of someone else. Try to be sincere, pure and loving in this regard.

And never let your good deeds be known by others as much as you can. The reason for this is that God wants to protect you from yourself – your pride, self-absorption or tendency to ascribe to yourself glory which should belong only to the Lord.

Determine your sphere.

Poverty and hunger are daunting challenges. We only have one soul, mind and body and only can do so much with our time, resources and talents/skills. That’s why even helping still needs some form of limitation or another.

Determine early on how you would want to help. Who will be the beneficiaries? How often would they benefit? Will you be helping in cash, in kind, or with your time, say, by voluntarily teaching? It’s all up to you. The important thing is not to lose focus. It is better to do small things better and complete than launch yet abandon big "projects."

Helping need not be "formal," too. Sometimes when somebody approaches you for some form of help or another, you can feel it in your guts that they urgently need it. Also, don’t be embarrassed to share "only" the amount which you can give. Help in what way you can and God will bless you a hundredfold. It’s the thought that counts, remember?

Set your limits or budget.

A budget is important because, let’s face it, all our material needs are almost always procured by money today. Many people actually set aside charity funds themselves and take time to share this, say, monthly, with people, causes or institutions they have committed themselves to. Some set aside "emergency funds" for unforeseen circumstances that may happen to other people.

What we should pray for is that more corporations/companies, especially the more solid ones, think more of their least fortunate brethren and come up with missions, projects, trust funds, scholarships, and the like which will in the long term be beneficial to society.

Pray for the ones you’re helping.

Of course it would be best to accomplish a solid friendship with the one you’re helping but if this is not possible (i.e. corporate donations) then the next best thing would be to pray constantly for him/her/them. They are after all our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in as much as we are helping them beat poverty, poverty of the soul should be an even greater concern for us.

Perhaps poverty exists that we might learn to share – and share more with our neighbors, that we might see how far we can banish our selfishness, our pride, and our doubts in the Lord’s teachings.

For in due time, with God’s grace and our efforts, this just might happen. Sa wakas, nawala na rin ang wala (At last, wala has disappeared).

(E-mail the author at annmondo@yahoo.com)