Looking through the eyes of a frog

CEBU, Philippines - “End Hunger,” Sam made out the words as he croaked to himself. Sam is a frog – and an intelligent one – with his bulging eyes and binocular vision, he could make out humans carrying a big banner. They were giggling as though having fun. Sam did not understand what hunger is, frogs don’t get hungry.

Sam leaped through the midst of the parading crowd. He was curious what these humans were doing. There was a band and balloons. Oooppss… he almost got trodden. A man tripped by him and as he did, kicked Sam to the side. Sam thought, maybe humans are happy about being hungry because they giggle and parade on the streets with music and balloons.

Just then the parade stopped on a big town square. There were humans on the platform and he could make out human voices. Frogs can hear both on land and on water. Humans mingled around, not really listening to what was said by those on the platform. Sam thought, humans can hear everything with their ears but they don’t listen. Frogs can only make out what they hear but they try to listen.

Because frogs have binocular vision and see better from a far, Sam could make out a young boy across the street. In his tattered shirt and shorts, the boy had an ugly, dirty sack on his back. It was full of rusted iron that the boy carried with one hand and bended back. The boy stood in front of an open restaurant that had the television on. He watched people eating while watching moving images of children eating ice cream. Sam could see the boys eyes fixated on the ice cream and the people who were dining. The restaurant owner shooed him away.

As the boy backed off with eyes wandering at the parading crowd, Sam could make out pain from the boy’s eyes while holding his stomach with one hand as the other hand held the dirty sack. Just then there was screaming from the crowd as there were dance performances on stage. Sam wondered what the dancing was for when this was supposed to be a parade to end hunger.

Cupcake fell on the ground. It had been from one of the screaming crowd. Without even noticing an approaching car, the boy rushed as the car shifted gears to an angry screech. “Watch it” the driver shouted. The boy hardly heard as he grabbed the fallen cupcake and botched it into his mouth.

Hunger in Binocular Vision.

Everyday thousands of Filipino children are hungry. During the first quarter of 2013, an estimated 3.9 million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger based on the Social Weather hunger survey. Involuntary hunger means having to go hungry at least once in three months simply because there is nothing to eat.

The same survey reported that Filipino families cope with hunger by skipping meals, borrowing money and food from relatives and skipping school. The world seems to have addressed hunger mitigation issues like a parade with fanfare, balloons and dances. In their powerpoint presentations and speeches, government officials and research agencies have been good in enumeration. They say that prolonged hunger can lead to high infant mortality rates, impaired mental and physical development and even hindrance to economic growth. They raise the concern that children who experience chronic hunger could suffer permanent physical and cognitive damage so that they become unproductive adults.

In his fourth State of the Nation address, President Aquino said that there are now almost 4 million household beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. The 4Ps is one of government’s programs to mitigate hunger.

But then hunger is intergenerational. This means that children who are hungry today become the hungry adults of tomorrow. Government said that hunger can be mitigated with livelihood programs, increased agriculture and rice sufficiency, integrated management of severe and acute malnutrition, supplementary feeding for pregnant women and children, and the promotion of desirable nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Other creative ways of mitigating hunger are creating noontime shows that show vulgar themes so people can forget lunch, showing telenovelas of man eating human flesh during dinnertime to induce nausea and forget dinner, organize pageants in the barangay so people will worry about their faces instead of their stomachs and banner newspapers and internet with headlines on violence so people will dignify greed.

Sam leaped as he followed the boy on his way home. The boy’s mother handed him a bowl of what appeared to be porridge. His two year old brother sucked from his mother’s scrawny breasts. The boy gave back the porridge to his mother saying, “Thank you Mama, Eat. I’m not hungry. I had cupcake today.” (FREEMAN)