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By Sherryl Anne G. Quito
Diding is a familiar face in the
Basilica of the Black Nazarene in the noisy, throbbing heart of old
Manila, Quiapo. Three times a day, this volunteer cook for the
church’s feeding center prepares porridge (lugaw) for 200 to 400
hungry and homeless families who patiently line up outside the gates
off Plaza Miranda. For many, Diding’s lugaw will be their
first—and last—meal of the day.
A retired teacher, Diding is
well-loved by both young and old in the area for her genuine
kindness. Her humanitarian efforts give a glimmer of hope to the
needy, knowing that there is someone who is willing to make life
easier for them. Diding says she will never get tired of cooking
lugaw. It’s a wonderful feeling when you know you’re doing
something right, she says. Without Diding and the other volunteers
in the feeding center, the poor won’t have anything to fill their
empty stomach. With Diding around, the poor are assured to have a
“Noche Buena” (Christmas eve) feast of at least lugaw.
For five-year-old Christian
Alvarez, Diding’s lugaw is already manna from heaven. Whenever he
takes a spoonful of Diding’s lugaw, he thinks of his favorite
food—tinola and fried chicken—saving him from his gnawing
hunger. This Christmas, this frisky peroxide blond street kid will
be enjoying Diding’s lugaw in a different light—spaghetti and
hamonado langgoniza (pork sausage with ham).
For Christian and the other
street children around the Quiapo area, Christmas is just an
ordinary day. Some say Christmas is for children—but not for these
street kids. The gap between the rich and poor children is heavily
noticed during the holiday season. A 2005 National Statistics Office
(NSO) survey commissioned by the International Labour
Organization-International Programme on the Elimination of Child
Labour (ILO-IPEC), estimated that 3 out of 20 children in the
Philippines or some 3.7 million, mostly 5-17 years old, are working
children.
While children of well-off
families enjoy suffering from Noche Buena overindulgence, street
children suffer from hunger or food shortage. For Filipinos,
Christmas is a season for family reunions and gatherings. Parents
have their children in tow and are confronted with a heavy plate of
pasta, ham, morcon, fruit salad. Street children are forced to beg
for alms while singing Christmas carols or scavenge for food just to
bring home something for the family to share on Christmas Eve.
Some are young criminals—with a gang boss.
Instead of family reunions, these
children are reunited with their comrades in juvenile prison. SPO1
Alfred Tenorio of the Manila Police District said their records show
that the number of children put in jail increases as the holiday
season approaches. The most common offense committed by these
children are bag-snatching and pick pocketing, especially in the
Divisoria, Binondo and Quiapo districts areas flooded with shoppers.
SPO1 Tenorio reveals that most
children they take in for questioning say they really don’t want
to commit crimes. Most of them are forced by their parents,
bullied by older kids or instructed by syndicate bosses.
Government has responded to this
problem by ratifying ILO Convention 138 and strengthening its
monitoring of businesses that employ children. There have been
rescues of children employed as laborers. Government and police
efforts to bring down syndicate use of kids have to increase.
Despite the bright lights
surrounding malls and middle- and upper-class homes, street children
are blinded to the joy of Christmas brought to mankind by the birth
of Christ the savior and redeemer. For these poverty-stricken
children have never experiences how it feels to celebrate Christmas
the way better-off families do.
Mark Anthony Gañedo, 9, one of
Christian’s playmates, sleeps on a milk carton as do his parents
and four siblings. He said he has never experienced opening presents
under a Christmas tree or sitting down around a table to enjoy a
decent Christmas dinner. The best Noche Buena he ever had, he said,
was a leftover Jollibee Chickenjoy he found in the garbage, which he
had to share with his siblings.
Mark Anthony says he always makes
more money during the Christmas weeks, begging and peddling
cigarettes and candies. However, he said he wants to experience what
it is like to have some money not by begging but to get it as a gift
from a ninong or ninang who really cares for him.
Instead, he struggles to have enough money to buy simple meals for
his parents and siblings. If he is lucky he will take home a plastic
toy handed out by a Catholic or Protestant charity worker.
The street children in the
Philippines have long been a concern of the government. Many
government efforts fall short for lack of money.
These are supplemented by the
charitable works of mainly church organizations, foremost of which
are Roman Catholic initiatives by Caritas, those of the dioceses,
like Archbishop of Manila Gaudencio Rosales’s Pondo ng Pinoy and
Hapag-asa, and individual parishes and religious orders, like the
Salesians of Don Bosco whose Pugad Home for Street Children
programs.
Private foundations and
international clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis and the Jaycees have also
funded and participated in charitable works for street children.
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