Ka-Blog!

Here’s a scene at a gas station last night.

            While having a few liters of gas pumped into the car to get me home, a girl approaches my window.  I knew right off she’d be begging for alms.  Far more numerous than politicians in this hard-luck country are beggars—more than half of them kids.

            As always, a debate raged inside me.  Will I refuse or will I fish some coin from my pocket to hand over?

            For all the expensive tuition my parents paid, not a single school I attended gave me a satisfactory solution to this dilemma.

            My Catholic schools said that it’s wrong to give beggars money.  That would encourage their begging and keep them on the streets.

            Conversely, my public school teachers always said that when asked, one is duty bound to give.

            The government for its part says child beggars actually work for gangs who send them out early in the morning and collect the money late at night. Yes, Virginia, this is how the government in this country thinks. (And since almost all gangs in this country are either controlled or protected by politicians, the police and military, they should know.  Right?)

            Our volunteers ask us all the time which is the way to go.  I always give them the first two positions.  Never the third. To reduce the phenomenon of street begging in this Bayang magiliw, Perlas ng silanganan to that of a criminal problem is simply asinine.

            So, there I was last night, wrestling with decisions.  At first, I shook my head.  Several times.  But the kid won’t leave. 

Then I took a long look at her.  She was thin and was wearing old house clothes.  She had curly hair, a small mouth and doe eyes that tugged at my heart.

            I melted.  I dug into my pocket and found a single coin which I handed over.

            I did not know Pom was watching me all the while.  When the kid finally left, she said “You should have given her bread instead.”  Then it hit me.  How stupid I was not to have thought of giving the kid a sandwich instead.  (And another instance that showed which side has got the brains and more heart in this marriage.)

            But my stupidity was not the worst problem last night.  The real problem is that I live in a country where many angels beg on the streets while the "first couple" slept in a luxurious hospital suite.

           Such is our life in this country once called "gma’s Enchanted Kingdom."