BAKIT?

"Bakit ganito ang buhay ng tao. Mayroong mayaman, may api sa mundo."

Why? I too don’t know. Why do wee see children on our way to office or school begging for alms, selling sampaguitas when they should be in school building their future, their life? Why do we see old people, almost our grandmothers and fathers knocking our car windows with their palms open and their bare foot on the ground, asking for food or money or anything we could offer when they should be at home resting and making a house a home? Why?

I too, don’t know.

On my way home tonight, three old women hopped in on the bus I’m on and took their seats just in front of me. The other woman couldn’t see, or was she blind, that the two other woman and the conductor of the bus helped her sit. They were wearing old torn clothes. I noticed one of them on bare foot and then I felt a sudden numbness on my face. I don’t know but my heart grew heavy and my mood on the down low. My eyes went wet though I wiped them off immediately. Then the conductor came back and asked for their fare. Right there and then I wanted to tell the man to spare them of the fare. I wanted to offer that I pay for them instead. I wanted to give them the 500 peso bill that I had on my wallet which I borrowed from AJ earlier when we were having lunch at KFC across the office building. I wanted to give that old lady money to at least relieve her of the pain of walking on bare foot. But I too was broke. Just like them, I am poor.

While the rest of us can enjoy life’s pleasure, these people have to work hard just to have food on their tables. While we enjoy our seats inside the Greenbelt III movie houses watching the latest flick, they have to be in the streets asking other people to feed them, for whatever excess centavo we have in our pockets. While we are wasting money on useless things we buy from these so-called signature shops, they have to sew and re-sew their old torn clothes just to protect them from the heat and pollution of Edsa and the coldness of the night. While we can enjoy our HBO’s and MTV’s they have to look through their neighbors’ windows just to have a little time of enjoyment in their hectic and hard life. While we sip our tall-sized white iced chocolate mocha from Starbucks, they can only wish they can live like us.

Now why is that? I too don’t know.

What I do know is that I feel for these people. I share their sentiments. I know their life.

Isn’t it that everytime we see these people we feel some kind of burden in our hearts? We feel pain at how cruel and unjust this world is. We let out a sigh and wish it were all different, that we could all be equal, that life were a lot easier.

The truth is, life ain’t. And all we could do is hope and hope and hope. But what is there to hope when reality would slap you in the face and open your eyes to what is real, to what is there. Then we wake up from dreaming and we are confronted with a sad, cruel and shitty world. A world where there would always be the rich and then there’s the poor.

*sigh