‘So I can go home please’
He was so young, unusually short and fragile to be on a busy street such as Sheridan at the intersection of Shaw Boulevard. As I observed this child with a handful of sampaguita garlands, I realized that he was also physically handicapped either by a “clubbed foot” or polio perhaps.
Out of habit, I simply grabbed the money from the side pocket of my vehicle and just gave it all to him. He smiled momentarily in appreciation but that lasted only a second. He counted several strands of sampaguita and as he insisted that I take them, he begged me: “Please buy the rest so I can go home already.”
It could have been a spiel, it could have been the truth, who knows. People say that these kids all work for a “syndicate,” others say they are placed out there by their lazy parents, just like those who bring their own child or borrow someone else’s to draw more sympathy while begging from motorists.
The sad thing is that young, handicapped child is not a rare sight in Metro Manila. They are all over the place begging from car to car, in the provinces they get on jeepneys passing envelopes and guilt people into giving a few pesos or, depending on the time of the day, they wait for you outside restaurants and fast-food chains to ask for your “doggie bag” or take out.
It is tragic when people can protest and criticize political figures for relocating or driving out street people from parks and public spaces when a visiting dignitary is scheduled to pass by Roxas Boulevard or Luneta Park. How activists and human rights groups protest when squatters are evicted or enclosed with whitewashed fences.
Politicians and pundits can crucify Vice President Sara Duterte over the confidential intelligence funds she didn’t get. Love and patriotism launched the Christmas convoy out to the West Philippine Sea, but no one has expressed indignation about mendicants and child endangerment in our city streets!
None of them have protested about BABIES and TODDLERS being used as accessories for begging in the streets. If they work for “syndicates” then why has the Philippine National Police not gone after these syndicates? If the NBI can bust syndicates involved in child pornography, why not settle
