Three boys, tomorrow's fathers

Photo courtesy of The Mindanao Examiner

--> To sort of keep in touch with the masses I like to take the public transport on occasion.  Contact with the common tao both grounds and energizes me.  Thus, on a solo pilgrimage to Our Lady of Antipolo shrine last May 13, I took a jeepney from EDSA Central, choosing the front seat.  Between the driver and myself sat a frail-looking boy of about 14 or 15 who fell asleep and leaned against me for the most part of the trip.  Out of discomfort, I would shift in my seat now and then, hoping he would awaken, but he wouldn’t, so conscience compelled me to hold him instead lest he topple over to the driver’s side as the jeepney twisted and turned its way uphill.

            I wondered why he wouldn’t be roused, and suspected he might be on drugs, so I (finally) asked the driver if he knew the boy.  “No, he’s just a passenger.”  At this point the boy woke up, looking refreshed, so I asked him point blank:  “Bakit tulog na tulog ka?  Bangag ka ba?”  (Why were you in such deep sleep?  Are you high on drugs?)  He replied, “Nag sidecar po ako.”  Long story short, I learned that he was up the previous night pedaling a “trisikad” (a foot-propelled bicycle with a sidecar) in Baclaran to raise enough money for the trip to Antipolo.

            His uncle with whom he lives employs him on a “per need” basis; he’s on stand by 24/7 with no fixed hours for mealtimes or sleep.  I was aghast when he said he is paid 60 pesos per day.  He’s 15 years old, quit high school on his second year, has no driver’s license and is completely ignorant of the Labor Code or of his rights as a child.  Unable to see beyond his daily existence he was mum when asked what he wanted to be in the future.  Even returning to school seemed impossible because “we have no money.” 

            I asked what his favorite subject in school was.  “Math po,” he said.  Getting to our destination I simply encouraged him to pursue his studies even as a working student.  “Meddler” that I am, I suggested he ask his uncle to enroll him in TESDA as his Math skills could make him a good automotive mechanic, refrigeration technician, or even a mechanical engineer later on.  I just wanted him to have a dream.

Photo: Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency

            Reaching Antipolo, I went straight to the church for the Mass.  During the homily, I was reminded of “sidecar boy” when the priest spoke about how shocked he was to find out that a 12-year old boy in his parish was discovered to be a drug pusher.  “Actually, his parents are the pushers,” said the priest, “but they use the boy to deliver the drugs because he’s just a child, and who would suspect a child to be involved in such deals?”  So, here again it’s the elders who take advantage of the child—just like those who engage teenage girls and boys to make money lending their bodies to online pornography, or those who train and utilize their young sons in war strategies, etc.  I wondered how many of the parents in our country actually are already of this mentality, and how through the years Filipinos have changed in the way we regard our children.

            In the Adoration Chapel, as I was preparing to leave, two boys walked in, rosary in hand.  I was curious as they were not accompanied by an adult, so I stayed a bit to observe.  Apparently a well-fed 10-year-old, the older one seemed to pray his rosary in earnest, kneeling still the whole time while the younger one (around 6, perhaps), was quite a wiggler, trying but failing to distract the older one who only budged to kneel on the floor and kiss it!  I must admit the sight delighted me as I thought, “Could this be the bud of a priestly vocation?”

            This boy is quite a different image from the first two I had encountered, but having come one after the other, all in one morning—the first one I touched and conversed with; the second, I heard about; the third, I saw—all three vignettes came as one to stir my imagination.  How many more years before advocates of “social behavior change” can get hold of these boys and remold their minds into the “new normal”? 

As things are in our country right now, government authorities (purveyors of the contraceptive mentality) are already blindly luring our young slowly but systematically into a world where one’s pleasure, needs, and desires matter most.  Top that with the popular media offerings that aim to brainwash audiences into embracing a “new” meaning of marriage, family, and parenthood, et al.   Shows both foreign and locally produced teach viewers it’s not only passé but even cruel to have moral values, particularly if such moral values stand in the way of one’s “right to happiness.”

            Where will those three boys be 10 years from today? I dread to think that poverty might turn the “sidecar boy” and the “child drug pusher” into child abusers themselves, or that with the onset of puberty the “rosary boy” will drop his devotion in favor of worldlier gains.  What will they believe in?  What causes will they be fighting for?  Will they clamor for divorce or same sex marriage?  Will they approve of abortion, or themselves assist the suicide of their elders?  What stories will they tell children?

            The forces of darkness disguised as light bearers are working double-time to ensnare our young, but I believe that God will not allow them to succeed.  And that’s the truth.