Word Power

03 February 2013

Reality is given form and immortalized by words (as I understood from Prof. Emeritus Gémino H. Abad’s UP CAL recognition day speech).

Still into reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. It makes so much sense and I find Robert K. very agreeable because he writes simply and he elucidates matters with brevity and certainty. I like that. When he was describing people who were caught up in what he calls the Tar Baby of Briar Rabbit, (hurrah to the fond memories of childhood!) he used words like comply and docile. That was enough to convince readers to take action out of the accustomed passivity. And he wrote sensibly simple, mentioning once in a while general things that most people could relate to like Little Red Riding Hood. This book got published when I was six years old, 15 years later (that’s my sister’s age), I am reading it and by page 159, he has already mentioned my country twice. What more cues for affinity could this book present for me?

This morning, at 2am, coming from the net café, I was anxious and hungry. Saw taho vendors by the corner of L.Guinto and P.Gil. Taho is a morning snack made of liquefied soybean curd (not sure if that’s really what it is. It looks jelly-like without the bounciness), sugar syrup, and tiny pearl spheres we call sago. The vendor was with a co-vendor comrade. They were in good spirits.

He, the vendor whom I did not buy a cup of taho from, said they were already up by 12am in response to my remark that they were up early. I inquired about when they get all their stuff sold. They said, by 8am, their containers, two tin drums, which they carry on their shoulders through a connecting pole (the tin drums are at opposite ends of this pole) were empty. That sounded good market for him, because he added that that happens because they’ve got many suki (regular customers). I thought that was tough for nine hours of work and voiced out that they should find another source of income. He was not offended and he reasoned out that he preferred taho selling because he was his own boss. I did not disagree with him anymore because I was handed the ten peso cup of taho. I bade them goodbye and after chants of blessings from them, I left.

I was a bit more than halfway my cup of taho, walking almost close to Taft avenue as I gulped it. I have to cross to the other side to get home when a child on the sidewalk was before me gesturing as if he wanted to take the cup from me. He asked me to give it to him. I told him that I was sorry I can’t because I was hungry as well.  When I was on the other side of Taft, I thought differently. Had I given him the rest of that taho serving, both of us would’ve had something in our tummies. He must be so ravenous. And he asked nicely.

He looked familiar, I somehow had thought flashes of seeing him asleep in the sidewalk with another kid and another instance when I was behind them (he and that same kid he slept side by side to when I first saw him) and they were walking barefoot. But he did not have that strong peppery smell vagrants have. Gab told me of her experience of having her soda float snatched from her grasp by a random by-stander (probably like this kid) as she was on the sidewalk. I can’t blame them, they’re hungry. And this kid did not let his hunger override his manners that he asked me for it, not snatched it away from me.

I resolved to follow the opposite directive when presented again with this same opportunity to share. My mind contradicted that, saying next times were rare. I tried to justify what I did, assuming that that kid would just litter the streets with the discarded cup after he emptied it up. Then I walked past a girl, holding an empty water bottle. She was slumped on the sidewalk, looking very distraught and hopeless. I do not want to see my people in this state. I do not want to see people suffering, hurt or treated unjustly and inhumanely. It was hurtful knowing that I could not do anything for them at the moment.

Under the watchful gaze of my favorite stars, I turned away from that disturbing reality. I suspected she already tried sniffing on solvents to drive out hunger. Maybe that boy kid who asked me for the rest of my taho would resort to that action as well when hunger became overpowering. Why did I not share? I know very well how it is to be hungry - that type of hunger where you know there could be no way to stave it off because you had no means to get food.

All that was eclipsed by the truth that Sam did not earn a spot in the UPCAT passer list. I was anxious of that. How would I tell her? She built her future on it. It would be a blow to her. I will hold on to her strength of spirit. Society may blind us into thinking that there is only one way by which we could achieve fulfillment or that there is a single formula for greatness but, it could not deceive all people all the time; we were bound to discover that we have alternatives. I want Sam to see that graduating from UP is not the only ticket to success. There are airlines other than being a UP graduate, selling tickets for that same destination.

No wonder people attach so much prestige to UPCAT passers. That exam was a selective process, barring those who were evidenced as lacking in aptitude from premier education the university offers. It was my parent’s source of pride, telling their acquaintances that their eldest was studying in (during my undergrad years)/graduated from UP. I always made it clear to them that by that, they were embarrassing me. When my mother shares the conversations she had with others and that part comes up, my insides blush (Trivia: Our stomach linings blush too when our faces become flushed. The bodily process of blood shunting is on when we blush.). I still avoid mentioning that when I am asked. I evade it by masking my alma mater as UPM; most people are only familiar with UPD or UPLB.

I do not want people to feel worthless or devalued because they did not qualify for admission to UP. The idea of exclusion remains foreign to me; I resist it still even if I subscribe to and enjoy prerogatives that come with it. I am ever grateful of being admitted to this state university. Here I did not bury myself in erudition; I was incited to observe the mechanics of people and I remain awed by it. I’ve met experts, people who are respected and prominent in their chosen field; people who keep on learning because the more they studied, the more they knew that what they already know was lacking; people who are not only of sharp intellect but people brimming with passion. It was evident that they were having the time of their lives sharing both their knowledge and passion, exercising their power of influence on batches of bright young teens who would later on take the reins of building up and running this nation. That is what I hold on to most – that what they worked for would not be for nothing.