Sunday Essays: Their bags of might

Saturday, January 14, 2012

POVERTY remains to be the utmost problem in the society today and with poverty comes a great deal of headaches. Davao City is not spared of these problems. Poverty is here, undeniable.

Despite the image of the City Mayor as the crime buster and champion of the people, there are too many small communities teeming with poor people she can only address the problem as they come.

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In the dark corners of the city, thieves, snatchers, picks, drug addicts, and gangs lurk.

Barangay 31-D of Mabini St. may look like your ordinary “palengke” from the outside but wait until you dig deeper. Its nighttime activities are eerie realities of a society gone wrong. Mabini remains to be the area where drugs loom, along with it, crime.

In dark alleys, young boys aged 11 to 17 would huddle in a hurry carrying cellophane bags and squabbling over a can. From afar, they seem to be having fun. They’re not.

The can carries the brand Vulcaseal, the solvent of choice these days because buying “Rugby, the rubber cement brand, has become difficult. In regular stores, in order to buy the Rugby brand or its equivalent, the buyer has to sign a ledger.

Vulcaseal, a roof sealant is also a solvent but there are no restrictions yet to its purchase, and so the solvent addicts simply shifted brands.

A little boy slightly taller than the rest said sniffing solvent makes them feel high and mighty. Nikol is only 14 years old but barely reaches the average height and build of a boy his age. Schooling isn’t his priority claiming he is under threat in school. And no it’s not a threat of failing a grade or being scolded for not having the school requirements, rather it is the threat of rival gang members.

Nikol belongs to a gang who call themselves KungFu Kids. They have 16 members aged 11-17 who all converge at 31-D to sniff solvent everyday to get high. Most of them have dropped out of school and the street is their hangout.

According to Barangay Chief Joel Landero Sr., they have tried to reach out to these boys so many times but they have continually failed. The most they were able to do was to get the boys out of the streets for a few hours. But after that, the boys will be back.

Two non-government organizations have been trying to help, he said, the Tambayan Center for Children’s Rights and Managing Alternative Groups Inc. (Magi), introducing intervention programs and offering diversions for these boys to bring the boys back to the mainstream society. But the boys are not receptive and would keep on returning to the streets and sniff solvent.

He added that they have also tried talking with the parents and all the parents would say was, “pasagdan na lang na sila gali basta muuli lang kay wala na man ta mabuhat (we can’t do anything about them so it’s best to let them be for as long as they still go home)”.

With these attempts to put some order in the lives of the children having failed, Landero now focuses on the peace and order of his community.

Landero can only bewail how many parents have given up control of their children. Many, he said, have even been insisting that it is the barangay captain’s responsibility to discipline their children.

“Ikaw na lang patay anang akong anak Kap! (Might as well kill them yourself, Cap!),” Landero quoted one parent as saying.

But, Landero said that to help the children, he must help the parents. For as long as the parents cannot provide for themselves, they also cannot keep track of their children’s activities. Some of the parents are jobless, others are behind bars for some offenses, and some have abandoned their boys, their residence now unknown.

The barangay had tried to keep track of the parents so the parents in turn can keep trap of their children.

But because the barangay does not have enough cash to fund projects, Landero said, they have linked up with private agencies and religious groups who promote livelihood programs. One such group is Fatima Parish, which he tapped to provide livelihood trainings for parents.

Budget in 31-D, as in many similar barangays, is tight simply because poverty in these barangays is rampant. It’s a cycle that can be broken by well-intentioned private groups, he said.

Poverty can lead to lack of education which then leads to inadequate parental capabilities, which result to children dropping out of school and soon sniffing solvent in some dark alley, much like Polpol, another gang member did.

There are plans for livelihood enhancements by government, yes. But implementation is very slow.

Thus his call for the community to pitch in their help. For parents to cooperate and bring their children back to their homes, and for the people to contribute for the betterment of the dire straits of poor people.

Budget alone is not the problem, the people is compounding it.

For now, Polpol and Nikol continue to sniff their plastic bags containing a slather of Vulcaseal. For them this is the bag of power, capable of making them feel high and mighty.