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Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Malilong: Not just poverty
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
I don’t watch television game shows. But when I saw hundreds of people, many of them smelling of the sun, lining up for tickets to “Wowo-wee” in a local mall not very long ago, my curiosity was piqued and I promised myself to watch it when I had the time.
The opportunity came not long after. I missed the early part but caught that segment where 10 contestants challenged the champion, one after the other.
The last challenger was a laundrywoman, like the champion. She said she walked all the way to the studio because she didn’t have money and asked the champion to promise to give money for her and her grandchild’s fare, in case her challenge failed.
As if on cue, people from the audience went up the stage and gave her various amounts, some of them in dollars, which she acknowledged tearfully. So this was what it was all about, I told myself: people performing acts of charity on nationwide television. Friends would later tell me that the scene was familiar, almost routine, in the game show.
Out of respect for the 74 dead, who could no longer defend themselves, I would not say — as two men of the cloth reportedly did — that indolence, not poverty, and the attraction of freebies are what draw the throngs to game shows. I am certain, though, that if they had a choice, those people would have preferred to watch these contests in the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms rather than be among those in the studio, the admission to which is so tough, it’s like passing through the eye of the needle.
Alas, just as there are people who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, there are also those who are cursed to poverty since day one of their lives. They and the game shows feed on each other’s needs: relief from their desperate lives for them and ratings for the other.
The deadly stampede last Saturday served not only to highlight our poverty, however, but also to dramatize that shameful trait that afflicts all of us, regardless of social standing.
This is the character that is so unique among us that we are perhaps the only people in the world who stand up, grab our luggage from the overhead compartments and rush for the door even while the plane is taxiing.
You see this trait in malls when paying for your purchases at the cashier’s counter; while heading for the exits at the end of concerts and movie shows; and even in Church during communion. We want always to be ahead of the rest and if we’re not, are impatient.
From the news reports, it was obvious that this lack of discipline, more than any other factor, was what did the victims in last Saturday. Those at the back couldn’t wait for their turn and pressed forward. The result was inevitable.
The early bird catches the worm. How sad that this ode to punctuality could have so distorted our sense of values that we now believe that we have to be ahead all the time because life is a never-ending race.
Perhaps, we should start teaching our children that sometimes the early bird also catches the flu.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 7, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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