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Friday, October 08, 2004
So: Hunger
By Jocy So
Unraveling
'I don't know the kind of hunger that would make you jump into that Quezon City stream, or beg, or steal, or sell yourself, or kill.'
ONE summer a long time ago, I decided that I had to lose my baby fat asap. And, in my pubescent wisdom, I concluded that the best way to do that was not to eat.
I holed myself inside my parents' bedroom where I could read and watch TV all day long and emerged only to artistically place bits of rice, flecks meat, some sauce, and yes, even bones around my plate to simulate a meal consumed and enjoyed. I drank water, nibbled on bread, but shunned eating anything substantial.
Despite my steely will, that foolish plan did not last for a long time. I just got too hungry.
We've all felt hunger. There is the growling tummy that distracts our thoughts in the middle of a class or meeting. Or the sense of urgency that makes us chow down a meal in seconds without the taste or texture of the food registering. Food is something vital, integral to survival. To live without it for even a few hours can cause not a few to go stir crazy.
Hence, I don't really blame those Quezon City residents who dove into and wallowed around the dirty city stream in search of the purported gold nuggets to
be found there. According to newspaper reports, last Monday, approximately 200 people were spotted panning the trash-filled waters. Never mind if they are more likely to find disease and infection in those waters, the lure of gold is too strong to ignore.
But then, what's the connection between hunger and the desire for gold? Well, how about this recent statistic from the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that 1 in 7, or 15% of all households in the Philippines suffer from severe hunger. This means that these households could not put food on the table at least once in the last three months. Of the 15%, 3.3% experienced hunger often or always. This is considered severe hunger.
With the prices of commodities going up and minimum wage staying inert, no wonder many Filipinos cannot afford to buy food and eat. Add to this mix these disheartening statistics: 14% of Filipinos are unemployed and, according to Newsweek, the Philippines has `one of the highest poverty indexes in the world [with] nearly half of the population subsist[ing] on less than $2 a day' or P100. $2 is not even half the minimum wage per hour in the US.
If you think that's bad, according to a report by the Asian Development Bank released last August, around 12 million Filipinos survive on less than P56 a day. That means the only amount of cash in the pockets of 15% of our 80 million population in each day is enough only for one Palabok Fiesta meal at Jollibee.
No job = no money. High prices + no money = no food. No food = hunger. Hunger can certainly drive people to do the craziest things, including jumping into a germ-infested stream in search of treasure.
For weeks now, we've been bombarded about our country's fiscal crisis. Actually, it was hard for me to grasp what that meant. It was hard to wrap my mind around the issue. I understood that the government is spending more than it is earning and that many of its agencies are financially ineffective and inefficient. Still, it all seemed too remote to be relevant to me. But with the statistics on hunger, that hit closer to home. After all, eating and not being able to eat is something we all can relate to. Eating is something we all do, hunger is something we've all felt at different levels at some point in our lives.
If fiscal crisis means more people will get hungry, more people can't eat, more people jumping into innumerable murky holes in hopes of emerging into a better life, trying to, as the Black Eyed Peas rapped about Filipinos, `make something out of nothing,' then yes, now I understand. What is happening to the Philippines is definitely something I know I don't want to continue happening.
But I also realize that after all the statistics I've read, all the numbers in print, all the stories, and explanations, all the things about poverty, need, and hunger, I don't really understand. And that this outcry, these feelings of solidarity and compassion for my kababayans, this column is nothing more than my pathetic middle-class attempt to resolve middle-class guilt. I may have experienced hunger, but I had a choice to eat or not to eat, and in my stupidity and ignorance of what an absolute miracle it was that I still had food to eat, I decided to starve myself that summer.
In reality, I don't know the kind of hunger 15% of Filipinos know very well. I don't know the kind of hunger that would make you jump into that Quezon City stream, or beg, or steal, or sell yourself, or kill. I don't know what it's like to live on P56 a day. And truth be told, beyond this column and prayer, I don't really know what I can do about it.
(Jocy L. So teaches at Davao Christian High School)
(October 8, 2004 issue)
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