NAA ba ka’y kasuko o kasubo sa imong mama?
Maingon ko na mas kasubo kay dili man gud ni kaisa lang, kaduha na man ni. Ikapila na ko sige’g tambag na murag ang nahitabo ako na ang mother siya na ang child.
[Is it anger or anguish that you feel toward your mother? I’d say, it’s more of anguish because this is not the first time, this is already the second time and I have told her several times so that it seems like I am now the mother and she is the daughter].
This was Rhoda D. Villasencio’s reply in an interview last July 17, 2024, just two days short of her graduation at the University of the Philippines in Mindanao where she will be receiving her diploma in Bachelor of Science Anthropology magna cum laude.
Marching proudly wearing her ‘sablay’ accompanied by her grandfather and stepsister, Rhoda is the daughter of a prostituted woman who is now in jail for drugs — her mother is a recidivist, a second-timer, and has been prostituted even before Rhoda started schooling, maybe before she was born.
This is the second time Rhoda has been featured in SunStar Davao. The first time was when she graduated from senior high school at the Davao City National High School as Class Valedictorian in 2020. ( https://bit.ly/3WroSnT )
Rhoda’s childhood has all the ingredients of life in the underworld — sex, drugs, extreme poverty, and a smattering of domestic violence but she chooses to live in the light. She found out the truth about her mother’s work in second grade through a neighbor in Malvar Street where the family used to live, although she has been curious since first grade.
“Naa kong silingan na kadula lang namo na nakita daw niya akong mama namur*ng. Bu**kat daw akong mama (We had a neighbor, one of my playmates, who said he saw my mother waiting for customers, that my mother is prostituted),” she said. The words she used give a hint of the taunts she received as a second-grader.
The signs had been there long before that — her mother left for work as night fell in makeup and appealing clothes. There was also a time when she saw several packets of condoms in her mother’s bag.
But her mother told her she worked in a carinderia, until one afternoon when finally her mother confirmed what the neighbors had been saying.
Telling her story
Rhoda sought to understand her mother’s situation. It helped that by third grade, her mother introduced her to Talikala Inc. and its educational scholarships and counseling for children of prostituted persons through Balay Banaag. Talikala is a non-government organization working with prostituted women and children since 1987 in Davao City.
At that time, Rhoda said, her mother was active with Lawig-Bubay. Lawig-Bubay is an organization of prostituted women and children in Davao City supported by Talikala.
“I was made to understand what being prostituted means, the experiences that brought my mother to this, and from these I chose to tell my story, not to brag, but to put it out before anyone can judge me,” she said in the vernacular. “I share my story and where I come from and that I am not ashamed of being a prostituted woman’s daughter because it is through this situation that I became who I am.”
Balay Banaag was put up in 2010 after Talikala observed that some girl and gay children of Lawig-Bubai members were becoming prostituted as early as 13 years old. Through the Terre des Hommes-Germany, the program aimed at preventing prostitution started with 35 children who received educational support while still in the care of their mothers. The center was finally put up in 2011 and had a pioneering batch of 16, four boys and 12 girls, Rhoda included. It was named Balay Banaag by the children themselves in 2012. Banaag means “ray of light”.
From 2012-2017, Balay Banaag supported 27 children with their daily needs, including going to school while parents were made to attend capacity-building activities to provide them livelihood skills and improve their relationship with their children.
The Marist Sisters took over the center management after TdH-Germany ended its support in 2017. Talikala and Lawig Bubai are still co-managing Balay Banaag by ensuring it continues to serve the children of prostituted women, Talikala executive director Jeanette L. Ampog said.
Rhoda meets Talikala
“At that time, my mother could no longer afford to send me to school so she grabbed the opportunity since I was adamant about pursuing my education,” Rhoda said. She accepted without second thoughts. This desire in third grade stemmed from her early years with her grandparents.
Her mother’s family lives in Talomo, where her mother lived when she was arrested. But when Rhoda was a toddler, extreme poverty drove her grandparents to go to barangay Salaysay in Marilog District to eke out a living gathering reject Cavendish bananas from a plantation there, chopping and drying these under the sun to sell as raw material for hog feed. “Binangkong”, it’s called. Her grandparents were the ones taking care of her, so she went with them.
It was in Salaysay where she went to kindergarten… on her own.
Images of her grandmother carrying loads of banana bunches on her back fired up that determination to be in school.
“Often I’d go to school without taking a bath with saliva still smeared on my face because there were times when it was already 7 a.m. by the time I’d wake up. No one wakes me up, no one accompanies me to school, I’ve become used to that.”
Her grandparents would still be out eking out a living to put food on the table by the time she arrived home from school. Often they only had one meal a day with nothing more to spare. Thus, after kindergarten, it was decided that she had better chances of staying in school with her mother; not that she wanted to leave her grandparents.
Her grandmother said life would be better with her mother, she believed that. It wasn’t. In many instances, her mother would tell her they didn’t have food or money for school.
She persisted, foregoing the need for food.
She was going to Palma Gil Elementary School at that time because her mother and stepfather lived in Malvar, in the central business district of Davao City. As a Talikala scholar from third to fourth grade, she’d go to the Doña Vicenta office to claim her allowance. By fifth grade, she was told that she would be living in Balay Banaag in barangay Biao Guianga. This was when the center was put up through funding from TdH-Germany.
She grabbed this opportunity despite having to fight loneliness and her longing for her grandparents and her mother, made worse by the fact that it was that year when her mother and her stepfather separated. Rhoda never knew her biological father.
It was also that time when her mother found a new partner that came with greater problems: Illegal drugs.
Illegal drugs’ toll
In January 2015, just after New Year, her mother and her aunt (her mother’s sister) were arrested for drugs. A few months before, her mother’s live-in partner and her uncle (her mother’s brother) were arrested for the same reason.
Her grandmother, who by that time had a heart ailment, witnessed the buy-bust operations in her house that sent her two daughters and her son to jail.
“Ang last visit niya sa ako kay April 23, 2015. Pagka May 4 niato, namatay siya (Her last visit at Balay Banaag was April 23, 2015. She died on May 4).”
Her sole motivation was gone and she almost lost it as well. She was in 8th grade at that time, all by herself at the center, and was constantly praying that she would never wake up again.
Fortunately, there’s Talikala and all the psycho-social support it offers, she found a renewed purpose to help children like her.
By the time she graduated from Junior High School, the management of Balay Banaag was transferred to the Marist sisters, and so she decided to take the offer of Talikala to stay with them instead because living in Talomo with her mother’s family amid the prevalence of illegal drugs there was out of the question. That’s why she graduated senior high at the DCNHS in 2020; a walking distance from Talikala.
It was in 2020, too, when her mother was freed from jail. She was back behind bars by April 2023. This time, her mother has a different partner who’s also involved in illegal drugs; a man Rhoda calls Uncle Payat. They met in jail and they’re back in jail.
“We haven’t communicated hence, not even in chats. It’s only my stepsister who visits her in jail because I once told my mother that if she will be jailed again, I will never visit her.”
In the meantime, she’s trying to build on her successes, which includes sending her stepsister to college. Her stepsister is taking up Marketing at the Christian Colleges of Southeast Asia in Ma-a and will hopefully graduate next year. Rhoda has been lending money through her allowances and earning some more through small businesses selling clothes, food, and accessories.
Topmost in her mind is to give back to Talikala, but she is also considering other options to be of service to women and children in high-risk situations. Her priority right now is to march and receive that distinction as magna cum laude, Latin for “with great praise”. SAE