| Mary
Anne Jodel Bunagan, is a female 14 year-old out of school youth from Maysantol, Cupang,
Bulacan, Bulacan. Her mother could not stop her from hanging around the baranggay's
basketball court where she injured her left foot which is now suffering from a fracture.
She moves around with a limp, I haven't seen her yet for when I visited her home she
was out on the same court again.
What surprised me was the x-ray result of 2 bones with very clean diagonal breaks taken
from her lower extremities, that if she made the slightest pressure on it would be enough
to puncture through the surface of her skin.
I was shocked that her current condition could not keep her off the streets.
14-year old female, out of school, on the streets with a condition.
Anne's parents could not afford the P21,000.00 (roughly USD 375.00) surgical
operation necessary to bring the bones together with stainless screws.
I remember the time when I had to purchase some provisions for Raul (our drug-rehab beneficiary), soap, toothpaste,
toothbrush, cotton, antiseptic, deodorant and half a pack of cigarettes that cost me
P100.50 pesos and the only bill I had then was a hundred and no more.
Reasoning that I was buying the items for charity and to help clean a person's wounds,
I begged the two drugstore attendants to spare me the .50centavos.
For between the two of them, which is .25 centavos each would mean almost nothing
compared to the cost of sending a special SMS message, which they were doing at that time,
was P2.50 a send.
Blurting-out for me to ask the owner if I wanted a "special discount" and
that they don't own the store.
Then I also remembered the time when a mayor told me that his projects for the town, which
were a school, a road and two bridges were not being appreciated by his constituency.
Three persons coming from both ends of the social class spectrum but probably had only one
thing common, they lost something that day.
The attendants lost the virtue of charity and the mayor lost respect.
For how much will it cost to share a fraction of a peso to appreciate virtue and the
invaluable feeling of gratification.
How will people recognize the value of infrastructure projects, if they can't use it.
Lacking the means to pay for public transport, afford tuition fees to send their
children to school or to purchase basic commodities from the public market.
For expensive infrastructures should serve its functionalities first, if not it was only
meant to please the designer.
Nananawagan kami sa iyo upang
matulungan si Mary Anne para sa kaniyang operation. Tumawag o mag-text sa telephono bilang
(+63918) 3563831. |
