“WALK FAST and hold your bag tight,” they said as we walked past a beggar. Not long after, young mothers and persons with disability alike, would knock on our car window for alms as we ignore them for a time before we knock back—a signal that we had no alms to give, even though we had.
Five months ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a garbage collector who arrived at our door. He was begging for monetary donations for his co-workers who are put at great risk of catching the diseases. He handed me a piece of paper with a list of people who donated Php 300, Php 500, and up. I didn’t have cash that day, so I went to look for someone who had. My relatives, however, only gave me Php 50.
I told my parents about my disappointment and they simply laughed me off. “Nilalagay lang nila na malaki yung amount para obligado ka magbigay,” they chided. To them I was kind, but naïve at best. I was smart, a top student, but in their eyes, I was a sheltered girl—one whose ideas are to be discredited because she was young.
Many have pointed out the disparities between the values of the older generations and the younger ones. Make no mistake, my parents are good people, and their generosity at the time of comfort proves that. They raised me to be God-fearing, kind, and grateful. Yet if one’s upbringing in the family helps determine who you are and who you value, then where does that leave me?
As an aspiring journalist, I could never describe the pain of listening to the people I love religiously agree to every Duterte crony who stripped ABS-CBN of their broadcasting franchise. When my family claims that activists only serve to disrupt the peace and order, I respond with how these people have fought for the rights we enjoy today. When they insist that the impoverished are only poor because they had too many kids or dropped out too early, I fire back with an explanation of systemic poverty—only to have my ideas jested.
Unfortunately, my story is just one of many. There are far many stories of an outspoken young man and woman who earned the grumbles of their relatives at dinnertime. Far more anecdotes of activists who have been disowned or resented by their family members. Altogether, these are the narratives of those who are torn between familial love and the fight for the world they dreamt of.
I still yearn for the time when my parents understandd why I am who I am today; a moment when they accept why I chose to fight the battles they never faced and why I chose to speak out for those whose voices have been silenced. I hope for the day they understand that compassion cannot co-exist with hostility, and that charity cannot work with indifference.
To any parent reading this, you must accept that the world you grew up in is vastly different than the world it is today. Societies change but some values remain—and if I were to follow the lessons of kindness that your generation have taught me, I would rather risk getting scammed or tricked than let another man go hungry.
