The unyielding wood was making my shoulder and hip ache. I had to turn to ease the discomfort, but the bench was too narrow, so I had to sit up every time to adjust my position. I was on the veranda, watching the sky and letting my mind rest. Or run its chaotic course.
I imagined what a homeless man must go through, trying to find a corner to rest. There was one man, Mang Perry, who kept holing up in a gap on an island along a road I pass by every day. I found out he had been thrown out of his own home, for reasons he would not reveal, and that his son was a drug addict who would constantly have shouting episodes in their squatter’s area when he was high.
Mang Perry, the informal settler who looks strong enough to hold a job, if only it were possible, gets by as an informal parking attendant who gets tips by guiding vehicles in and out of parking spaces along the road.
I have not seen him for some time, and I am hoping he has found a way to get back to his family, or found a roof over his head. The rainy season is upon us, after all. The weather bureau announced it last week, which could be why we had several days of bright summer sunshine soon after.
But when typhoon season really comes, I hesitate to imagine how homeless persons like Mang Perry, or the four others I, at various intervals, saw slumped along a stretch of EDSA recently, would cope with the floods.
When the floods come, it will reopen many wounds, the most gaping ones in the hearts of Filipinos who have been betrayed all too often by those they have trusted with their future.
By this time, the investigations on the flood control funds anomaly should have moved along, alongside the impeachment trial in the Senate that would decide the political future of Vice President Sara Duterte.
It is a chaotic time for us, as much as in other parts of the world that are roiling in conflict and hate.
Hereabouts, Filipinos remain optimistic in spite of the series of unsavory revelations about their own leaders. Most Filipinos, a survey has shown, still believe that those who will be found guilty of the flood control corruption will be made accountable.
This is not far-fetched. Certainly, heads will roll — the cases have become far too big to be shoved under the banig until the next controversy comes along. Government will have to answer to the wrath that has been boiling up, and you only have to read angry netizen reactions and comments to know the heat is on.
Meanwhile, those innocuous comments from that half-Filipino model, for example, got plenty of flak, to the point that he lost endorsements, because Filipinos could not take the disrespect.
Many probably took out their anger for being disrespected for generations on this half-Pinoy who had the gall to imply that our people should be thankful for the half-breeds’ willingness to uplift our race.
The rage was instantaneous, and I am thinking it was an outlet for many to direct their pain and disappointment at being taken for granted by their very own leaders.
