Learning from the Fishermen

Major Inequality: Last Saturday, my friends and I had dinner in Manila Polo Club. The next day, we went to one of the most depressed fishing villages in the country.

The price of our dinner can feed one household for more than a month.

Like a splash of icy water, reality has that ability to rouse you from a sleep of inhumanity

I'd like to be as insensitive as much as possible, but the situation in this fishing community in Orion, Bataan is enough to make your stomachs churn and your heart crumble.

We went there for my social development class with my economics and theology professors, and our social involvement formator.

Some of my group mates stayed there for three days to gather some data - I didn't got because I went to this International Multimedia Design Conference. Then they went back again for some surveys and FGDs, but I still didn't go because I was sick that day.

So last Sunday was the first time I went there that's why I got overwhelmed so much - not emotionally but physically.

The stench of poverty was everywhere.

People piss and shit on a hole in their floor. Their waste and garbage directly goes to the see where their children also take a bath.

This is the same sea where big commercial vessels fish. Just imagine what your Century Tuna ate!

Ironically, there's this feeling of calmness that comes with their slow paced life, and we who live in the city are so trapped by school works cannot find this certain tranquility more often than not.

What's the rush? It seems like we have complicated life too much probably because of wanting more - of exploiting and squeezing life to its very core.

And it comes to this point where we can't appreciate it's simplicity - of what matters really most.

I remain to be hopeful that these people will get relocated to a better place. Their form of living is not sustainable due to capitalist theft and climate change. I'll try to give them a voice during our National Conference this January.