Written in 1986
Leaving the Redemptorist Seminary on Mariposa Street in Cubao, Quezon City, you turn left and walk about three hundred meters to C Benitez Street. Turn right at the T-junction and you walk past a Buddhist Temple behind high cement walls. There are many high cement walls in this area. Three hundred meters past the temple the cement walls give way to high galvanized iron walls. In the middle is a small and rough galvanized iron swing door. This is the inauspicious entry to a hidden-world of urban poor. Their area is named Matang Tubig but you will not find it on Google Maps.
Only a few times had I reason to venture into Matang Tubig, but of those there are two visits I cannot forget: both were for the purpose of blessing children who had died.
On the first instance, I was guided to a simple house close to the galvanized iron opening onto C Benitez Street. This was at the better end, in my terms, of the urban poor area. It was built on cement and the narrow lane outside sloped downwards. In the wet season water flowed away from their house, down below where houses – huts – were built on stilts above the water.
In the house of two rooms there was a small wooden casket, unadorned, on the table. Only the parents of the child were there. They appeared to me not so affected by the death of their child, aged 7 years. They seemed sullen rather than grieving. After the prayers I talked with them for a while, although they were reticent to talk.
“Why did your child die?”
“Because of measles”.
I thought, how does it happen in this day and age that a child can die from measles?
“How many children do you have?”
“Three”
“Where are the other two?”
“Namatay na.” They are already dead.
Those words, and the look on the faces of the mother and father, haunted me for so long. Unforgettable.
I understood why they were not crying.
They had no more tears to cry.
The second unforgettable incident happened a year later.
This time it was not a child but a new-born baby that was deceased. The guide could not tell me if the baby died after birth or was born deceased. I did not know the connection of the guide to the mother. In such situations it was not appropriate to conduct a social survey.
I was guided past the house mentioned above to the area down below were the water flowed in the wet but stagnated in the dry. We ascended some rickety stairs to the platform-on-stilts where houses/huts were built. I was over six feet weighing eighty-two kilos and wearing size 11 shoes. I had to pick my way very carefully over the bamboo slats and assorted timbers that comprised the walkway: could this walkway stand my weight?
Through gaps in the slats the water below was visible. Watching carefully where and how I trod, and seeking at the same time to acknowledge a number of people who stood aside to let me pass, I did not take note of the shoe box outside the door of the room with the doll in it.
Inside, the mother looked like a child herself, tired and thin and too young to be so weary as she lay on the sleeping mat laid on the slatted floor. Two other women squatted beside her. No one spoke.
I said to myself “There is enormous grief here. Don’t try to understand just now. Just do what the people want you to do and then get out of here. Let them get on with things.”
My prayer for the mother was brief and in silence, as I held her limp hand. If God was going to help her, He did not require a great number of prayers, and the people were waiting.
I turned to the two women beside me.
“Nasaan ba ang bata?” I asked in a whisper where the baby was.
No one spoke. One lady just nodded and looked at the space behind me. Looked to the shoe box I had hardly noticed, looked to what I thought was a doll. I was almost physically sick and wanted to cry. Seeking to forget my own discomfort and shame, I blessed the deceased baby.
Then I got out of there quickly to allow them to carry on with their grief and their hanging-onto-life-by-a-thread.
