this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on January 18, 2011.
HIS NAME is Bunso. He is 10 years old. His face is devoid of any emotion, as if years of torment had whittled away every bit of happiness from his life, and his body tells the rest of his story. His cheeks bear the scars of his troubled past.
He remembers vividly the night his father walked out of their little shanty for the last time. He had been drinking, like most troubled fathers do. He was in a kind of drunken stupor unlike any that Bunso had ever seen. His eyes were red with a fury perhaps hidden inside him for the longest time and his voice rose by the second as he argued with his mother. In the end, he took out his anger on the most fragile and vulnerable member of his family, his son. He smashed an empty beer bottle and slashed Bunso’s right cheek, while his son cried, unable to make sense of it all. After this, he stormed out of their house, never to return again.
That happened five years ago, and Bunso says he still hasn’t fully moved on.
His clothes remind him of the family he once knew. His brother Jose was born six months after his father left them. Their mother knew she could no longer care for them both. One night, she took her sons to the house of a friend and asked if she could sell her children for P5,000 each. She said she could no longer love and care for them. Her bewildered friend shut the door on her face.
With no one to turn to and nowhere to go, his mother jumped off a bridge, leaving him and his brother to fend for themselves.
He and his brother never returned home. Instead, they wandered the streets of Quezon City hoping to find a new life. To this date, he wears the same red undershirt, now faded to an almost pinkish white shade, whose cartoon design is but a mere shadow of
its colorful past. The shirt is tattered and torn after years of wearing without ever being removed or washed.
His hands bear the marks of a scavenger. Every morning, he wakes up very early, as the sun is peeking out in the horizon, to hunt for food for himself and his younger brother Jose. He scours the garbage cans and waste dumps around his area for even the smallest morsels of food. He says he usually finds a few strands of noodles or perhaps a partially consumed chicken bone. A half-eaten burger thrown away by some businessman who is in a hurry is enough to brighten his day, and he willingly shares this with his brother. For them, softdrinks are a luxury. He drinks what little remains of the Coca-Cola bottles or sofdrink cups he finds along the polluted roads of the city—some of them containing a blend of various putrid smelling liquids. All food and drinks are shared equally by the brothers, no matter how minute the portions may be. But sometimes Bunso gives most to Jose, leaving his grumbling stomach incessantly craving nourishment. He says he is used to having sacrifices. “It’s what a good kuya should do,” he explains.
As he digs through the various receptacles, sometimes his hands are cut by shards of glass from hastily thrown bottles that shatter as they hit the bottom of the bin, but he doesn’t mind. He says he is used to the pain. Years of having to do the same thing on a daily basis have taught him how to control the pain: he bites his tongue and keeps on digging to survive.
The soles of his feet have hardened from years of walking barefoot through the dirty streets of the city, looking for shelter where they can sleep for the night—a cardboard box perhaps or maybe even under a sidewalk bench. He and his brother never stay in the same place for more than one night. He says that it is too dangerous because gang wars are commonplace. He does not want to risk their safety. He searches for old carton boxes to use as makeshift beds and large empty garbage bags to use as blankets. When it rains, the nights turn cold and the earth becomes damp so they just huddle in a corner of a dark alley and pray that floodwaters don’t wash them away and that illness won’t strike them. Every day is a struggle, but Bunso manages to cope somehow for the sake of Jose.
He visits the nearest church every day to thank God for giving him and his brother one more day to live. He learned to be grateful to God from a preacher who happened to speak in the area they were staying one day and since then he has never failed to say thank you to the Lord. It is these little things that keep him going, he says. It is the knowledge that someone cares that motivates him to keep scavenging for food and things to sell and to protect his brother.
His name is Bunso. His face is scarred, his hands are scratched, his clothes are torn and his feet are callused, but his faith has never wavered, his confidence has never sagged and his determination has not diminished even after five years of facing life’s hardest punishments. Maybe one day, he will finally be able to stop wandering, stop toiling and find that one place where he can truly feel loved. Perhaps one day, he will find that person who is willing to give him the love he has long sought for, a love that so many of us take for granted.
