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Not Just a Drop in the Can
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Whenever you sit down to eat your breakfast, lunch or supper, do you ever wonder what life would be if there were no farmers to plant the rice you are about to eat, or fishermen to risk their life at sea for the fish before you?
Fishermen, farmers, market vendors, truck or jeepney drivers – all of them are vital to our everyday life. And this includes the garbage collectors, the street cleaners, the laundry women, factory workers sales girls and so many more!
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Because the Catholic Church, yes -the Church that you belong too, values each of those people I just mentioned, and a host of other people struggling to make a living especially for their children, yes – children like you who also want to finish school, the PONDO NG PINOY was organized.
I am sure this project has already started in your school, right? And most of you have been faithful in dropping your twenty-five centavos everyday in your little can or bottle. You have been submitting to your teacher or coordinator your collections, and they have been deposited in banks through the months.
Well, I am happy to inform you that since Pondo ng Pinoy started two years ago, we have collected over P70,000! That seems to be a lot of money – but the need is also a lot. Each and every centavo goes to development projects for our poor brothers and sisters. The fund will not go to build or decorate the churches. Our Bishops, starting with Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales who founded Pondo ng Pinoy, want us to divide the money for feeding programs for malnourished children, for giving educational assistance to children of these farmers and fishermen, for medical-dental services in urban poor areas, and for helping vendors have capital for their business. Because the Cardinal assigned me to be in the Project Screening Committee, I read through the Project Proposals submitted by parishes and sit with a team of experts to determine if this project or that project will be worthy of receiving funds from Pondo ng Pinoy.
Last month, I visited the shrimp culture project in Cavite City. I spoke with the fishermen who built fish pens in Manila Bay and were awaiting for the shrimps to grow and mature enough for a harvest. (I was already dreaming of eating shrimp tempura or sugpo sinigang.) We had lent them funds to buy the bamboo poles for the pens, fish nets to enclose the pens, and thousands of baby shrimps that they call fingerlings. Some of the men had good harvests a few months ago and so they were very grateful for the extra assistance we were giving them. It was fun riding the small bancas to be able visit them in the nipa huts they had built right in the middle of the bay. All night long Saturdays they “harvest” the shrimps and set up a stall by the Church door. The Sunday Mass-goers
buy the shrimps so fast that by noontime, they have sold several dozen kilos. The gratefully related how they are now able to send their children to school and buy the basic needs of the family.
Another group I visited were the students in a small barangay in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. The parish priest has about 40 high school students in a dormitory near his church who are being given special tutorial classes by volunteer teachers from Manila. The nearest school is eight hours away. It is impossible for the teenagers to walk to school everyday and return home in the afternoon. Fr. Borderick, who used to be with the Don Bosco congregation and whose heart is truly for the youth, thought that the only way these kids will be able to finish high school is for him to set up his own school and have the children live there. But what about food and school materials? That is why he requested funds from Pondo ng Pinoy. Last March, the parents proudly gathered in the Church as their children received their diplomas and report cards, something that they as poor farmers never experienced before.
There are so many projects being funded now by Pondo ng Pinoy. But another one I would like to share with you is the Project of Pro-life Philippines in Paco and Pandacan. Do you know that thousands of families live along the railroad tracks from Caloocan to Laguna? Children run across the tracks, mindless of the trains that run through twice a day. Indeed, some have gotten run over! The parents are so distraught with their poverty and are often somewhere else earning a few pesos for their next meal that the children are neglected. Pro-life volunteers conduct seminars to these parents on proper values and raising up their children properly, as well as natural family planning. Once they are organized, they will be invited to join cooperatives where they can borrow capital for their small business or they can enroll in skills training so they can find good jobs.
There is hope for everyone. The .25 centavos you drop in your can might seem so small and insignificant – but who ever imagined that with thousands of Filipino Catholics dropping their share of .25 everyday, we would reach seventy million pesos! And if we are all faithful to our daily contribution, we will be able to help so many thousands more of our poor people in this country.
But more than the funds being collected, the Pondo ng Pinoy is a pondo ng pagbabagong puso. Do you recall how your teacher explained to you that each time you drop a coin in your bottle, you are supposed to say a prayer that peace and justice and charity will reign in our country? This is what being a Christian means. This is following Christ, who loved the poor and gave His life that all might LIVE. God did not create a world where only a few are comfortable and a majority are struggling hard to find food and education and decent jobs and housing. Unless we begin in our small way, unless
we change our selfish , greedy ways – spending so much to buy a cell phone, more load, a cute notebook or hair clip, a sports magazine or computer game, forgetting that others have so little; unless we speak out when we know that our housemaid, laundrywoman, driver or nearby neighbor is a victim of injustice because of unfair labor practices, our country will not experience peace and prosperity.
“Anumang magaling, kahit maliit, basta’t malimit, makakarating sa langit!”
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