The face of poverty
Gut FeelBy Minyong Ordoñez
POVERTY IS the worst and biggest curse of humanity today. Widespread. Systemic. Unsolved. Malignant. It is more evil than war.
POVERTY IS the worst and biggest curse of humanity today. Widespread. Systemic. Unsolved. Malignant. It is more evil than war.
They play badminton, kick a ball around and huddle over computer games just like normal children.
In this country it’s a crime to be poor,” Dad would say, and proceed to challenge anyone to find him one inmate who was not. “So, kiddo,” he would tell me, “you just have to avoid being poor— like a plague.”
The ghetto called Aroma reeks of putrefying trash collected by its residents for recycling. Half-naked children with grimy faces play on muddy dirt roads lined by crumbling shanties of tarpaulin walls, cracked tin roofs and communal toilets.
Shadowed by the high-rises of Seoul’s wealthiest Gangnam district, Kim Bok-Ja, 75, pulls her trolley of folded cardboard through a shanty town that sits uncomfortably in one of Asia’s most developed cities.
When my 15-year-old daughter got pregnant by a boy from a very poor family in our town, we banished her to my cousin’s care in the province until she gave birth and finished her college another year. We couldn’t accept, or have anything to do with, the very low status of the boy’s family. His mother was a vegetable vendor who sold her produce on the market fringe that were almost rotten. The father was a part-time janitor in a local barber shop and his three siblings, though all students, studied in public schools. Our family had a name and a respectable business, and they were definitely not our equal.
On a mock-up stage in a Philippine music studio, single-mum Joanna Talibong is singing for her life.
It takes one good man in the presidency to get us at least hoping again, no small triumph in itself. It’s been a while since we had someone with the moral ascendancy to lead the fight against the national contagion, corruption and, its running complication, poverty.
Needy patients with brain diseases and disorders are no longer up against a brick wall. Neuropsychologist Lourdes Ledesma’s brainchild Let’s Save The Brain Foundation can help.
It may take some time before Maguindanao is rid of the stigma brought about by the politically motivated killings of November 2009. Another issue that should eventually bring the province into a positive light is the work being done by Unicef in treating severe acute malnutrition in children under five years old. Special advocate for [...]
Like most aspiring pugilists, young boxing standout Eumir Felix Marcial wants to use the sweet science as a way of escaping the claws of poverty. Speaking in whispers, the 15-year-old Marcial punched his way to international boxing stardom after gifting the country with its first-ever gold medal in the 2nd World Junior Boxing Championship of [...]
