guilt

last saturday, my mother and i embarked on a two-hour trip to lugo, a sleepy (as in!) northern town, to visit her doctor-friend for some professional advise and more catching up. we arrived late enough to find almost a dozen of his patients lining up at the clinic, most of them from far-flung barangays, and others even had to cross mountains and rivers (no kidding!) just to get there, we later learned. we got the chance to talk to a bubbly mother in her forties who, together with her husband and daughter, descended from the hills of neighboring town, bogo. apparently some unidentified object got caught in the little girl's eye, bothering her no end, thus prompting them to seek medical help to finally get rid of it at once. we were talking about other sickness and disease and how people should not let it get the better of them since we all have the same chance of dying the next minute, either by some terminal illness, or by getting hit by a speeding bus. brilliant. in the course of our conversation, the mother revealed that she, too, has a rather huge lump in her left shoulder to which my mother was quick to advise that she should just have included that in today's consultation, saving them another trip. she can't, since according to her, "200 ra man gud among budget, kuhaan pa sa 100 nga bayad sa doctor, unya plete... sige lang, mobalik ra unya ko ug maka tigom na sad." i had four or five 100-peso bills with me that time, but the fear of her feeling insulted overcame me. really, 200 pesos may just be pang-taxi for some, but for the marginalized many, especially those in the countryside, it could spell the difference between life and death. and now that i think of it, i could only ask, wherever was my sense of charity, the christian "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me" value? whatever happened to the UP "giving back to the people what you owe them?" her painful confession irreparably broke my heart and made me so guilty, i don't know when or if i could get over this shame, self-reproach ever. if it's any consolation, i hope my daily prayers could somehow ease their burden and lighten up my conscience.