“Damayan”

“My children are too young to experience hunger,”

said Ruby Castro, a mother of nine.

Before the enhanced community quarantine, Ruby juggled two jobs to feed her family. In the morning, she cooked meals and waited tables. In the afternoon, she was a nanny.

As a single mother, Ruby spent most of her waking hours working. But her earnings were never enough to feed all the members of her household. Two of her daughters got pregnant early. They live with Ruby in a tiny, windowless shack. A community toilet is shared with their neighbors.

Ruby said that the long working hours had taken a toll on her health. “They found

something on my X-ray which is the reason I could not breathe well,” she said. As a day laborer, Ruby was not entitled to a sick leave. But she was forced to take an unpaid, indefinite leave when the community quarantine was implemented.

“It is difficult for me when my children ask for food and I cannot provide,”

Ruby said in between sobs. Without a job, Ruby’s constant concern now is how to survive.

“I feel useless––that is the hardest part. I can still work, but where?” Ruby takes pride in working and not being dependent on dole outs. But with a dozen mouths to feed, she had to ask for help from her neighbors. Thankfully, the damayan spirit is very much alive in their community.

Ruby lives near Erlinda Magalang and Maxim Bagtasos—the couple who used to live on the streets until Nora Bulan found them.

“They are not dogs. They need a place to live,”

Nora said. She said she hopes others would help her, too, when she finds herself in a similar situation.

“I’m happy, as long as I’m alive,” Erlinda quipped, as she showed her most prized possessions, which included religious pictures and a tiny television that keeps them entertained.

“I’m not scared of the virus because my faith will save me,” she said.

White tents had been set up outside a hospital to accommodate the growing number of patients in Tondo, while a wailing ambulance plied the roads endlessly. A few steps away from the tents is a closed church, where volunteers and a priest were discussing ways to distribute the P1000 gift checks from Caritas Manila.

“Faith will save us. It is an inner strength. Even if you are weak outside, if faith remains strong inside you, you will not lose energy because that faith will continue to give you energy,”

said Fr. George Peligro, an academician–priest assigned in Tondo.

For many residents who lost their sources of income, the gift checks were an answered prayer.

“My children asked for chicken. They have not eaten meat since the lockdown,”

Ruby said, as she queued with Erlinda in a grocery.

Both women were wearing their Sunday best, tightly holding their gift checks. Erlinda picked food for herself and her husband. Ruby went for a whole chicken, which could feed her entire family. Every single item in their baskets was well-chosen. They left the grocery wearing big smiles.

“I’m really happy because I can finally feed my children,”

Ruby said. The gift voucher was a part of the bigger community-wide damayan she witnessed.