Missin’ Mum…

I miss a lot of things about my mom–the way she smells, the way she puts on her make-up, the way she spends one hour of beauty regime before going to bed, the way she perfectly cuts the onions (I have this thing for thinly sliced onions in beefsteak), the way she spoon-cuddle me when I sleep. But mostly, I miss the way she makes me feel better at times like these–when I’m physically drained and exhausted I can’t even manage to drag myself to the parking lot and drive home.

I miss her so much that mere words, mere tears are not even enough to express how badly I want to be with her.

Home is where the heart is

I have always wanted to get out of this shithole we call our country.  Most of my relatives live abroad, that’s probably another reason why there has always been a need for me to leave but for most part (and I think a lot would agree with me on this), we want to leave because we feel underpaid.

True, a minimum wage earner will fail to feed himself three times a day, what more if he / she has a family to raise.  You can just imagine what a mere Php300 can reach.  Even people living in the rural area would fail to make ends meet with their meager earnings.  Much less if you’re part of the urban poor, what with the metro’s unusual lifestyle.  So, in true Pinoy fashion, more and more of my countrymen opted to leave the land that raised them.  Much to my dismay, even my mom had to leave a perfectly good company for the opportunity that migration can give… to me (since she figured out that a lowly MassCom grad like me would never ever earn more than 15k a month).  Actually, I pushed her into leaving too for the simple reason that retirement benefits here suck while the US gives around $3k a month, depending on how long you have served a certain company.  If my mom stayed, can you just imagine how our local SSS and the government and the company she worked for will repay her for the years she served?  She’s lucky if she can buy her usual Mocha Frappe with the retirement pay she’s supposed to have here.  It’s a lot of sacrifice on my part–to live far from her–but it was a sacrifice she and I needed to do… for her and for myself.

Anyway, back to my main idea.  Filipinos leave for the greener pastures that other countries dangle in front of their faces.  Much of the opportunity, however, centers on one theme–i-don’t-dare-mention-it-here.  My friend Amor just texted Kristia regarding the latter’s persuasiveness to go somewhere besides “this third world country” (her exact words); what struck me with Amor’s text (which Kristia forwarded to me) is that is exactly the same sentiments most of my relatives and friends living abroad tells me.  Only Amor worded it more passionately, I might say: “bakit ba gustong-gusto ninyo dito?  Ako gustong-gusto ko na umuwi diyan sa atin.” The “diyan sa atin” stuck with me.  She sounded so homesick; and true enough, this is home.  Diyan sa atin is home.  It refers to this down-in-the-dumps country that Amor loves and hopes to go home to.  At that moment, although I am not earning as much as Amor does, I felt lucky I am here–with the people I learned to appreciate no matter how wacky they may get at times.

There’s a lot to say, however, with how the government is running this country that you can’t really blame the Pinoys who opted, opt, and will opt to leave it for good.  There is no love lost between Malacanang and the Filipino people.  We, after all, never voted for the one sitting in power today.  Our right not only lies in voicing our frustrations, our anger at how she deals with the problems plauging this country; it also lies in the fact that she cheated and that, ultimately, whichever way you look at it, she is this country’s biggest boon.

Random moments like Amor’s message made me realize just how much we are being robbed off by our need to leave our families behind for their sake.  I have never fully realized the depth of this government’s uselessness until I became, unwittingly and indirectly, its victim.  If you have never felt hate, you will.  If you have never felt anger, you will too.  Just count the millions of families separated by their need to earn more outside the country and you’ll get what I’m trying to say.  Then, look closely at the lives of most of our corrupt government officials and tell me you don’t feel hate nor anger.

I miss Amor.  I miss Bebeth.  I miss my mom.  I miss half of my family members seeing as we’re all splattered around the globe.  A year ago, I would have loved to walk away too–leaving behind everything I thought does not matter to me.

That was then.  This is now.  And this, according to Amor, is atin.