In July this year, eRecord journalist Mark Reidy took his 13-year-old son, Joseph, on a mission trip to the Philippines to spend time with the Holy Spirit of Freedom (HSOF) Community, an Australian-founded Catholic ministry which has been reaching out to people living on the streets of Manilla and Cebu for the past 17 years.
In a two-part series being published by the eRecord, Mark speaks with Joseph about the experience, while also sharing some of his own thoughts about the journey.
Part two will be published in next week’s edition of the eRecord.
At the dawn of his adolescence, my wife Elena and I believed it was an appropriate time to expose Joseph to an experience beyond the protective cocoon of Australia’s shores: to open his mind and see a world where there is no welfare system to support those who are struggling, where some families sleep on the streets and spend every hour of their day just trying to find food to eat, and where there is little chance that they will ever be able to break free from this cycle of poverty.
He was both shocked and inspired by what he discovered.
“When my Dad and Mum first invited me to go to the Philippines, I was excited and nervous at the same time,” Joseph shared.
“Mum told me how she had spent 18 months there before she was married and explained a bit about what life was like there, but I wasn’t sure how different or how confronting it might be.”
Joseph and I landed in Manila with friend and fellow HSOF Community member, Peter Merrifield, who had spent six years on mission there.
His strong relationships with those on the street provided us with the trust needed to immediately be welcomed into their world.
“The first time out on the streets was amazing,” Joseph recalls.
“Manila was on the edge of a typhoon so it was very wet and windy. The traffic was crazy – there were more cars using their beepers than indicators – but everyone seemed to know what they were doing.
“At first, the children ran up to me, asking for money for food, but when they realised I was with Peter they just started hanging around and asking questions. It wasn’t long before I was playing with them, giving them piggy backs and carrying up to three at a time. I was surprised by how friendly they were.
“It was night time and some of them were only about two or three years old but there were no parents around.
“I soon realised that they become very independent at an early age and the older ones were also good at looking after the younger ones.
“Often, parents have to spend their time collecting cardboard or plastic or anything else they can find in the rubbish so they can sell it to feed their family.”
Despite the friendliness of the children, who surrounded him as though he were a celebrity, Joseph was soon exposed to the brutal reality of life on the streets.
On our first day out, a few people pointed us towards a man lying on the pavement across the road from a huge Catholic church. He had been there all night in the pouring rain and even the close-knit community of street dwellers didn’t know who he was. We soon realised he was close to death.
He was jaundiced, his face was severely bruised and his legs swollen like tree trunks. He couldn’t communicate and had no identification.
We rang Mother Teresa’s sisters who have a place in Manila for those who are dying. The phone was answered by an emotional nun who burst into tears and, in between sobs, apologised because they were already too overcrowded and wouldn’t be able to take anyone else. We took the man in a taxi to the public hospital in search of a place where he could find some comfort in his last hours.
Joseph says he was horrified at what he saw.
“I couldn’t believe what the hospital was like,” he said. “There were blood stains on the walls, the floors were really dirty and there were even cats running around the room where all the patients were crowded into.”
Eventually, the hospital staff said they could not accept the man.
We were forced to drag him to two further hospitals and, despite his pain and deteriorating condition, both put him into the too-hard basket and told us to take him somewhere else.
We could sense this suffering man may not have had much time left so we refused to leave the third hospital and insisted they take him.
“I felt so sorry for this man,” Joseph shared.
“I wondered what his story was, where his family was. No one knew who he was and no one seemed to want him, even when he was dying. It was very sad.”
Joseph was also horrified when the people on the street told us that the police had started to demolish their makeshift shelters and chase them away from the area due to an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting which was occurring in the city in a few days’ time.
Ironically, the Filipino Government, in preparation for the arrival of a meeting designed to foster economic prosperity among its members’ economies, had decided to clear out its own obvious signs of poverty to create a false illusion for visiting leaders.
“It was very stressful for all the families who were living under pieces of tin and cardboard,” Joseph said.
“Some parents told us they were going to stay awake all night so they could at least save the few possessions they had before the police grabbed everything and threw it away.
“It is hard to understand how people can be so cruel to others who are already suffering.
“Perhaps if people from the government saw how those on the street had to live, they would help more and not try to hide it.
“They told us that the same thing happened when Pope Francis visited earlier this year and some people lost everything they had and had to start again.”
Part Two will be published in next week’s edition of the eRecord.