Pound for pound

Theres The Rub
by Conrado de Quiros
from Philippine Daily Inquirer

YOU CAN’T PRAISE THE GUY ENOUGH. That’s not Manny Pacquiao, that’s Efren Peñaflorida. He’s not as famous as Pacquiao, but he has done something just as grand, if not grander. He has taken on a bigger, scarier, and more formidable adversary, and if he has not overpowered it, he has at least given it the fight of its life. That adversary is ignorance and benightedness.

Peñaflorida has already been chosen one of CNN’s 10 heroes this year. He could become top dog, or Hero of the Year, if he gets enough votes online. This is one time I don’t mind that system (I’ve always thought it sucked, a thing invented to drum up viewership for things like “American Idol”) and don’t mind cajoling every self-respecting Filipino to stand up and be counted in the CNN poll site.

Peñaflorida’s story is wondrously uplifting. The son of a tricycle driver and vendor who lived near a garbage dump, he refused to be defeated by his circumstances. While in high school, he refused to join a gang. He instead formed a group that would help stop kids from joining gangs. Using a kareton for classroom, the group taught impoverished kids how to read and write in cemeteries—talk of waking up the dead!—and dumps. If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, the mountain would go to Mohammed.

The group has grown considerably and supports its cause of rescuing scrappy kids who have been abandoned by society to their (vacant) lot in life by recycling scrappy things that have been discarded by their users in the dumps of the metropolis. Or the dump that is the metropolis.

We do not lack for people who overcame poverty, sometimes more grinding than the one Peñaflorida knew. Politics is full of those who claim to have done so, among them Ramon Mitra, Noli de Castro and Manny Villar. I’ve always thought one might paraphrase Mark Twain’s famous aphorism, “There are three kinds of lies—big lies, little lies, and statistics” by saying, “There are three kinds of lies—grand lies, petty lies, and politics.” Business is full of them, too, particularly those who claim to be self-made men, like Lucio Tan who leapfrogged from bote-dyaryo to tycoon by reposing his hope in Hope and Ferdinand Marcos. Who was it who said self-made men often have the worst authors?

We do not lack for people who overcame grinding poverty. What we lack are people who overcame grinding poverty and hunkered down to helping others do the same thing. More often than not, self-made men distinguish themselves for being selfish rather than selfless. Stands to reason: The last thing they want is to go back, or be reminded of, where they came from. The philanthropy is just for the tax deduction.

There was quite an epidemic of the Peñaflorida types in my time, but for quite unique and extraordinary reasons. That was the time of student activism, when scholars, who by definition came from poor families and were bright enough to have a bright future, devoted themselves instead to uplifting the lot of the downtrodden. Many gave their entire lives to it, their entire lives being all too brief.

But hard as that choice was, it’s easier compared to the one taken by Peñaflorida. That is because then it had cultural reinforcement or the encouragement of peers. No such luck today. Today, you come from the ranks of the poor and decide to “sacrifice your future” (that is the way it is seen), you are not quixotic, you are mad. The line between the two has always been thin anyway.

Peñaflorida is a true hero in the same way that Tony Meloto, who founded Gawad Kalinga, is a true hero. Both are people who could have looked out for Number One, given their many talents and opportunities, but who chose instead to look out for the teeming and nameless numbers. To live a life helping the poor, that is awesome. To do so after rising from the ranks of the poor, that is Christmas, a Pacquiao victory, and GMA gone forever rolled into one.

Peñaflorida has done so moreover completely quietly, completely unobtrusively. That is the even more wondrous thing. He has done so, just as those who rose as one to distribute relief goods in the aftermath of “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” did, without fanfare, without calling attention to himself, without thought of reward or renown. He has done so for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do. That’s what people of destiny do.

I find Peñaflorida all the more admirable for having done something that’s dear to my heart. That is to educate people. That is to bring the light of learning in dark minds. That is to teach the kids how to read and write.

I don’t know how anyone of us can see the army of children in the streets importuning, cajoling, badgering drivers without wondering what future lies in store for them, what future lies in store for us, for the country. The United Nation talks of a “lost generation,” the poor kids in the poor countries who, as a result of debt payments, have had their brains warped by malnutrition, lack of education, and the unrelenting violence around them. You look around and you wonder if we have not produced our own “lost generation” because of corruption, a generation of children who will grow up afflicted, conflicted, and perverted, ever widening the gap between rich and poor, ever bringing the present to have no future.

Peñaflorida hasn’t just wondered, he has acted. He has acted to try to recover that lost generation, to try to bring it to find its way. What he has done indicts government more implacably than any ranting against it, exposing its crime for all to see. What he has done may seem trifling, but the greatest things often have the most trifling beginnings. He has taken the road not taken, and it has made all the difference.

Right now, he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter we have.