verging_on_random

Rex’s story

January 16, 2008 on 8:52 pm | In Uncategorized |

Meet Rex. He’s 18, turns 19 next week. He’s intelligent, confident, and very good at organising practical things like negotiating to rent a car and driver for the day or getting shop assistants to gather school supplies for 300 students.

Rex was born in Raxos, in Capiz province in the Visayas in a village in the hills. His father died when he was still a baby; his mother and stepfather still live in the village where Rex was born. I visited it last week. The family home is made out of bamboo, with an earth floor and iron roof. The iron is badly rusted and full of holes; in the wet season the house must be very damp. Needless to say there’s no town water, sewage or electricity. They have a gas lantern and cook on a fire.

The people of Capiz are an indigenous tribe with their own distinct identity. Physically they are quite different to the people of Luzon. I think they are very graceful and attractive, but here are some of the children so you can judge for yourselves.

The village school is opposite the house. I’ll be writing more about the school in a week or two. Rex attended grade 1 there. After that he did something that illustrates the way in which Filipino culture is based on the extended family: he went to live with an uncle in Manila to go to another school for a few years. He returned to Raxos late in elementary school and then went to the local high school. The high school is quite a long way from Roxas and Rex used to try to get a lift on a friend’s motor bike (there are no school buses, if you were wondering. I went there in a high clearance taxi and it struggled in a few parts of the road; a bus would end up in the bottom of the valley). If he couldn’t get a lift he walked. It’s a very long walk.

I can’t really imagine what life is like for a high school kid in a village like that. No television or radio or mobile phones, very little artificial light, and from time to time, very little food. Nevertheless, Rex graduated from high school and on my limited acquaintance, he is as well educated as many 19 year old Australians. He speaks three languages:
his indigenous language, Tagalog, and English. Like many Australian 18 year olds he still has a lot to learn; unlike many Australian 18 year olds he understands it and is polite and respectful to those who can teach him. I was most impressed with the relationship between him and his old elementary school teachers … a relationship of warmth and affection but still marked by the respect owed by a student to a teacher.

Upon graduating from high school at the age of 17, Rex assumed responsibility for his family. His stepfather is a carpenter but I get the impression that he does not feel comfortable in the changing urban world. He works in the village when he can get it, for about 200 pesos a day. That’s about $6. Even in the Philippines where the cost of living is low, $6 a day doesn’t get you far.

Rex now lives with a cousin and her husband and their new baby in a two bedroom apartment in Iloilo City. Rex’s brother also lives there. Every now and again his aunty and uncle and mother and stepfather live there too, when they come to the city to visit their children. In the Philippines, the family is everything (which is just as well, because government support is pretty well non-existent). Rex’s brother goes to the Philippines equivalent of TAFE; Rex does the work that I described in an earlier post. He pays his brother’s tuition, gives money to his cousin and mother, and somehow everyone gets fed and clothed. The whole family seems to be very happy and contented and I was humble and proud that they took me into their hearts.

The plan is that once Rex’s brother finishes his course in computer studies (in March 2009), he will get a job while Rex goes back to college. He wants to be a doctor; I don’t think that’s a realistic prospect but maybe I misunderstand the system. I’ve encouraged him to think about coming to Australia to do a TAFE diploma. It would cost about 100,000 pesos for visas and admission fees and so on which is a sum so wildly beyond the experience of anyone in the family that I don’t think Rex takes the possibility seriously yet. But it’s only about $3,500, which I am more than happy to pay if it kick starts a family out of poverty, so I’ll keep talking to him about it and we’ll see what happens.

I hope this hasn’t read like a hard-luck story because it’s not. Rex is a success story; he’s about to move to his own apartment (albeit one with no hot water) and he’s pretty well off for a Filipino. Yet without a piece of luck, Filipinos like him will spend their lives in a precarious state, constantly on the edge of complete poverty. I think maybe I was Rex’s piece of luck and that I can help him and his family move to a more secure life. If I can do it, I will consider it a good thing to have done, because they are good people.

However, there are 300 kids attending an elementary school in Roxas who won’t all be lucky enough to meet a caring Kano*. I’ll tell you about them later. First, in a day or two, I want to tell you about some people who are really poor … people who live in squats in Navatos City, a place so run-down it doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry.

And of course when I finish these tales from the Philippines I’m going to invite you to give money to help these wonderful people. You have been warned.

Next time: Cris’s story.

*Kano=Americano. All white foreigners are Kanos in the Philippines .