Maybe the Bill is Right

Maybe the Bill is Right

I have a classmate who always come to school late. Her name is Mara. It is like everyday she is busy even though I think she is really not. I didn’t really like her even before my eyes met her. Mara seems to be a miss know-it-all. Yeah I can tell she is intelligent despite of her filthy appearance. Her dress always looked not ironed and she always wears the scent of milk. But what puzzled me most is the apparent affection my teacher always gives her. As what I’ve said, she’s always late, but instead of shouting her to go out, my teacher would gladly welcome her both hands. And she is loved by my classmates. By the way, I forgot to tell you, I’m just a newly transferred student in this school. I’m still adjusting myself to the environment around me. Well, I kept all my puzzlements all to myself without telling it to a single soul.

Now came our 2^nd grading period. I never thought there will come a time that we will become seatmates. I can’t explain my feelings then. It is a mixture of excitement, of nervousness and of resistance. As always as expected, she came late, again without any surprise, my teacher directed her to her new seat which is just as close to mine. She welcomed me with a wide a smile. I smiled back. I don’t know why, I just felt the urge of responding to her action. She really excelled in our class but whenever there are activities, she would just turn her head down and pretend to write something.

One day, the day I never expected I will uncover the mysteries behind her, I saw her weeping outside our garden late afternoon. My head is fighting with my heart. My brain says no and just leave her but my heart says go and sympathize her. Maybe in most cases, our hearts always win. I just then found myself patting her back and comforting her. I told her to stop crying because it won’t do any difference whatever her problem is, and to my surprise, she stopped... Just then, for the first time in my entire life, I saw eyes that were full of emotions, a face that withstood many storms. I really can’t explain what I saw but before I could utter anything else, she started talking… and all the things she said crumpled my heart, and even though I don’t want to admit, I found myself crying with her…

She came fro a family of eleven including her parents. Her mother, aged 40, is a very hard-working mom. She even said, if superman is not real, she can testify she saw and lived with a Superwoman. Now, Superwoman, because of poverty, find as many jobs as she could just to save them fro their status. She jumped from one place to another, from small jobs to hard jobs. She is a man hiding inside a woman’s body. But his father? Oh, never mind, she said. When her mother is Superwoman, her father is Lazyboy. He is not just lazy, she stressed, but the laziest. He’s like the grasshopper on the story that never did anything but to flourish himself with all his wants like the world never had problems. He hops from one party to another finding food to feed himself not minding he has mouths to feed. He always come home drunk and always kick her mother like a stone, he shouts like no one is listening and acts like he is the world’s king. Someday, she told herself, she’ll make her father roll from Everest’s summit to the depths of Marianas. She even questioned God why on earth He gave a father like her when all he has done was to add misery in their lives? She has eight siblings; the youngest is a three-month old baby who happened to have pneumonia. Second is a one-year-old boy whom her mother always leaves on their relative together with her four-year-old sister. She has a first grader sister in a public school that is being watched by her eight-year-old brother who is selling sampaguita in order to add their money pot. She have twin sisters each performing in carnivals at night and go to school at day, and she being the second eldest guides them to school where my classmate is studying right now. She told me that she will first finish studies before working. But as she narrated further, tears again started to roll down her cheeks. Mara still has a sister, the eldest of them all. She sighed as she said, she’s a prostitute. That’s what she only said. She told me why she is always late, and why she always smell like milk is spilt on her because, being now as the standing eldest, she is the one responsible to look after her siblings as her mother is on work and her father on his everyday joy.

But now as she said, accidentally, her mother whom she considered as Superwoman met a tragic accident and sadly died. She couldn’t speak well upon mumbling these words but my heart really cried for her. Now she’s left with seven of her younger brothers and sisters with their good-for-nothing father.

And as I went home, watching news on television about the church fighting against the Reproductive Health Bill, I asked my self, what if I were Mara, what if I were left with my younger siblings, facing the big question where on earth will I find food to feed them on my young age. What will happen to us when even my father couldn’t stand up on his own feet? What if my parents are like her parents who haven’t taught of proper education on raising their children? What if I could no longer sustain my education because I’m facing the reality that I have to stand now as mother? What if I were Mara who has a sister who forgot that she has siblings? What if the church continues to fight against this bill and will let people multiply rapidly? I have many what ifs in my mind and what if it will happen to me because the church won’t let me use practical ways on having children? Can the church answer all my questions? Maybe they’re just following God’s commandments but never God stated in the bible that it is a sin to control mortality rate, does He?

So now , I can say, maybe it’s time to listen to the bill, I’m not saying that the church is wrong but I just want to point out that the bill only wants what’s best for the country’s people, not for their own deterioration. Maybe the bill is right, isn’t it?