To be a nail

I wish I wrote this article by Nadine Bautista. Here's some excerpt.

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For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

NO DOUBT, there is something wrong with this country. The other day I decided to step out of my comfort zone and jog past the village guard house. I was greeted by unimaginable filth and squatters living on the sidewalks. The very visible smog not only choked me, it was seasoned with the delicious aroma of excrement for added flavor. Children were sitting on the dirt with empty stares, their cupped hands automatically sensing incoming pedestrians like metal detectors. Flies swarmed on babies as if they were living garbage. When the traffic lights turned red, these children stood up, as if on cue, and began knocking on car windows, begging for alms or selling sampaguita, “Para makauwi na.” They were accompanied by adults with missing limbs. Car passengers tried to ignore the importunings of these “creatures” by passively knocking back on the window. I had been such people countless times and I shuddered to think how I could simply dismiss a sight like that as a normal occurrence. (There’s even more to it. According to one cab driver, some of the children are actually prostitutes and some public utility drivers “take them for a ride” at night.)

Read the rest at the Philippine Daily Inquirer.