I asked myself "Why are they begging?". Somehow, I was not comfortable with the "they beg because they are hungry" reason. I just felt something was not right.
While having lunch at Bogo, I commented to the restaurant owner about the number of beggars on the street.
Her answer stunned me. She said many of those people were not from Bogo, some of them were pretending to be Yolanda victims and came from as far as Consolacion to beg for food from kindhearted people.
Driving further north , I met two people (who I shall refer to as Mr. A & Mr. B) who were politically affiliated with UNA (Liberal Party's rival). I mentioned my observation about the beggars and they shook their heads in disgust over some of these Yolanda victims. According to them, the beggars line up along road waiting for donations and many of them stopped working because it was easier to beg.
Mr. A and Mr. B complained that it was hard to find trisikad drivers, laundry women, or even carpenters because the TYPHOON victims were overflowing with donated food received from both from DSWD and from private donors. They did not need to work. Why should they? They had free food.
But what I found really disturbing was that parents encouraged their children to beg while they stayed home. These parents are training their children to become manipulators by feigning extreme hardship to get sympathy.
The relief goods were also found in small neighborhood sari-sari stores because some relief recipients sold their oversupplied food.
Relief goods are intended to relieve suffering and not turn people into beggars.
Able bodied people capable of working are now victimizing kindhearted and hardworking people by extorting food through sympathy. In my book, this is outright dishonesty.
If they want food and they are capable of working, then they should work for the food. No excuses.
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