Weeks ago, I received a forwarded email from an old friend. The e-mail contained pictures of an eight year old African kid with his hand being run over by a car. According to the captions included in the e-mail the kid was caught by the elders stealing food in a local market, so the authorities agreed to let the kid’s right hand be run over by a car to teach him a lesson. You can really see in the set of pictures how scared the kid was and how excruciating he is feeling. In the photos you can see many people from the market staring at the kid doing nothing, few were even laughing. I was totally disgusted. I was in awe while reading the e-mail. I felt sorry for the kid. It felt like reality slapped me in the face.
Poverty and hunger, two words that I wished was never invented. Problems that we continue to battle ever since. The issue about hunger is a never ending dilemma that most of us living in a third world country faces.
According to the latest Social Weather Stations survey, 24 percent Filipinos or 4.4 million households suffer involuntary hunger. The latest hunger rate surpassed the previous record-high rate of 23.7 last quarters. This is a very alarming news survey. But to whom can we blame this problem if even before our children will be born they already inherited the debt that we had decades ago.
In a few months, we’ll be electing a new set of government officials. I am praying that the next president of this country will bluntly confront hunger and poverty in an all-out-war battle.
So the next time you ignore the food that they serve you, think of the kid who cannot afford to satisfy his hunger and has to lose his one hand just to have a piece of bread in their tiny little hands.