This is the twelfth in this ongoing series for practical people, both Filipino and foreign who care about the country of the Philippines and would like to do something, within their own means and power, to make it a better place.

Today’s excerpt is one that ought to be a lot more popular than some of the ones involving taxes and traffic laws.  It is something every reader of this blog can do, and start today.  If you don’t think so, just read on.  I don’t necessarily agree with the word the author used ‘Adopt’, because it has specific legal and moral implications that can be particularly hard to do, especially for those of limited means, or single, and particularly in the Philippines.  For al the terribly neglected and destitute children here in the Philippines, the government of the Philippines has made it excruciatingly hard to adopt children … and if you are a US citizen and want to adopt, you’ll find the US State Department has made it very close to impossible to adopt a child here and bring him or her to the US as a US citizen.  You can sign up, get ‘vetted’, fly to China and adopt a child legally in as little as a few months, and that child can go right back to the US with you on the same pane … piece of cake … but don’t think those rules will apply to a child born in the Philippines.  Why this is, I have no idea, and I won’t go into any further … but let’s just say I want to use “adopt” here in the sense I feel the book’s author wanted it used.

Not only is it darn hard to adopt a child here in the Philippines, it’s darn hard to even get them in school.  Here we have a country where a pack of cigarettes costs 50 to 70 cents US, or a liter bottle of 80m proof gin costs less than two dollars, but it costs the Peso equivalent of $12 or $14 to get a child a birth certificate … minimum.  It can cost a lot more, too, because if the child never had a birth certificate to begin with, at the least it will mean a trip back to their birthplace to try to get documentation from church records or other secondary sources.  Small wonder there are a lot of kids |on the street”, day and night, skinny as a rail, ill-clothed, ill-housed and of course, no birth certificate.

Why worry about a birth certificate you are thinking?  Simple.  Schools won’t admit students with out one.  Perfect excuse for not providing for a child and sitting around on  a government salary while waiting for a government retirement … without having to work too hard.  So one thing you can do is get a child you know a birth certificate.  The family may tell you they would be happier with money … and of course they [probably would be, short term … but without a birth certificate the children go no where … not to school and not into any sort of organized employment then they are older.  Don’t kid yourself and think this is easy, or that people will always follow through … but I’d rather spend a few hundred pesos trying to get something substantive for the child instead of just handing out money in dribs and drabs.

Another thing which works better than handout, to my way of thinking, is ‘made work’.  We have a yard boy … let’s call him Joe.  He started with us years ago when he was perhaps 8 pr 9 years old, working with his dad who was a regular yard man for many folks in our neighborhood.

Little by little I noticed days when Joe would show up on his own, his dad nowhere in sight.  One day Joe came to the gate asking for his weekly money early, because his dad was sick and he needed to buy  medicine.  It turns out that dad is seriously sick (I don’t know the particulars) and Joe, who must now be all of age 10 or 11, stays here  in town alone (his mother is out of the picture, again I know not why) and tries to keep food in his mouth and bring money to his dad who is apparently living with relatives a few towns away. 

Do I give Joe money, except for working for us?  No.  hardhearted you may think, but a cold hard fact about the Philippines is, there are millions and millions of Joe’s …  the Philippines can drown you with financial needs and break even a strong man’s heart if you start trying to rescue each one.

What we do for Joe, when he comes by with ‘special needs’, is send him to my wife’s mother’s house around the corner and let him trim bushes, weed flowers and sweep up outside … for which we pay him.  Sounds harsh maybe, but I think it’s better than just training the kid to beg or starve, and he still gets money to buy medicine and visit his dad, and mother loves the little luxury of having her yard made spick and span too.

Now if you are lucky enough to know children a little more fortunate who are in school, it’s easy to help even in small ways.  You can send a small allowance, you can offer to pay semester tuition expense or you can even do as my wife and I have done … take in a bright niece who just graduated high school and send her to college … paying the tuition, books and a small weekly allowance while she lives with us so we know that she’s going to school, making progress and has a place to come home to every night … not the often abysmal ‘bed spacer’ living accommodations most college students are lucky to live with.

Whatever you do, do something.  There is no better investment than helping a child, and unlike buying a TV set or a new SUV or upgrading your iPhone, you know your money has a chance to live far, far into the future.  Alex Lacson is really on target with this recommendation, for sure.

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