Philippine Self-Help Foundation
A trip up the coast of Negros Oriental
On the 26th of March, a PSHF team comprised of me (Richard), Phady and Analyn take the bus from Dumaguete for the 3 hour ride to Manjuyod, a town on the eastern seaboard of Negros Oriental province. Our purpose is to meet with Melchor and Virgie, two loan beneficiaries whom I had the pleasure of meeting in December 2023 when they were applying for their loans.
We get off the bus at the Manjuyod terminal and board another one that will drop us off near Melchor’s home. He received a loan for his motor parts business and I am eager to know how he is getting on. What I remember about Melchor is that he was wheelchair bound due to contracting polio when he was a small boy and yet he had been able to build his house with the help of his daughters and run his repair shop for motorcycles and small vehicles successfully.
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Melchor is tending his sari-sari store when we arrive and I call out his name. I am concerned that he does not appear to recognise me. I soon discover that this is due to his failing eye sight - he has been diagnosed with glaucoma. This is a terrible blow to him as he has not been able to continue his work as a skilled mechanic. He has had to hand over his business to a nephew who is a mechanic.
Despite being disabled and now gradually losing his eye sight, Melchor remains cheerful with not a hint of self pity; he is also a very kind man as can be seen by the way he treats his dog Molly, who was one of a litter of 7 puppies born in the Manjuyod market where his wife Teresita works as a shoe and bag repairer.
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​Melchor and I get talking and he tells me that his three daughters are doing well; only Charmae is living at home now; the two eldest are in Dumaguete. Also living at home is Melchor’s sister-in-law who sadly had a stroke and is bed-ridden.
After a nice reunion with Melchor, We say goodbye to him and walk down the road to make a brief visit to another loan recipient before taking a ride on a ‘chariot’ - a kind of mini multi-cab that takes us back to the public market of Manyuhod. On arrival, we drop by to say hello to Melchor’s wife Teresita; she is in her kiosk repairing a shoe. We then we walk over to see Virgie who got a loan for her sticky rice business.
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Both Phady and Analyn are eager to buy some of Virgie’s sticky rice but I balk at the idea that it might be wrapped in a plastic bag. I then have the bright idea of offering the plastic box I used for my sandwiches as a receptacle for the sticky rice. Phady buys three portions at 10 pesos each. Virgie operates her business from a table at the front of a shop; her equipment amounts to no more than a single large container filled with the sticky rice she made in the morning.
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We say goodbye to Virgie and walk over to the bus terminal. We are lucky; a bus bound for Dumaguete is about to leave. We take seats at the back and soon we are on our way. Phady brings out the sticky rice and I must admit it tastes rather good. Our journey takes us back through the city of Bais where there are two sugar mills. I knew from yesterday’s bus journey that fully-laden sugarcane trucks would be lining the roadside so I was ready to count them. In all, I counted 83 of them so if each of them is 25 metres long, then they would have been stretching out for a distance of over 2 kilometres! Who knows, maybe the cane belonging to one of our sugarcane loan beneficiaries was loaded on one of these trucks.
Richard Foster
May, 2025