On the 9th of January, a PSHF team comprised of me (Richard), Phady and Analyn took the bus from Dumaguete for the 3 hour ride to the interior town of Mabinay. We got off prior to the town proper and within a few minutes we were on the back of 2 habal-habal motorcycle taxis heading to the sitio of Lamdas where our field office is located. After ten minutes along a rough road, we reached the home of Lydia, our area field worker where we would be conducting an orientation and interviewing loan applicants.

 

Lydia welcomed us on arrival then we went inside her home to meet the applicants who were waiting for us. There were four of them and one came later. Phady handed out PSHF information sheets to them before proceeding with her orientation. What made today’s orientation different to past ones here is that we added a short ‘health’ seminar tagged on at the end. The decision to have an inter-active discussion on health was prompted by the fact that high blood pressure and diabetes are often stated as medical concerns among our loan beneficiaries and their elderly parents and we wished to offer some tips on what to do to prevent or mitigate such conditions.

 

Two of the applicants were assigned to me to be interviewed and the first one of these was Elmer Esconde; he was applying for a loan to enable him to renew his security guard licence and pay for his uniform, shoes, belt and NBI clearance. Elmer worked as a security guard at the Foundation University in Dumaguete city from 2013 to 2020 but resigned when his hours were cut due to the covid pandemic. He returned to his home in Lamdas to be with his partner Stephanie (29) and baby son Eshian (now 4) and did farm and construction work to earn a living. A second son, Jaili was born two years later.

 

Elmer has been asked by his former agency to return to work full-time and this explains why he needs to renew his licence. I conclude my interview with Elmer and invite Stephanie to join us; she is here with her youngest child Jaili. I ask her about her past life before she met Elmer and I am stunned to learn that she and her three younger siblings, including a baby half brother had been abandoned by their mother when she was just 12 years old. It was in February 2008 that she woke up one morning to be told by her grandmother that her mother had left to go to Manila to find work. Stephanie’s father had left six years before and her mother had a new partner. Little did she realise that she would never see her mother again.

 

Four years after her mother left, Stephanie, now 16, ventured to Cebu city and got a job as a house helper to a family. She ended up working for this family for 5 years and sent money to a neighbour who was caring for her siblings. 

 

There is a happy ending to this story; in 2020, Stephanie and Elmer were able to track the siblings’ whereabouts on Facebook and there was a wonderful reunion of the siblings. They have since then remained in close touch though meetings are rare as they all live in different provinces and have families of their own now.

 

 

Richard Foster

PSHF Negros Oriental

February 2025