My TV set was turned on to ABS-CBN when the feature on the likes of Mang Nenuel came on air. Mang Nenuel is a “mang-iipot”. “A What?!?!” I said to myself as I turned to take a closer look on what’s on air. Disbelieving to many, but he earns a living gathering and collecting chicken manure from a poultry farm somewhere in Batangas. Without gloves, a shower cap or even slippers for protection, he and his colleagues shovel kilos and kilos of chicken manure from the source (read: right from where the chicken dropped their manure), collect them and put them into sacks. A physically-demanding kind of work that earns them (the “mang-iipots”) P6.00 per sack. That’s 6 pesos per sack that they will be dividing amongst themselves. They’re to fill hundreds of sacks that could fit one huge truck that the “agents” would sell to “traders” and the “traders” would sell to farmers for more than P150.00 per sack. Do the math and you’ll know how much a trader would earn from the physical toils of these poor, underpaid men. I thought nothing would be worse than knowing how much they’re risking their health for a hundred pesos or two they earn on days that they have work (imagine what life they have when there’s no manure to collect), but then when I saw what kind of life they are living each day – in a shanty, lit by a candle and having sardines and rice for dinner, I felt so much worse for whining how I’d survive with only 150 to spend for the whole afternoon.

Sometimes, we get too caught up by our “pitiful” lives that we only see the negatives: how we aren’t earning enough to support our so-called “needs”, how we won’t be able to pay the life insurance quote on time , how we wish we have this new phone/gadget, or how we wish we have a better house or a better car; and forget how our less fortunate brothers have more pressing problems than we do. So I think instead of whining and sulking, thinking how “pitiful” our lives are, why don’t we step back a bit and say a little “thank you” to the One up above for our life’s little blessings? =)

Comment Form

Your name

Your email

Your URL

8 * seven =