A Stained Identity

I have always been longing to write something about someone. Someone who we often see, someone who we often neglects, someone who has huge place to chill around, someone who we nodded our heads to, someone infamous, someone who we choose to term as – Taong Grasa!

Their bodies are toiled with dirt and stains of all kinds. Their hairs are crumpled together by sands as they sleep within dirty grounds. Their faces are painted by black mascara of unclean survival. Their eyes are almost blotted out and colored in red as they look at something and somehow an ironic sign of hope can be traced within their glances, hoping that maybe someday someone will understand them – the way they understand their worlds.

Not one day during my college schooldays that I haven’t seen these individuals. They wander the streets like as if it was their own backyard. They treat the streets like their home, thus, they sleep everywhere; the sidewalks, the alleys, the whole city. I saw them here, I saw them there, and I saw them almost everywhere. They are just very noticeable. Somehow in a way because they are dirty, maybe because they smile by themselves, or maybe because they act like they own the streets. There are just as many maybes as there are reasons for them to be that way.

I wonder what the government is doing regarding this matter! I believe that they too need some attention and care as much as we normal people do, and somehow it makes me think that maybe the society is making them that way. Ironic as it is, but that’s how I think it is working. You might want to question how I come to think about it. Well, let me give you a little clue.

When we were a child, all of us somehow felt neglected and alone once in a while. Even up to this very moment it still happens. Now, I will ask you. How would you feel if you approach someone for some reasons and you’ll end up to be neglected and thrown away as if they were avoiding you to get close to them like as if you have some kind of viral disease that can infect them, how would you feel? I guess you won’t feel that good. Imagine how would these individuals feel when almost everyone – if not all – would avoid and neglect them every time they come close. How would you feel if you ask for something to eat because you’re hungry and it won’t be given to you? Can you imagine how these individuals feel when their stomachs ask for something and couldn’t eat anything? Darn, I don’t even want to imagine that.

It’s hard to decide for us ordinary people on what to do to solve this case. I am undeniably accused to what I have written in here and I have no intention on evading that fact. What I want to push through is that the concerned government and non-government organization should do now the proper actions that would profit us in the long run as citizens of this city. I don’t know how, who or when, but I do really hope, that by this article, somehow it could reach them the true face of our society.