dirty jobs

I have been watching a lot of TV shows lately. I must admit at some point, some were entertaining but honestly, many of them were just like flashes of light that after snoring several times, you can not remember what was it that you have watched.

Fortunately though, there was one (two or three more) that got into my brain cells. And thanks God, my memory is still working. I remember this song .

Who really are the people in our neighborhood? Let me enumerate few of them:

Alicia and Lovely Pascual

Weeks ago, ABS-CBNs Nagmamahal Kapamilya featured a story of Mother and daughter Alicia and Lovely Pascual.

Alicia the mother is in prison dirty jobs the Philippine Women Correctional serving a sentence for an Estafa case which she said, napagbintangan lang sya. Because she lacked money to pay for a good lawyer, she was convicted. She already spent 10 years and still counting. Her family disintegrated when she dirty jobs imprisoned.

Lovely, the daughter, one of the children who stayed in the family is now a struggling student in high school. Despite her condition in life, she is determined to finish her studies. She has been odd jobs to sustain her dirty jobs situation of both Alicia and Lovely may appear normal or a common condition in the poor segment of our society however there is some kind of twist, an ironic twist, something like you have me, but you can’t and you are near me and yet you are so far.

The twist:

Lovely’s house is just besides the correctional. From the prison’s window up several floors from the ground, mother and daughter can see and talk to each other everyday but they cannot be together physically as the great divide, the prison fence and wall separate them.

Mother’s love for her children knows no barriers; it passes through and goes out to the kids she loves.

For the last ten years, Alicia would gather food inside the prison. When the quantity is good enough, she would wrap them in plastic carefully and pass it to her children below through the same window.

Lovely has to be a good catcher while Alicia has to be a good thrower else miscalculation on both sides, may mean waste of precious food as it would be entangled at barbed wire over the fence or it will fall and splatter on the ground

Joseph Erap Estrada

The former president of dirty jobs Philippines, very rich, powerful and very influential, is a convicted felon like Alicia. Although they are both criminals (estapadora dirty jobs plunderer), Alicia is in prison while Erap is under house arrest in his vacation house in Tanay enjoying almost all the comfort of a free man. And perhaps, he may never ever feel, see and smell a real prison cell. (He wouldnt! Gloria released him few days ago. What a shame!)

His children from different women will not disintegrate because they are all well off. No way they will ever be like Lovely who needs to do odd jobs to earn money or catch the food collected by his mom from the prison for her to eat.

Gloria Arroyo

The president of the Philippines, very rich, powerful and influential, is not yet in the league of Alicia and Erap. In years to come, she may or may not end like them – criminals.

Like in Erap’s case, her children will not go separate ways for survival because they are all well off too and no way they will ever be like Lovely.

Also, Gloria does not need to do what Alicia has been doing for years to feed her children and, in case she becomes of Alicia and Erap’s league, she probably would be enjoying her life very much like Erap. As things are going now and just like Erap, there are a lot of people around her who are very much willing to do some dirty jobs for her. For dirty jobs her husband will be there for her to say â€SYou Back Off!”.

And do not forget Gonzales and the rest of his kinds.

What would you do if Gloria and Erap are your neighbors? Just asking.

Note: This is one of the many posts I kept as draft for quite some time. My unposted items are becoming like a series of spam mails that needs to be cleaned up.