When sweet charity turns sour

During this most recent Christmas season, the Filipino public went all agog watching the seven Metro Manila Film Festival entries (MMFF).

The most relevant viewing fare around that period, however, was not on the big screen. It was shown, in fact, on television  the Stroller episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya last Dec. 24.

Starring Coney Reyes and Tommy Abuel, the story shared insights on how to deal with foster homes for poor, little orphans.

Probably the oldest existing orphanage in the country is Hospicio de San Jose, which stands on the Isla de Convalesencia  that islet that you reach through Ayala Bridge in Manila.

It is an institution so old that even the late mother of Imelda Marcos, Remedios Trinidad, stayed there as an interna in the mid-1920s. Remedios’ family was not exactly impoverished. But her mother was a widowed traveling merchant who could not look after her at all times (the details are in Carmen Pedrosa’s The Untold Story of Imelda).

At the Hospicio, the internas were taught cooking, needlework and other basic skills that were required of young women in that era. Remedios was an intern there when she met her husband, the widower Vicente Orestes Romualdez. This union produced Imelda, who later would become one of the most powerful women in 20th-century Philippines.

The Hospicio de San Jose also houses sedentary folks separated from their family. The late Tita Muñoz even got herself a room there when her health started to fail at the beginning of the new millennium.

The Hospicio, however, is still known generally as an orphanage for abandoned children.

There are other orphanages in the Philippines and another similar institution is the White Cross where the wards already sneer at spaghetti and hotdog because  due to its close San Juan location  donors can easily host parties for the orphans there. You can just imagine how noodles are already starting to come out of the children’s ears there because of the numerous donors who send pasta dishes.

This clearly is an indication of the intricacies of life  that there are complexities even in charitable acts. A perfect example is giving money to street children. While you cannot be faulted for being kind-hearted, you need to ask yourself if that is the right thing to do.

The very core of humanely deeds was the subject of that Maalaala Mo Kaya Christmas Eve episode.   

 The story began through the Share-a-Home project of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)  during the time of Sec. Estefania Aldaba Lim, the mother of famous broadcaster Cheche Lazaro.

Share-a-Home was widely publicized during its launch. TV and print were utilized to inform the public that families  after careful screening  could adopt a child during the Christmas season through the DSWD (in coordination with orphanages like Hospicio de San Jose) and return the kids after the holidays.

It was a successful project in the beginning. Through the years, however, the DSWD itself began detecting the ill effects of short-term adoption, which was the concept of this government agency’s Share-a-Home project.

DSWD had all the best of intentions. But the orphans  after staying for two weeks in more prosperous environment  began manifesting a different kind of behavior. Most of them wanted to permanently stay in their foster homes where food was plentiful (where they were spoiled rotten) and didn’t want to return to their orphanages where everything was rationed and where rules were imposed.

There were even those who resented having been sent to foster homes  only to be taken away from better living conditions. They’d rather they were not introduced anymore to the world of abundance.

This piece of information we are not aware if DSWD ever found out: There were reports that some foster parents were cruel and made servants out of the young wards.

 Life is complex. Even the very good deed of extending a helping hand can have its negative repercussions. DSWD apparently realized that when this government unit decided to stop the Share-a-Home project after two decades. Why did it take long? That’s the government for you  forever slow.

On Thursday, we will share with you how an episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya dramatized the real-life story of a family that adopted an infant and the very difficult process they all went through in their valiant effort to extend help others in this very complicated life.