Another look at mendicancy

Mendicancy is an age old disease. I have read somewhere that it is as archaic as civilization itself and I have neither facts nor figures with which to dispute this claim. If indeed, it is a problem, it must have a solution somewhere for I, too, have read that each disease has its own cure, known or still to be discovered and then again, I do not possess any argument against this statement. Precisely because it is an ancient cross for society to bear, solving it with whatever remedy we adopt needs relentless effort to succeed.

Not too long ago, there was an attempt, I call it an experiment, to address this serious public concern. In the early days of his martial law regime, the late Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos, gave mendicancy a rather innovative approach. He took the word “pity” out of the context and viewed begging a criminal act. The late former leader was inclined to consider both sides of the act as the root of the problem and thus issued a decree making the giver and the beggar liable.

For a while, the legal experiment bore signs of being obeyed although I had to attribute its initial success to the president’s absolute control of the military and police muscle. That early, we were so afraid of the forces of the martial law that we dared not go against the ruler even in that insignificant issue. Those who “pitied” the beggars had to break their hearts in refraining from giving and the mendicants, amidst their own hunger and thirst, refused to go around begging.

But, soon, the presidential fiat lost its magic. The surge of beggars made it impossible to implement the law. There were not enough prison cells to incarcerate the offenders.Better still, we realized that it was not really criminal to show an act of graciousness.

Today, wherever one goes in the city, he meets beggars. Some of them are robust and healthy looking ladies carrying their fragile months-old children. They stay by the roadsides like the proverbial vultures, and when traffic light goes red, they beg as they swamp around vehicles, knock on car windows or touch jeepney passengers.

The sight of increasing beggars is ominous of an undiscerning society. I refer to mendicancy of the undeserving character. This horde of present day mendicants includes those who least deserve our social conscience. These beggars are active looking men in their apparent prime years, vibrant women who are more physically capable than those who earn their keep doing laundry for others and sprightly youth. It is whispered around that most of these people camp in common places and are managed by unscrupulous individuals as if the trade is not unlike any business.

They thrive in our city because it is our Christian virtue being better to give than to receive. They come to us each step we take on the streets and out of our kind-heartedness, we dip into our pockets for anything to give. We rather live by this practice than breach our sense of generosity.

But we overlook one thing. When we give to the able-bodied beggars, we make them more dependent upon us and in the process produce in them lazy people. Instead of their becoming productive individuals, they make us suckers.

This is the kind of mendicant who does not deserve pity. We have a solution to the problem they pose. And I said above, we have to be relentless in pursuing their remedy. How and what shall we do?

Again, I call this a worthy experiment. We do not have to break any law. Controlling our emotion is a key. For a period of say one month, we, I mean all of us without exception, must refuse to give anything to this kind of beggars. It is not easy to go against the feeling of pity but we must accept the view that we are taking a positive step. I am certain that for each single day that they go home without having received anything from givers, they begin to think twice about making mendicancy their source of livelihood.Surely, at the end of the experimental period, they themselves will refuse to beg. Can we give it a try?