One morning a woman knocked on my door. It really surprised me, both because I was not expecting any visitor at the time and because I just moved to the place. Anyway, there she was, face like she was carrying the weight of the whole world on her back.
The woman addressed me by name. She said she saw me first when I was moving in, a few weeks before, and she just knew I could help her. She claimed to be up to her throat with problems, singlehandedly supporting a family of three teenage kids and a husband suffering from a nervous breakdown.
She sold homemade snacks, from which she sourced the family’s daily provisions and some pocket money for a daughter who was going to school. Their relatives, hers and her husband’s, although known in the neighborhood to be of good means, appeared to have gotten tired of helping them and had since kept their distance. So, as it was, since she could no longer go to them, she came to me.
The greatest driving force of the human person is her desire to survive. She will do anything in order to conquer any threat to her wellbeing and of the people she cares about. In the face of a formidable obstacle, she will find creative methods to beat the odds.
One common creative method that a person will resort to is manipulating the truth in order to protect or promote his self-interests. Many people have so mastered the art of deception that even professionals trained in lie detection sometimes find it hard to recognize when people are not telling the truth. At times, a well-crafted lie is more moving than simple truth.
The woman was teary-eyed when, after a long prologue, she finally stated what she came to see me for. She wanted to borrow money. It was examination time at her daughter’s school and she had to settle her dues of about a thousand pesos.
I was seized with compassion. I thought that a thousand pesos was just not worth anyone’s tears, even if I was hard of money myself. Yet, still, I didn’t give in so easily.
I’d been told that there is a way to get to the truth of someone’s story. You move closer and face the person directly, to get eye contact, and to take on a serious, scrutinizing expression. I asked the woman several questions: Why not go see the school officials and ask for their consideration? Could her daughter get herself a part-time job? What were the other kids doing to help in the family’s hardship?
Then I told her I didn’t have the kind of money she needed. I lied; it was my way of probing her a little, to see how she would react to my resistance. No significant reaction whatsoever.
At that instant, my humanity overflowed. I told her five hundred was all the money I had, although I was ready to yield a thousand if she insisted. To my big surprise, she said it was good enough and thanked me profusely.
I began to suspect I’d been had. So I started asking around, and what I learned depressed me. It was obvious that the woman badly needed money, but probably not for the reason that she gave me. Most likely, she used the money to pay somebody else she had borrowed from, as it seemed she owed everybody in our area some amount.
Do I regret lending the woman five hundred pesos? Honestly? Yes! But it’s not the kind of regret that eats away part of my self-esteem and makes me feel dumb. Oddly, I also feel it was a good deed I’d done.
The other day I met the woman again while I was waiting for a jeepney ride at the corner. She hurriedly approached me and thanked me again. I asked if her daughter was able to take the exams. She smiled big and said yes.
But it was not my five hundred pesos that helped her daughter. She went to see the school officials, as I had earlier suggested to her, and they had her execute a promissory note for her daughter’s payables. The money she borrowed from me, she said, she used instead to pay a debt of her own that was due.