BEYOND THE PAINS OF POVERTY

by: Norberto Betita

Virginia Gasta Betita-Bañacia

We were born and raised in a small fishing and farming town where opportunities for economic advancement was almost nil. Personal growth and development were somewhat beyond attainment. Poverty was such a common lot among many and most in the community were living from hand to mouth; somehow stranded in the marsh of destitution. Only a handful of landed families were living in quite affluence. Most couples during those early days married young and therefore are most likely to have more children. So were our parents. My mother married when she was 14 years old, and thus begat 14 children in 13 conceptions, with one still-born.

Such a sad reality even magnified the level of our family struggles and difficulties. We were like lonely travelers wedged in a shipwreck. However, with the undeterred optimism and determination of our parents, we harbor hope as a motivating force to abandon ship and disembark from the wreckage and find our way ashore. Our parents provided education as a bridge to get us out of the mess of life. Notwithstanding such a difficult and expensive approach to rise beyond the pains of poverty, they always encouraged us to hold on to education as the only sure channel to the blissful shore. 

Boy and Gin

My sister Virginia “Gin” Gasta Betita was seventh in succession of us siblings but she was the second to have endured the rigors of intensifying struggles in the midst of the family’s tremendous financial scarcity. The rest of our elder brothers and sisters, stepped aside from the difficult route of their educational pursuits either out of pity for our parents or having lost hope to attain their goals, and thus took short cut careers. 

Gin eventually graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, major in English from the Northeastern Mindanao Colleges (NEMCO). Her passing the teacher’s board examinations eventually provided her with a secure career. For a moment she helped in the family finances. However, she was soon attracted to the youngest son---Jose “Boy” Bañacia, Jr.---of our parent’s longtime family friend. Not long after, they sealed their courtship on the sacred altar of matrimony, thus the name Bañacia was added to her maiden name. 

The whole family

In time, with a secure career at the Surigao del Norte National High School, they were able to start their married life in modest living. They rented and for a time lived in a low cost apartment near the school where she worked. Then their eldest child was born, a daughter; and in just a year there came a son; and again in another one sweeping year they got another daughter. That had been a three grueling years of their married life with three little babies to care for---ages three, two and one. Of course, Gin and Boy were young then and perhaps have genetically inherited the productive DNA’s of their parents, both of which were blessed with abundant posterity.

They should have learned a lesson the hard way for caring three little babies while both working and thus applied some restraint and discipline. However, the protein synthesis responsible for the transmission of hereditary characteristics from their parents, must have been so strong as to slap away self-control and mental restrictions. Therefore, in a lapse of only two years their fourth child---a daughter---was born. They probably thought that such must have been the last, that they were able to manage to hold back and redirect their attention to caring for their now four little children, not only because it is draining the family finances, but it is such a great sacrifice and energy exhausting for Gin, a working mother, to nourish and nurture. But the self-replicating nature of their productive DNA, remained to be of great influence and command that after four years of restraint, they realized that they already have five children of their own to raise and rear and educate. They soon recognized that with their income at the same level, they will inevitably be pushed hard against the wall of poverty. They therefore reached a consensus to finally end childbearing. 

Boy and Gin with children

While the children were still in elementary and high school, they were able to manage to support their financial needs with the coconut farm income of her husband and other agricultural earnings he brought into the family coffers. Her husband also earned additional income as tricycle driver. Soon they were able to secure a right of a property in the squatter’s area, accessible to the children’s schools and her workplace. There they built a larger nipa house for their growing family to be accommodated. However, inflation finally took its tool and thus made it hard for them to make both ends meet.

Nevertheless, the incumbent threat for greater economic strains never deter her from sending her children through college. When her eldest daughter---Mirinisa---graduated from high school, she sent her to an expensive Catholic school in the locality---San Nicolas College. It was not long before she realized that her son---Dennis---was also going to college at the Central Mindanao University (CMU). In a year the third child---Charissa was also at CMU. And before her eldest, Mirinisa was able to finish her degree in education, there were already four of them in college, with the fourth child---Florisa also schooled at CMU. While as college scholars, tuition and fees were affordable for her three children in a government university, yet living allowances for the three away from home was kind of insurmountable. In her mind must have been the inspiring words of Gilda Radner: “[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.” 

With living siblings

With the family being trapped under the pains of hard times, some might have thought it as an stubbornly unreasonable attempt or perversity of purpose, to send all four children through college in succession of time. Perhaps reason and logic would suggest that they first should have to let one or two to postpone college until others are graduated. But for Gin and Boy it was a remarkably courageous and faith-filled bid and communal family undertaking to cut across and circumvent all poverty related walls and stumbling blocks toward success, not for them, but for their children, no matter the cost. Gin knew, as it was her experience that education is the only link that can bridge the gap between poverty and attainment. She knew by her own strenuous and fearless battle against mounting adversities while trying herself to cross the chasm of penury that beyond the pains of poverty and yonder the deepest depths of struggle, there is set a marker atop the hill and in the far open plateau, a flag of victory for each enduring traveler. Hence, she and Boy were willing to invest all available resources for such a positively beneficial and worthwhile initiative.

Gin was fortunate to have such intellectually gifted and good natured children as to understand their parent’s predicaments. They burned their midnight candles to make sure their parents will not be frustrated. They hang on to their individual goals in times when exams became difficult and school requirements are hard to accomplish. They tighten their belts when pressures of budgetary constraints stepped up. Accordingly, the eldest---Mirinisa---graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Education and became a professional teacher. The second son---Dennis---graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Forestry and passed the board examinations. The third---Charissa also graduated with a degree in Environmental Science and passed the professional Civil Service examinations. The fourth, however, after three years in college, slipped away from the path and decided to take marriage as a priority. 

Enjoying together at retirement

The fifth and youngest---Neresa---also graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, Cum Laude. That should have been their last. But while her children were yet in college, she decided to foster a first degree grandson---Gil Franz---whom they treated as their own, while yet a little boy, and also sent him through college and eventually completed a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree, major in Financial Management, then while working took a teacher's certificate course and eventually passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers.

During those periods of incomprehensible difficulties to meet the increasing demands of their college students, personal high cost debts mounted; inherited coconut farm and rice land were sold; their cows were likewise marketed. All those were invested and are now made part of the bridge which their children and foster son now gloriously utilized to traverse on to their journey to a far better and more prospective future. The old nipa house which has since became a banner of hope for the family to rise above the pains of poverty, is all that was left for Gin and Boy, after their dream for a possible modest house erected on an inherited lot, to be financed by a Pag-ibig Fund loan was eventually erased from the plans in favor of their children’s future well-being.

Yet, during all those tough times in her life, Gin had always been a noble teacher to her students, a faithful and loyal wife, a darling daughter to our parents, a loving sister. As an angel mother, her children might have thought as did Maya Angelou who wrote, “To describe [our] mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” (Maya Angelou.) Such is one fitting description of a mother who is able to nurture and raise her children in strict discipline and kindly love as to build for them strong characters which are now humbly exhibited by the respect and love they have for their parents, and the unity, harmony and peace that they shared together in the family circle. Indeed, after the hurricane’s ferocity, a rainbow of beautiful colors is formed in the grandiose sky, between the showers of raindrops and creeping sunshine. 

Enjoying as a united family together

Now gone are the daily thoughts of uncertainties and anxieties of meeting the demands of motherhood and parental responsibilities. While one may have temporarily slipped from the bridge she provided, yet she is happy that her daughter had decided to choose a more imperative duty of a woman. Nonetheless, she is hopeful that in due time, her fourth child---Florisa---will walk back into the bridge and reinvent her educational goals while the children are still young.

At 71, having been born on January 28, 1948, Gin is now relishing the joy and contentment of her life’s humble accomplishments for her children. In quiet reverie, she savors looking at the brilliant light that the future holds for them while enjoying in satisfaction and serenity the fond memories of their past overwhelming struggles. Gone are her dreams of a comfortable life for herself, but delights looking far into the open horizon and reminiscing God’s infinite blessings of faith and hope; and strength and courage to withstand the grueling tests of family life. Gin and Boy now live content with her modest monthly pension delightfully welcoming visits and tender embraces of love from their ten grandchildren in the same old nipa house, with nipa roofing now replaced with galvanized corrugated sheets with the same structure, which for so long had stood against the wiles of adversity and remains strong a beacon of dignity, integrity and hope beyond the pains of poverty. 

To my dear elder sister Gin, happy, happy, happy 71st birthday! May the glorious light of day adds grandeur to the wonderful memories of the past and sends its rays to a vision of a verdant landscape at the end of the tunnel for you and your family.