"Di po kasama yung Phone sa libre(losing faith in humanity)"

"Di po kasama yung Phone sa libre (losing faith in humanity)"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

I have been angry and I have been sad but I don't think that I have been angry and sad before. I wrote about the sad state of things in our country before where people would steal things out of desperation. Now as it turns out people don't steal because they are desperate , they just steal because they could.

When my daughter informed me that I would be a part of their schools medical mission(I was basically the whole medical team)...I was happy and proud to be of service. These were people who never see a doctor on a regular basis. It took me an hour and a half to finish the consult of 70 patients who ranged from 2 month olds to 64 year olds and everyone in between. It felt great having been able to answer their medical inquiries and to have provided them with the medical knowledge to guide them in making decisions in their lives. 

What felt even greater was when I was seeing smiling faces as we started distributing bags of groceries and food.I was beginning to feel great and that I was seeing people that really needed help get it. 

This feeling would not last long because it would be broken by one simple question on the microphone. "Sino po ang nakakuha ng cellphone ng may-ari ng school , pakibalik na lang."(Whoever found the cellphone of the school owner , please return it). Just like that my faith in humanity was not restored. Here we are in the midst of all these people and someone had the audacity to steal a cellphone that was lying around. People were getting free groceries and free food...they didnt need to be greedy by taking advantage of everyone's hectic moving about and stealing something. Talk about biting the hand that tries to feed you. You give people something free and they think your phone counts as one too. 

The theft happened after 11:32am , I was still able to take a shot of the crowd with the phone just in the back ground. After that the back ground music stopped and no one would notice until a couple of minutes later when it was too late. This is one of the saddest episodes in our lives as a species. The death of decency and respect. We just can't waltz in to a school , already get free stuff and then have the balls to steal something too!

Why does there have to be that small percentage of people that ruins it for the other 90 percent? I was never able to ask the school directress if she would open the school up for an event such as this again because it seems that security was not all that tight because of the light hearted feel of the occassion. I would not blame her if she does not open her doors next year. Then again I do not believe that she would not continue with this activity next year out of fear. She does after all look at a person and potential as she did with my daughter and it is in her nature to forgive and move on from this tragic event. 

As for me , if they should ever ask me to come back next year , I am still in. The only difference is that I would keep my phone very near to me because you never know when people would decide that you phone was part of the freebies.