 |
Money Blog Archives
Money Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the money facet of life. Money-Blog: No-Money News Dad has no money, so...: November 9, 2007
All she wanted was $3... SHE was just 12 years old, but it seems she had seen enough. The shame and deprivation of life in the slums is believed to have driven the young Filipino girl to end her life. Mariannet Amper had been forced to miss school because her parents couldn't afford to pay for her transport. And even if there was, she would have had no food as there was no money for an allowance. The children in the village wouldn't play with her brother and her - they were too dirty. Her family couldn't even go to church because they couldn't afford to get there. So, when Mariannet's father couldn't come up with the 100 pesos ($3) that she needed for a school project, it seemed the young girl just couldn't take it any more. She hanged herself last Friday afternoon inside her family's makeshift house, reported The Philippine Daily Inquirer. The night before, Mariannet had asked her father for the money for the school project. But Mr Isabelo Amper, who is out of work, didn't have enough. He told his daughter that he would ask his wife if she could get some money for her. The next day, however, the 49-year-old construction worker managed to get a cash advance for a job on a downtown chapel. Money Blog: No Money News (Continued) TOO LATE He rushed home with the good news but, by the time he got home, his daughter was already dead. Said Mr Amper: 'I suspect that she did it because of our situation.' As he and his stunned wife went through their daughter's pathetic belongings they came across a letter and a diary she maintained. It spoke volumes of the misery the girl endured. In an 5 Oct entry, Mariannet, who had missed school as her parents could not afford money for transport, wrote: 'It feels as if we've been absent (from school) for a month. 'They're not counting my absences anymore. I just realised that Christmas is just around the corner.' Mr Amper recalled that in that week, Mariannet skipped school as they did not have money for her food and transport allowance. 'We did not have any money, and I didn't want Mariannet and her younger brother (Reynald) to walk to school,' he said. Money Blog: No Money News (Continued) But he clarified that Mariannet was absent for only three days. 'For her, three days was like one month,' he said. On 14 Oct, Mariannet wrote in her diary: 'We were not able to hear mass because we did not have fare money and my dad was sick with fever. 'So, my mum and I just washed clothes.' Along with her diary, the Ampers also discovered a letter Mariannet wrote for the GMA 7 television programme 'Wish Ko Lang' (I Just Wish). 'I wish for new shoes, a bag and jobs for my mother and father. My dad does not have a job and my mom just gets laundry jobs,' she wrote in her letter. 'I would like to finish my schooling and I would like very much to buy a new bike.' Money Blog: No Money News (Continued) That letter, apparently written while Mariannet was still 11 years old, was never sent. Said Mr Amper: 'We never knew that our daughter had dreams for us.' His wife, Magdalena, works part-time 'repacking' odong and misua (noodles) in a nearby factory, earning at least 50 pesos a day. She also does laundry jobs on the side, receiving 100 pesos to 150 pesos. Mr Amper, on the other hand, is in and out of work. 'I'm already old. No one would want to hire me,' he said. The Ampers live in a hillside community in Davao City in the south-eastern part of Mindanao. They do not have electricity and running water. Of the seven children, only Mariannet and Reynald are left with their parents as the other children are grown up and have families of their own. But even with only two children left to feed, the Ampers still have a hard time surviving. Money Blog: No Money News (Continued) DISCRIMINATION They live from hand to mouth and were discriminated against even in the 'mostly poor' neighbourhood, said a neighbour. 'The other kids do not want to play with them because they're dirty,' she said. 'They're poor and they're rejected by their neighbours.' The tragic case came to light on the day Philippine president Gloria Arroyo told a business forum that her economic changes were bearing fruit. 'The common people are now feeling the benefits of a growing economy,' she said. But the Social Weather Stations institute, which monitors the poor, said that some nine million Filipino families rated themselves poor and many of those experienced 'severe hunger' in recent months, reported The Daily Mail. Nearly 14 percent of the Philippines' 87 million population live on less than a dollar a day. Money Blog Comment:
Money blog is wet in its eyes. Money or no money doesn't matter. What matters is the system we have created for distributing the necessities of life on this planet among its inhabitants who fellow-mates to one another. But somehow, sometime, something happened that robbed us of our sensitivity to feel our fellow humans as our mates. What was it? And what is it that is continuing its existence till date forcing Mariannet to hang her from the roof? No money! No, money! It's money that is the culprit. Had money not been there, 'no money' would never have snatched Mariannet away from us. I ask a question. Why, after all, do we require money to live our life on this planet? What did you say - growth? Why can't we make growth without counting it in terms of currency notes or a few numbers printed on our account books or our credit cards? Would you say we'd lose all motivation to grow? If we are doing what all we are doing just for the sake of being able to count more money and then still more of it, it's better we stop making such inhuman growth with immediate effect. I too have this money blog here because there is money all around us! We won't need any such money blog once money is kicked out of our lives. And we should never forget that it's money only that turned us so insensitive that we are always ready to sacrifice human growth for the sake of our petty personal growth on earth and thus turn it into a living hell. Think my dear mates, no money is the only way out to take human growth as a bigger priority than our petty personal growth that we always make at the cost of our fellow human beings on earth. And in this era of super computers to keep an inventory of all the human wealth on earth, we CAN live a technologically advanced and civilized life without these ugly printed pieces of paper creating walls in between our hearts! Money does corrupt, exactly like power does! Wanna have some bidding fun with 'Money' on ebay auction? You might grab a bargain or two! Just say your bid and you're done: Sign up with AuctionAds as a publisher and receive $25 right now! I invite you to subscribe to my E-zine titled Life Coach, free of charge. This E-zine publishes insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. A not-to-be-missed opportunity! Subscribe to it here: I also invite you to subscribe to my Life Blog - no need to provide your e-mail address here. This RSS feed keeps you informed about new developments taking place on this site. It also harbors 25 journal bloglets posting insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. In order to subscribe to the blog, right-click on the orange RSS button (see buttons up to the left) and then paste the URL into your RSS reader. Or click on add to My Yahoo! button or My MSN or Add To Google button if you keep a personalized home page there. If you are not sure what RSS or blogging is all about, click on What's an RSS Feed? here:
|
Blink
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
Google
Simpy
Spurl
Technorati
Y! MyWeb
