By Cyril C. Beltran, CICM

Along the ‘riles’ of the Sta. Mesa parcel in Manila, three CICM students prepare to be missionaries by leaving the protective walls of the seminary and living with the poor. Cyril Beltran shares his experience.

No Room To Swing the Cat

I was last June 16 when Betoy, Erick and I enthusiastically transferred to this place situated along the railway. Most of the people living here came from different parts of the country, specifically from Bicol and Surigao. We are renting a room that is rather small. in fact. We can only accommodate three chairs besides ourselves and other basic necessities such as a pail, cooking utensils, plates. It is around here our daily life revolves; we eat, study, and sleep in the same room. If we would have a table in this room, literally, we could not move anymore. So, in our life here creativity really plays a vital role. Writing, reading, studying, term and reflection paper are done sitting. Thus, the chairs have become very important in our life.

Precious Water

Surviving here demands a certain quality of toughness, while the formation I got inside the seminary is somehow the exact opposite of what I am now experiencing, Take for instance the fetching of water, if in other places you can comfortably use as much water as you wish, here you have to think twice about every pail; you really have to spend your time and effort before you can have it. Sometimes we have to wait up till midnight or the wee hours of the morning to get the two gallons which we would usually used for shower in the next day. Sometimes (more difficult still) you find yourself failing in line with individuals who are waiting in line for others to finish defecating! Indeed, I had a traumatic experience when I once got a stomach cramp and found out that I have nowhere to go, because somebody was still in the toilet. For your information, in our area here we only have one common C.R., a C.R. that doesn’t need flushing because everything droops automatically into the running water of the canal. Then, with the noisy train that keeps on passing by, disturbing even our cherished moment (siesta), and with the leak in our roof causing our world to become smaller and smaller every time it rains, we realized that we are becoming more and more in touch with the real lives of the poor.

Life is Cheap

On one occasion while we were drinking beer, a man about thirty told us how he manages to survive but merely depending on others ’resources, usually taken in a unlawful way. He was once the leader of a group responsible for the snatching and hold-up activities in this area. On another occasion a mother told me: “It is common here to see people fighting and killing one another” A few days later a cousin of hers, our neighbor, was stabbed five tine s and killed. such impressions were further intensified when n a few weeks after, I personally witnessed a direct confrontation between a father and a son, which after a serious argument resulted in a bloody incident. The father nearly killed his son for his disrespectful attitude towards his mother who at that time failed to cook something for there supper. Later I discovered that there was in fact nothing to cook, this family is very poor, depending only on the small income the father gets – mostly through casual manual work.

A Little Mystery No Wonder

There were moments when I asked myself: would I be able to survive all this and still manage other important matters, my studied especially? However, after a deeper reflection and more intense encounter with the people, I discovered that in spite of fall these inconveniences, my two companions and I were responding positively to the situation, for my part it was clearly manifested in my grades – excellent in comparison to what they had been before, and in my relationship with myself and with my companions. How did this happen? Sometimes I am inclined to believe that there are things in life that can hardly be explained by works alone. However, there is one thing which I am sure of: that my theology and understanding of life is know fully grounded in reality. For me, this is in itself a gift that empowers me to go on and be more committed to the man whom I want to follow – Jesus.