Stories of Quirino (end)

'You spoil your farmers way too much.', Aris, a good friend told me decades ago. I was still in the rank and file, work was more difficult then. My time was spent on travelling around the four provinces in Region 1, commuting in jeepneys, mini-buses, trikes, sometimes tractors. I went to places I did not imagine I would reach, crossed wild rivers, fell off rice paddies and getting up covered in mud, drank with insurgents from one coconut husk, passed from one mouth to another then went home with typhoid fever. Yet those times were the most satisfying ever, in this career I devoted myself to for almost three decades. I had to see our farmers, with my own two eyes, and how they are doing. 

Natural to me was and still is the gratitude given for the help we extend to our farmers. We get a lot of 'thank you's' and 'agyaman kami apo' from them, even if the assistance is still in the works and not yet handed to them. Because this government believes in participative planning, everything is done in consultation with our recipients. There are times when some of them would raise questions as to how a certain project was to be implemented, for example, and we would all patiently answer them, very careful not to offend any of them. Yet, the recipients were there, they were present in the consultations, and to me, that was enough. It meant they wanted to be part of the project, and would be able to tell their grandchildren stories of how they contributed to the betterment of their barangay. 

Truth be told, it was only in Quirino where I experienced the 'un-natural'. I saw and felt indifference, 'deadma' in our slang. Never mind if the project we so worked hard for cost almost 30 million pesos. Never mind is we travelled five hours from Vigan City through a dangerous terrain with rocks or landslides may fall on our pick-up at any given time. Never mind if the area is peppered with insurgents who prey on the police and the army even in broad daylight. Never mind that we were all so selfish as to travel there, stay there, vulnerable to the dangers there are, while our families back home are unsure of where exactly we were at as there was no mobile phone signals, or whether we would all be home still in one piece. The project recipients and the local government unit simply did not care enough, I guess. I saw no smiles, not even the courtesy of their presence until we forced it. 

There may be stories behind the coldness from them, and I would like to give space for that in my mind. Yet after the activities, I went home with my heart broken into pieces. I know. Government service should not expect a return, this profession is where the word 'ungrateful' is so pronounced, not only from our constituents, but those whose professions are not in public service. Cruel comments and criticisms from our outside world, generalized,  are things we deal with each day. But then again, I tell myself, I love this job. My opportunity for achievement lies in public service. And no one forced me to stay for the longest time. Still, I would have settled for just a genuine smile, perhaps just one among them, to say 'thank you'. I do not even wish for it to be said. Just shown. So before we all left to head home, I went up to the farmers sitting with their two legs folded, soles on the ground, and forced them to stand up and join me in a 'selfie'. They hesistated, but they honored my request. They all stood, and smiled, and the photo was captured. That one, I took home, to mend the pieces of my broken heart back together.