IT WASN’T a typical Boracay sunset when a friend and I met Joey. We were whiling our time away on a sand bar waiting for the sunset when a boy who looked about 8 years old (we would later learn that he was actually 11) approached us and tried to entice us into buying some sea shells. When I declined his offer, he turned his attention to the sand sculpture my friend and I were trying to create. Without any invitation, the boy, who introduced himself as “Joey,” plopped down on the sand beside us and proceeded to finish our creation.
As the three of us gathered, poked and shaped the white sand in our hands, Joey started talking. At first, I was skeptical, exchanging looks with my friend as Joey described the hardships one had to face when one lives below the poverty line. It sounded like he was trying to win our sympathy and make us part with some of our money in pity. But when Joey started speaking earnestly about his beliefs, our raised eyebrows went down and we began to marvel at the wisdom he was showing, which was way beyond his years.
At first, Joey talked about how he makes a living. He collects trash left on the beach to help his family. He scours the trash bins and shoreline in front of hotels, resorts and restaurants for anything he can sell to the junkyard. He earns about P40 a kilo for anything he sells.
“Mabuti nang ganito lang kami, nangongolekta ng basura, kesa gumawa ng masama (We are better off this way, earning a living from collecting trash, rather than doing bad things),” he told us. I couldn’t stop but wish that more than a few people in power would live by his ideals.
Joey told us stories about other kids on the island who prefer to make money the easy way—stealing cameras, phones, wallets and gadgets. He said kids like them would amount to nothing. He shook his head at the fact that he sees so many young people on the island doing illegal things and drinking themselves to a stupor. “Okay lang naman kung paminsan-minsan lang ’yung inom nila. Pero pag masyado na, nakakasama na ’yun, hindi sa bituka, pero sa ulo na (It’s all right if they drink occasionally. But if they drink too much, then it will cause them harm, not so much in their stomachs as in their heads).”
I doubted if Joey knew a lot about liver diseases, but he seemed to be firmly convinced that drinking heavily was not a good thing. He said the same things about drugs: “Ay, nakakasira ’yun ng ulo (It addles your brain).”
Whether he meant it literally or figuratively, his words rang true.
Joey’s love for Boracay was evident in the way he talked about the island. Whenever older kids would bully him and try to keep him from collecting his share of trash, he would argue that Boracay is part of God’s creation and is therefore for everyone to share. He said animals of all kinds used to live in the trees until resorts and hotels drove them away and now there are not too many of them living in the mountain where he and his family live.
Pointing to the yachts, jet skis and sailboats docked nearby, Joey asked us if we had even been on them. My friend and I said yes. Then he told us that even if he has lived on the island all his life, he has never been on a sailboat.
When we asked why, he grinned and said they were only for tourists. He added with a laugh that when the tourist season is over, the boats are nowhere to be found.
I asked Joey what he wanted to be when he grows up. He said that his highest ambition is to be a teacher, but alas, he had to stop his schooling when he was in Grade 4 so that his parents could provide for the other children. Being the second to the eldest, he has to earn some money so that they will have something to eat every day.
I asked Joey when he had his last meal, and he said he only had breakfast that morning.
It was getting dark. After exchanging knowing looks with my friend, I asked Joey if he would like to have dinner with us in a nearby restaurant. His eyes lit up, and he accepted our invitation immediately, thanking us profusely.
When I looked at Joey, I wondered how someone in his situation could have preserved his morals intact. Here is a boy who has every excuse to despair and give up on life, yet he has turned things around and strives to do what is right. I find it ironic that so many people my age, who are far more privileged, throw away their blessings and treat them as if they have no value. Meeting Joey proved to me that life is what you make of it. No matter what your situation, you can still turn things around and become a better person.
After dinner, my friend and I said goodbye to Joey. He assured us that we would always be in his prayers at night.
At that moment, I felt truly blessed to have met him. Watching the sun set has always had a profound effect on me because of its beauty, but that particular Boracay sunset was made all the more meaningful when I met the boy named Joey.


Moral Lesson: "treat every person equal,kahit sinu pa sila "

THE DESIRE to be famous and the desire to get wealthy are two different things. And some people only seek to be widely known. Psychologically, their need to be famous and to stand out comes, ironically, from the desire to fit in. This desire can be easily identified. Who doesn’t know the Fame Monster, Lady Gaga, and the overnight sensation, Justin Bieber?
A child craves attention rather than fame. A toddler can catch attention by throwing a tantrum, asking a lot of questions, or simply doing well in school. But trying to get noticed and trying to be famous are almost the same thing. Both involve doing something extraordinary. And I didn’t skip this stage when I was a child.
I used to be part of a carpool when I was in kindergarten. I was the youngest in the group, and the older kids thought that made me easy prey to either their bullying or snubbing. Apparently they preferred the latter. And so for several months they treated me as if I did not exist.
Being a naïve and willful girl, I longed to be the school bus baby. I wanted everyone’s attention and grabbed every opportunity to show that I was worthy of their interest. I would sit in one corner near the driver’s seat and stare at each one of them and then look away if they caught me. I suppose that made me look more like creepy than cute.
And then salvation came. One day, perhaps getting bored while waiting for others in our carpool, a 5th grader asked me, “Can you sing? Sing one song, it’s dull in here.”
And I did. The endless hours of listening to FM radio after homework with my yaya paid off as I did a fairly good imitation of Jessa Zaragoza and sang, “Parang ’di ko yata kaya, na sa buhay ko’y wala ka…”
He was stunned. I was singing a cheesy song from the 1990s and he actually enjoyed it. And so as the others arrived, I was like an iPod on repeat mode singing a single song and they all applauded it too. I was not only the baby of the bus, I had become the star.
Word about my talent spread to other carpools, and every afternoon, they would listen to the Jessa Zaragoza song. It was the song they would listen to before they went to school and the song they listened to until they got home. And they never seemed to get tired of it. Or so I thought.
But one day it just stopped as their attention was diverted to plastic balloons being sold in a sari-sari store nearby. I couldn’t believe they had replaced me with a P1 toy that was known to contain toxic chemicals.
In a last-ditch attempt to save my dwindling popularity, I asked my yaya to teach me new songs. But I was too shy to offer my new repertoire without being asked, and so I was once again the weird, friendless girl sitting in the corner of the school bus.
People have the tendency to search for meaning in their lives. There are those who find it in loving someone or accomplishing some things. But those who find meaning in fame can pay for it. The stars of today may not be the stars of tomorrow; fads just come and go.
My early childhood experience with fame taught me to grab opportunities and to take little gambles. But every time I visit the old parking lot for school buses and the bus drivers tease me to sing for them, I feel like Lady Gaga dressed in a simple shirt and jeans or like Justin Bieber without the signature hairstyle—a lusterless star. But then, the idea of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber being “a slob like one of us” (as Joan Osborne puts it) is not so bad.
I was glad when one of my carpool mates noticed me. She was about seven years my senior at that time and she lived a few houses away from ours, but she started playing with me and dressing my hair up. I was glad to know that I did not have to sing for her, all I needed to do was to be 5 years old and cute to win her friendship.
Fame is a monster that eats one up if he or she loses control. Popular icons like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan are talented performers who have been eaten up by the obsession with fame. It is good to hone and improve one’s talents, but when I remember a carpool-mate saying, “Wala ka bang ibang alam na kanta?” I am reminded that it is not enough to be famous.
In college where everyone is supposed to have stood out in their own former high schools, you are expected to stand among those who are already standing tall. How does one do that? It requires one to tiptoe and it hurts and there is always the possibility that you would topple over. It means sacrificing part of your personal life to focus on your whole college existence.
There is no certainty about finding fame. Not all the 6,908,601,170 people around the world (and counting) can be under the limelight at the same time. As a child, I had my 15 minutes of fame. When it was gone, I joined the more than six billion people who enjoy other, mostly safer and more lasting pleasures.