A Mother’s Travails

Neither rain, flu nor distance could keep Anita Camposano from her job of selling dried fish. Because not working means not having money for her family’s next meal and not being able to set something aside, however small, for her children’s enrolment fees.

BY AILEEN ESTOQUIA
Bulatlat

It is easy to spot her. Dark-skinned and frail, she stands on this street corner with her bilao (a shallow native basket) of dried salted fish. Even as she waits for customers, her hands are busy – packing and unpacking the fish, fanning them, arranging them, or just moving them around.

Anita Camposano, a widow, has been selling dried fish in Pook Dagohoy inside the University of the Philippines’  Diliman campus each day for five years now. She commutes from her home in San Mateo, Rizal, a good two hours away. She stuck to this corner because her suki (loyal customers) are here.

Sometimes, sales are good, but oftentimes, it is not. Today, for example, it is not. It is drizzling and she has flu but she came anyway.

“Kahit ano gagawin ko para may pambili lang ng pagkain, hangga’t may lakas ‘ko, kahit na may trangkaso (I will do anything so we could eat, as long as I have strength, even if I’m sick),” Camposano says.

Arid soil

The 41-year old vendor is a native of Catarman, Eastern Samar province, in central Philippines. There, she tilled the soil for a living. But like many Filipinos in the countryside, she came to Manila in search of more fertile lands.

But she isn’t so sure about that anymore. In Manila, she washed other people’s clothes for two years but eventually gave up because she couldn’t take the back pains any longer.

In peddling, she earns around a hundred pesos a day (US$ 1.83), although on rare days she could get as much as P200 (US$ 3.66).  Because she has no capital, she “borrows” her supply every morning and comes back to turn over the cash in the evening.

Out of her P100-increase, Camposano spends P20.50 (US$ 0.38) for her transportation back home, and for their food for the night. Usually, she buys three kilos of rice, the cheapest of which costs P 22/kilo (US$ 0.40/kilo), which she says has bad smell. Their usual viand is toyo (soy sauce), cooking oil and sugar, which they mix with the rice. On lucky days, she buys some vegetables and meat for her children.

Dried up

Camposano lives in a little room in her sister’s house with her three children. She actually has seven, but the three oldest had gotten married, and the fourth one lives with one of them. Of her remaining children, one attends high school in San Mateo, a town in the adjacent Rizal province, while the other two go to an elementary school nearby.

Now that classes are opening in two weeks, she is also setting aside money for their school fees. Although her children are enrolled in public schools, she has a lot to pay, she says. For her high school daughter’s enrollment, for example, she paid P500 (US$ 9.16) while she paid P300 (US$ 5.48) for the other two.

Apart from that, she said, she still has to buy their school supplies and uniforms, and has to prepare for their everyday allowance. She gives P12 (US$ 0.22) a day to her daughter, enough for her transportation fare back and forth, while her two other children walk to school.

Because they do not even have enough for food, she says she has to save money for her children’s school expenses. Setting aside P20 (US$ 0.37) a day, it took her 40 days just to have her children enrolled.

“Ewan ko ba, masyadong mataas maningil ang mga maestra (I don’t know, the teachers ask too much),” she says. “Mukhang pera. Andaming kuskos-balungos (They are so after the money. There are too many unnecessary expenses).”

Aside from these fees, she says her teenage daughter has to pay for her chair at school, contribute to the painting of the classroom and bring plants and soap to class. If a student does not comply, the grade is deducted, she says.

So Jennifer, Camposano’s daughter, skips classes when she has nothing to bring. Sometimes, she is forced to bring the soap that they use at home to school.

Whispered dreams

Camposano takes pride in Jennifer, though. She says the girl is diligent in her studies and has been a consistent honor student since Grade 1, she says.

The girl also does all the chores at home, from doing laundry to cooking meals. “Parang nanay na nga yan eh (She is like a mother at home),” she says. Because they do not have access to water and electricity, the girl also has to fetch water from a water pump in the neighborhood, the mother adds.

But even with these, Camposano says she doesn’t expect Jennifer to be her light at the end of the tunnel. “Hindi ko masasabi…kung hindi maagang mag-asawa. Anak mo nga sila, pero hindi mo hawak ang kalooban nila (I can’t say that. If she doesn’t marry early, maybe she could help me. They are my children but I have no control over their feelings), she says. ”

Nevertheless, she admits that Jennifer would sometimes tell her at night that she would take care of her mother.

“Pag nakatapos ako, tayong dalawa magkasama, mama. Aalagaan ko po kayo (When I finish school, we will be together, mother. I will take care of you),” Camposano recalls her daughter saying, a smile playing on her lips. Bulatlat

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