Youth Perspective: Streets, Stickers and Sugarcane
August 21, 2008
Young People in the Philippines Try to Make Money
Take a walk through the big companies of America, and you may find that the closest thing to hard work is replying to a slew of e-mails.
Young people in the Philippines, on the other hand, are working hard for their money, from cutting down sugarcane to repaving uneven cement roads.
This summer I spent a month in the Philippines and got a chance to peek into the youth culture and the different areas of employment for young people on Negros, one of the country’s many islands.
The amount of young workers employed in the mall of Bacolod City is shocking. One can find dozens of young people working in small department stores, even though there are only a handful of customers in the store. A customer standing in the shoe section can expect to be assisted by over five employees at once.
Unfortunately, poverty has forced many young people to resort to other forms of earning money. Some scrape by with begging for money on the street. Outside a popular fast-food restaurant in the city of Tanjay, a young boy presses his face against the glass. He holds his hands out, hoping someone drop a few pesos into his hand on their way out.
But of course, not all children have to resort to begging for money on the street. Nine-year-old Querubin not only has a job, but he also lives with his employer. When his father died, Querubin went to live with the family who employed his father because his mother was unable to support him.
Querubin’s day begins when he exits his room behind the downstairs kitchen. He picks up the handle of the worn-out plastic bin filled with garbage that he’ll take outside the property to dump into a huge hole in the ground. He swings the bucket from one hand to the other, encircling his body as he turns the corner.
Despite losing his father at such a young age, Querubin lives a content life. He lives with a roof over his head, has his schooling paid for and watches Cartoon Network when he isn’t running errands. When he isn’t working, he plays catch with his employer’s six-year-old daughter Alex.
Unlike Querubin, Alex probably won’t have to worry about finding a job until she graduates from college. But that hasn’t stopped Alex from making a few pesos here and there. At her elementary school, Alex sells stickers to her classmates. She carries her money in a bright pink Disney Princess fanny pack.
Many young workers in their late teens and early twenties work more labor-intensive jobs. On a late afternoon a group of young men scatter throughout a sugarcane field, cutting down the stocks and strapping them on their back before piling them on a huge truck. For many young Americans who are getting a taste of the 9 to 5 gig, that is one job they’ll never have.
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