Five Pieces

Today, in the midst of packing in the IIT evacuation center, an old man slowly walked up to the stage where volunteer groups were getting ready to distribute bread. I saw the tentative steps he took towards the organizer who had just given reminders about the system of distribution to the hundreds of people who would have been in their own houses, had it not been for the flashflood. The old man took out his Family Card, a creased index card which had been wet and soiled in places. He straightened it out with both hands and presented it to the organizer.

“Sir,” he said. “Mangayo unta ko ug pagkaon. Mulakaw naman gud ko.”

The organizer explained that there is a system in place, that if he were given ahead of everyone else, questions will arise. Another volunteer head said that if he waited, he would receive his share in a while. I wanted so badly to give him his share but I know I will be breaching a system that has been in operation long before I started volunteering, so I piped in and said we were almost ready to distribute, but the organizer cut me off and said we weren’t. We had been waiting for another queue to finish before we could start the distribution.

The old man folded his card and placed it back in his shirt pocket, nodding away his disappointment.

“Aw, mulakaw nalang ko,” he said slowly as he turned to go. He wasn’t angry. The humility in his eyes is one that would shame any of us on the gymnasium stage.

I watched the old man leave and then I looked at the bread packs we were going to distribute. Five thin slices per pack. Per family of five. We have just denied a hungry old man five pieces of bread, for which he had stripped off all of his pride and for which he had worn all of his humility.

I followed him with my eyes, as he wove through the crowd, to a corner of the gym, where he bent down to get two red plastic bags of clothes and other things, to the main gate where he slowly made his way out. He was alone.

We had been afraid that he was lying, that like so many before him who used his reason, he just wanted to get ahead. We had insisted on a system that would ensure fairness. We had wanted to protect the five pieces of bread.



I did not run after him. I realize that when God accounts for each tear in our hearts on Judgment Day, I will have to answer, too, for that old man's.