Pathetic and tragic

It was pathetic. The sight of the piteous and agonized cries by the father of the 16-year-old Cadiz youngster in the death of Dr. Andres Gumban.

“I will kneel before them if they want. So they could forgive my son,” was the anguished cry of the father in a television interview with ABS-CBN.

Even assuming that the relatives of Dr. Gumban could forgive the boy, the deal has been done. The 16-year-old must have to face the music.

The father should instead kneel before his son for having committed the mistake of thinking with his wife that the money they could earn could solve the problems of their child.

While he puzzles over what happened to his son to have done what he did and the macabre way the crime was committed, it was not unexpected. Similar incidents and tragedies had happened to the children of other expatriate parents and their offspring.

Usually, it is poverty that drives either of two parents to leave for abroad and earn enough to send home for the upkeep of their families.

The result of the abandonment of their son is nothing anew. Daily we see the impact of single parenthood and the consequence of either of the parents leaving their children to the custody of surrogate parents. Usually parents, brothers, or sisters or elders of the children.

The Christian Family Movement in the past had its team of counselors handling the task of precisely advising parents of prospective OFWs.

Often, they succeeded in preventing such complications as what happened to the 16-year-old son of that Cadiz OFW. But that is something difficult to anticipate or predict.

The problem boils down to the common complaint by parents - poverty. And how to meet the needs of their children, including sending them to school.

It is a conundrum. Either one stays behind and lives with the poverty of their families or go abroad to earn enough with which to keep them body and soul together. Tough choices. And usually, the easy way out of the problem is to work abroad for two years or more to earn enough for the family left behind.

The problem is mitigated to a certain extent if only one of the partners leaves for abroad. The problem is compounded when both decide to work abroad.

It is difficult for either of the two partners to do the chore of parenting, both as father and mother for the children. Worse, when none of them can do something about their children.

The usual recourse is to leave them behind in the care of surrogate parents. Usually it is the father or mother of the couple. Or aunts or uncles of either the couple.

Surrogate parents, however, cannot provide the children the love and care that mothers and fathers usually give them. But, as I had said previously, easier said than done. And “kinawala ang problema” is the often heard explanation by the parents of these children.

If the absence of either of the parents is only for a short duration, the impact on the growing children may be eased to a certain extent. Still, the companionship is something that is difficult to overcome.

Surrogate parents cannot fill up what the real parents can give the children. Usually, the missing parents believe that those left behind with their children truly cares for them the same way they could have done had they stayed behind themselves.

Sometimes, surrogate parents, themselves, are the sources of problem. Usually unknown to the parents who labor under the impression that their children are brought up the way they expect them to be cared for.

The unspoken belief is that the money they sent home to their abandoned children is enough for their children’s needs.

Unfortunately, as we discovered during our counseling mission, we discovered that the same money often are the very poison that the children resented and drives them to drugs to make up for the love they long for.

I’ll just cite one experience which my late wife, Dr. Lourdes L. Espina and I encountered in our practice.

Our wards were both our ahijado and ahijada. But the husband had to work abroad as a mariner. And the wife was left behind to take care of their two kids.

She was a devoted partner. She augmented their money sent home by her husband with a sari-sari store at their house.

We often dropped in on her and tried to ease her loneliness and anxieties about her husband.

Her parents-in-law, however, often would ask her for money bigger than the allotment from her husband. She lent them money. But they often berated her for failing to give them more.

Later, she noticed that her husband’s letters came in far and few. And usually included complaints by her parents about her treatment of them.

When Nene and I went to Manila, she suddenly appeared at our apartment. She was in tears. Her husband was coming home but had not informed her when that was going to happen.

Accidentally, she discovered the time and the flight number. We accompanied her to the NAIA. He emerged from the airport. But he did not even cast a glance at his wife and one of their children. She wad disconsolate. We had to comfort her and thought that it was an accidental brushoff, although he did greet his parents with hugs and kisses.

Later, we tried to reconcile both. The husband, in difference to us, met with his wife at Nene’s clinic at the Doctor’s Hospital.

Unfortunately, his parents had poisoned him about his wife. Not even our assurances that we were frequent visitors of his wife could demolish the reported dalliances she had with another man. Despite the fact that both Nene and I pointed out that we never had heard nor seen any evidence of such person, he just had believed the reports to him by his parents.

An appeal to listen to his wife, after all she was his lifetime partner, failed to disabuse his mind about the poisoned belief in his wife’s betrayal.

All we could do was to pray the Lord to heal the wounds in their hearts administered by her parents-in-law.

He left but apologized to both Nene and me. But that was no comfort. He did not have second thought about his wife and their children.

Unusual? No, a common phenomenon in many Filipino expat families. Most pretend contentment comes with riches but seldom do we really look into the psychological and spiritual impact of prolonged separation by either or both parents on their children and their own future spouses.*

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