CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Trust (tiwala) is tiding the Barrera family through these increasingly difficult times.
Hard-up and without any property, Romeo and his wife Angelita use trust as their sole capital in getting loans. These don’t go to support a business, for they have none. The Barrera couple spends the loans to close previous loans or pay for basic commodities.
Where they live, in Barangay Lourdes here, the popularly known “5-6” comes with a monthly interest of P200 for every P1,000.
“May tiwala ho sa amin kasi nakakabayad naman kami sa oras (They have trust in us because we are able to pay on time),” said Romeo, 48.
On Saturday, he went to Barangay Quebiawan to settle a loan that he got to pay an electric bill worth P900.
The couple has no option but to live on loans.
Romeo, a utility worker at the Central Luzon office here of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, earns P6,020 monthly.
Out of that salary, his take-home pay amounts to only P3,200. The rest goes to paying off emergency loans obtained from the Government Service Insurance System and Land Bank of the Philippines. Because those loans are still outstanding, he turns to the “5-6” scheme.
Angelita, 42, puts the trust to good use when there’s little cash. Because she has developed many friends among vendors at the old public market, just less than a kilometer from where they live, she gets fish, vegetables and cooking oil from their stalls, paying them all on Romeo’s pay day.
FOUR EARNERS FOR P350
Aside from loans, every thing else in the Barrera household is “diskarte (finding ways) and “sikap (industriousness).”
Romeo—who finished Grade 1 and who ran away from Magarao in Camarines Norte due, he said, to poverty—takes odd jobs on weekends. He rents out his labor for grass-cutting or yard cleaning.
Angelita, who reached Grade 6, cleans four classrooms at the San Fernando Central Elementary School on weekends, earning P150 weekly. Romeo and their son Rustom, 14, help her out.
Romeo Jr., 18, drives a three-wheel bike, earning between P150 and P200 nightly. Rommel, 17, collects metal scraps and plastic bottles, netting P100 daily.
Collectively, the earners in the family make an income of P300 to P350 daily to support all its nine members.
Angelita, said Romeo, is a whiz in budgeting. The regular staple on the table is bean soup (monggo) with anchovies (dilis). Whatever fish and vegetable was cheaper in any day goes right off on the table. Angelita serves pork or beef very rarely.
In June, she stopped using the gas stove when the price of a 12-kg tank of liquefied petroleum gas fetched P600. Angelita shifted to using charcoal for cooking lunch and dinner. She cooks extra for dinner so that there are leftovers for breakfast.
“Hindi kami nalilipasan ng gutom (We don’t miss a meal),” he said, crediting that to Angelita’s tight handling of money.
All the time for over a year now, their rice comes from the stocks of the National Food Authority. He and the other members of the family take turns queuing up for the P18.25/kg rice. Buying regular well-milled rice will upset the budget, Angelita added
Her secret, if it’s any secret at all, is to live within your means. “Kung ano ang nandiyan, yun ang pinagkakasya para makaraos (We make do with what is available to be able to survive),” she shared.
The family chose to live with Angelita’s parents so that saves them house rent. In that house with three families, they share part of the electric and water bills.
Except for the idle gas stove, the only appliances used in the Barrera household are a television set and two electric fans.
Romeo goes to work on his old bike. The children who are enrolled this year—Rustom and Angel—walk their way to school.
Vices are definitely out in the family. Nobody smokes cigarettes. They don’t go to the malls either.
Angelita gets her manicure and pedicure once every two months.
The family has not raised any savings to use on emergencies, and the prayerful Angelita is thankful that nobody in her happy brood gets ill at all.
“Sa gitna ng krisis, talagang sariling sikap na lang ang aasahan mo para mabuhay (In the middle of the crisis, you really have to rely on your own efforts to be able to survive),”said Romeo who, in the middle of all these, still try to find the dignity to live on honest means.
