The Gilda Boco Story – A Series on PLKR Families

Of Fishers and Manicurists

 

A girl-farmer with 10 centavos (Php 0.10) in her hand walks to the ValenciaElementary School in coastal Miag-aoMunicipality, IloiloProvince in Western Visayas. She’s thinking school but she’s also thinking that she would, again, help “lolo” (grandpa) in the farm planting or harvesting corn or palay so that she gets another 10 centavos “baon” (allowance) for another day in school: “Marami nang mabibili noon ang 10 sentimos!” (Ten centavos, at that time, could buy a lot!)

What more could a girl ask for?

Not Gilda. She wanted more: “I was also thinking that, like, my brothers, I can learn to fish and sell my catch in the market. I could earn a living like anyone in my family,” Gilda explained. In rural Philippines, men go out to sea, women stay in the farm, then ― when Gilda was in her early teens and now ― close to 4 decades later. Then and now too, the farm and sea, remain the rural poor’s main economic resources.

Gilda moved to Metro Manila and became a nanny before she ventured, with a cousin, to a factory that repacked tooth paste tubes on piece-rate basis. Gilda and cousin didn’t work long at that factory in south Manila. The boss seemed to be luring them with gifts and favors and “that,” Gilda recalled, “smacked of sexual harassment!”

Thereafter, it would be this odd job and that for Gilda, in between “tambay” (of being of working-age, unskilled, seeking employment, but no vacancies), for 6 years. Breakthrough came in 1976, when Gilda enrolled on a 6-month Cosmetology vocational course, sponsored by an LGU (local government unit). “I attended M-W-F classes.”

Gilda and Timmie

Home service manicure, pedicure and hair styling became Gilda’s steady source of income that “supplemented my husband’s salary.” Husband Timmie worked as a company security guard in a big firm until his retirement a few years ago. They now draw from Timmie’s Social Security pension.

Gilda continues her home business especially since Timmie is partially paralyzed and unable to engage in any more economic activities. On a good week, Gilda earns about Php 500.00, “including tips.”  They are able to make both ends meet even with youngest son, John, in college.

 

John!

John

John is the youngest of Gilda’s four children, all male. “John would cut through flash floods to get to us. No matter that we tell him to stay put in school, on safer, higher ground, and let the water subside. He would come home,” Gilda said.

Gilda can be more worried about John being caught in the flash floods, trying to get home, than the “banlik”, slush, that the swollen Diliman Creek dumps on her floor and walls, during typhoons, monsoon and “heavy downpour in less than 20 minutes!”  About 19 or 20 typhoons hit the country annually. Gilda resides within the 3-meter easement of the Creek in Barangay Roxas in Quezon City.

“We could include my neighbors in our Disaster Risk Reduction Training in Pamilyang Lingkod Katiwala sa Roxas (PLKR, Missional Families in Roxas). They (neighbors) should also know how to prepare for floods, when to evacuate, and what essentials to take along to a safer place (like money, phones, personal documents and emergency numbers),” said Gilda.

“They can have life vests like the ones that the Knights of the Altar (US-based alumni of the local Catholic Church’s mandated organization donated life vests to PLKR members in September 2013.) sent us,” she added.

Gilda stressed, “I want to be of service, help others” like way back when she, as a young girl, wanted to help her family earn a living in the farm and sea.