On April 25, Monday afternoon at 1:00pm, I was waiting to board the LRT at the Grand Central at Monumento.  I was going to the Court of Appeals to file a Petition.  I was supposed to meet with my client at the Robinson’s near the CA.

I always take the LRT.  This is the only public transport that can get me fast enough into the heart of Manila.  I can’t help it, I’m like my Dad: “may nunal sa paa.” ( The nearest English equivalent is: “bitten by a travel bug.”)

As I was waiting, I turned around, craning to see as far down the track as I can if the train was coming.  I saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years.  She’s the mother of one of my daughter’s classmates in Kindergarten.  I greeted her.  She seemed relieved that I recognized her and that I said hello to her.

We boarded the train together and chatted.  She was getting off at the Gil Puyat Station while I was getting off at Pedro Gil.  Talk about coincidence!  She told me that she was going to the office of Vice President Binay.  I was curious.  It turned out that she was going there to ask financial assistance for her husband.  Her husband was the victim of a hit and run.  He was on his motorcycle on the way home from work on a Saturday, February 12, when he was side-swiped by a bus.  The impact sent him hurtling 12 feet away.  His right femur was crushed as was his right humerus.

They brought him to the Bulacan Medical Center in Malolos but they were ill-equipped to deal with the serious injuries so they brought him to the Philippine Orthopedic Hospital in Banawe.  When they got there, it was so crowded and the lines were so long that they decided to just transfer her husband to a private hospital.

At the private hospital, they indicated that they had a medical insurance card and the hospital admitted them on the condition that the bills will be paid by the insurance company.  The hospital immediately treated her husband.  He was operated on and his fractured bones were mended with titanium pins.  Three days later, when they wanted to check out of the hospital just so the bills wouldn’t mount, they found out that the medical insurance does not cover hospitalizations due to accident.  The family was then saddled with a huge hospital bill amounting to around P120,000.00.  The husband was just a minimum wage earner, the wife had a small sari-sari store and they had a tricycle.

The hospital wouldn’t allow them to leave without paying at least P40,000.00 of their bill.  They were told that they needed to put up a collateral before being allowed to sign a promissory note.  The certificate of title to the only real property they had in the world measuring a mere 120 square meters in a sitio in Meycauayan, Bulacan was kept by the hospital as security for the promissory note.

To top this off, the pin they used on her husband’s right thigh is just temporary.  He will need a replacement bone made of titanium.  The titanium replacement costs P180,000.00.  She had gone to the PCSO and they have agreed to shoulder only P100,000.00 This is the reason why she was going to the office of the Vice President of the Philippines to see if they can shoulder the other P80,000.00.

As she was telling me this story, there in the crowded LRT, tears began streaming down her face.  I know the pain of having a sick spouse.  I empathized with her feelings of frustration and desperation.  But more than this, I wanted to help but I had just a few hundred pesos on me. What would that do?  Silently, I prayed that God will show me what I can do to help.

Immediately, I remembered this lawyer in Marilao, Bulacan.  I usually go to him to have my documents notarized.  I don’t do notarial work because the reportorial requirements are tedious.  So I go to him if I need anything notarized. Last January, he told me about his daughter.  She became Noynoy’s campaign manager in Marilao and she was named as one of the directors of the PCSO.  She was a batch-mate of mine at the UP College of Law.  We took the Bar at the same time.  I didn’t know her personally but my brothers-in-law did.

I told the lady about that connection and I told her that I would go with her to see the lawyer in Marilao.  The next day, she picked me up in their tricycle and we went to Marilao.  The lawyer is 82 years old and he has difficulties getting up in the morning so we weren’t entertained.  We were politely told to come back the next day. At their gate, I was knocking for fifteen minutes before someone came to answer.  When I told the person at the door about why I came, she said “Ay, may ilalapit pala kayo.  Bukas na lang po, pag nandito na ang Daddy ko.  Punta po kayo before 7am, before he leaves for the office.  Siya po ang inyong kausapin.”

We stood conversing there through the bars of the gate.  In my mind, I told myself that if it were me, I wouldn’t open the door either for anyone.  But, I felt small and insignificant.  I felt that we were politely “snubbed.”  So I prayed again.  I said, “Lord, we can’t get through.  Is this your will?  Am I supposed to help her some other way?”  I was feeling desperate for the lady.  I couldn’t indulge in self-pity because there was a job to do.  I had to help the lady get the money for her husband’s operation.

When we got back to my house, the lady was resigned to her fate.  She was accustomed to being snubbed.  I wasn’t.  I am a lawyer and I am used to being afforded courtesy.  I was beginning to feel hot around the collar.  Instead of getting offended, I prayed for grace to do something for the lady.  Psalm 34:5 expresses the exact opposite of  what I felt that day: “their faces were not ashamed.” Boy, was I ashamed of myself that day.  I couldn’t do anything for the lady who so obviously needed my help!

She showed me the statement of account that the hospital sent her for the month of April and it showed that they had charged her P400.00 for interest.  I poured out my frustration in the letter I wrote for the lady addressed to the hospital, asking for a moratorium on the interests until after her husband has finally been treated.

I felt that I had hit a wall on that one and just prayed that God would use another person to help her.  The lady left with the draft letter for the hospital.  That afternoon, another client came and I told her of the lady’s fate and how I had gone to the lawyer in Marilao.  The lawyer is our mutual acquaintance.  She suddenly lighted up and asked me, “Is the lady from Meycauayan?”  And I said yes.  She said, tell the lady to go to the office of the vice mayor of Meycauayan and get a letter of endorsement from him.  The vice mayor of Meycauayan is the lawyer’s daughter’s best friend.  I immediately texted the lady and she got the letter of endorsement that very afternoon. She caught the vice mayor just in time.

At 6:30 a.m. the next morning, the lady was waiting at the lawyer’s house.  She met the lawyer’s youngest son who is the executive assistant of the lawyer’s daughter who was a director of the PCSO.  At 10 am, she sent me a text message asking me if I could write a letter for her explaining how I was connected to them.

I explained how I knew the lawyer, how I knew his daughter from law school, how his daughter and my brothers-in-law were friends, how I was married to a family they considered their friends because my father-in-law used to bring sacks of rice to their house when the lawyer ran for mayor in Marilao. At 6pm that night, the lady sent me another text message:  the PCSO approved the payment of the whole amount for her husband’s titanium bone replacement.

I was so happy for her.  I felt so relieved.  I thanked God.  He was so good.  He engineered for our paths to cross.  He reminded me of a chance conversation I had four months ago.  He reminded me of a tenuous connection with people who were acquaintances of my in-laws,  virtual strangers.  He made His face to shine on us. He gave us favor with people who would otherwise be pre-disposed to ignore us because they really didn’t know us.  God is kind.  Psalm 34:6 says “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.”  That is exactly what I did for the lady.  I cried to the Lord in her behalf and He heard me.

I told the lady in a text that after her husband gets operated on, we should work on the scholarship for her eldest daughter.  She graduated from 6th grade from a public elementary school last March.  She was ranked 4th in her class.  I told the lady that my daughter’s former school had a scholarship program for all honor graduates of public elementary schools in Meycauayan.  If the kid passes the entrance exam with a grade of 90 or higher, the kid would get one year’s tuition free.  If the kid maintains her good grades year by year, she will be allowed to go to school free.  I hope the school hasn’t scrapped that scholarship program!

The lady was just relieved that her husband can be operated on.  He wouldn’t be in so much pain anymore.  I was just so happy for her.  Thank you, Lord. Psalm 34:1-3, 8 is most apropos: “I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.  O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together….O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”