Ordinary Days

By Nicholas Santizo

Very rare are those moments in life when you know that you’ve made a difference.February 20 however, started like any other day. I had my regular breakfast of granola bar and coffee in the morning. I had my regular class of tax 2 right after. And were it not for my meeting with my locgov group mates after class to prepare for our Barangay Project later that afternoon, it would have been a very ordinary day indeed.

Our preparations for this project were not grandiose to say the least. We had no special guests, we had no political sponsors, and we weren’t going to some far flung place. We were just going to Muntinlupa to meet with a group of women and barangay officials who are part of some women empowerment program in the city and who were supposedly interested in listening to a bunch of law students blabber about the law. A very ordinary Barangay Project indeed...

Yet, something happened when we actually arrived at the lecture place. Maybe it was the ideal surroundings of the place. Maybe it was the early arrival of the women and the barangay officials which allowed us to start on time. Or maybe it was the fact that the women’s organization warmly welcomed us and even gave us some materials to distribute to the participants. Whatever it was, it certainly changed things.

More importantly perhaps, it changed us. We came there supposedly to teach them about the law. We came there, supposedly, to empower them by informing them of their rights as women. And perhaps, we were able to do all of these. The women were really very attentive and open to our lectures. They even shared some of their more private thoughts and stories with us. And this certainly helped us address their more pressing concerns directly. And perhaps, in some little way, we were able to help them help themselves a little bit more.

But at the end of the day, what we were really able to do was to reach out to them and believe in them. We didn't really have to give them an in-depth discussion about the law. They would have likely forgotten about the intricate details of the law anyway. We didn’t really have to go and teach them about their rights, that is something we could have done by just giving them brochures and showing them movies. But the mere act of going to Muntinlupa to listen to their stories, and believing in them enough to tell them that they can make a difference in their lives and in their neighbour’s lives, is I think, that which will have a semblance of permanence. That is the real difference we made in their lives. That is the real difference we made in our lives.

Hence, what I will take with me throughout this experience are the smiles in their faces after our talk with them, how they said thank you for taking the time and effort to reach our to them, and how we, as a group grew up, just a little bit, by having a glimpse of the reality that surrounds our understanding of the law. Indeed, just like what renowned French philosopher Pierre de Chardin once said, “If you want to build a ship, you don’t herd people together to ask them to gather wood, instead, you teach them to yearn for the tremendous immensity of the sea.” Hope for change is the real difference we made on that seemingly ordinary day. That seemingly ordinary, extraordinary day.