When does despair come to a father of three, two of them with special needs, whose wife had left to look for a job five years ago and did not come back; whose house had been destroyed by deterioration and poverty; and whose motorized banca, donated by a foundation, had been immobilized by a falling coconut?
“Pas-an ko tanan,” Jonathan Buenafe, 47, said. The old Illongo saying means – I carry everything on my shoulder. It states the story of his life. Even despair is a feeling he cannot afford.
And it is his fate, he said. “Sigue lang. Amo na ang bu-ot sang Diyos sa akon. (Nevermind, this is God’s will.)”
To this poor fisherman, his main role in life is to feed his children and survive the day.
“Tulo lang luha ko. Pero ang akon na lang subong kon paano ko mapabuhi ang mga bata (My tears fall when I think of my situation, but my focus now is how I can keep my children alive).
“My job is to make my kids survive,” he said
The sea is his source of food. He has been fishing since he was 10, he said. His father was a fisherman; his brothers are fishermen. They live beside the sea in Barangay Gargato, Hinigaran, where the serene beachfront has already inspired entrepreneurs to set up small resorts.
His banca “parks” in front of a resort and he has been asked to move it elsewhere, to clear the way for a more idyllic beach front panorama.
Since fishing is Jonathan’s only skill, he goes out to sea whenever he can – either alone in his boat or with a group in a bigger boat to catch more fish to feed his three children – Kenneth, 16, John Glen, 10, and Jonalyn, 7. John Glen and Jonalyn have been diagnosed as mentally challenged.
The catch – depending on the season – gives him the cash to buy rice and pay for fuel.
In April, 2013, he received a motorized banca from the Negrense Volunteers for Change (NVC), a foundation that has already given 4,600 bancas to fishermen’s helpers who wished to become fishermen.
It is the banca that sustains his family but when the fish are in season, he rides out with a brother in a bigger banca farther out to sea to catch more – and bring home more than the P100 a day he averages on his own.
On good summer days, the bigger banca hauls in about four boxes of galunggong. If they can sell that for P150 a box, they have P600, which the four fishermen divide among themselves, after expenses.
But a generous fish season also means that other fishermen are harvesting more.
Hence, prices in the market are lower, sometimes too low. Jonathan said they have to sell their catch no matter the low price or it will go to waste.
They have no facility to store the fish, and bringing it back home means paying for fare.
For the first time during our conversation, he verbalized a thought for the community.
MANILA BULLETIN
