To give or not to give this Christmas

Two days after Christmas, I went to visit my family at the province. Days earlier, my niece and nephew kept sending me text messages almost every day on my mobile telling me they couldn't wait to see me again after my last visit during summer. Well, of course, I too was a little excited since I could at last get some needed respite from my usual routinary activities here in manila even just for three days and two nights. So I boarded a bus bound for San Fernando, Pampanga.

While we were about to start the trip, suddenly a man perhaps about my age boarded the bus with his daughter in his arms. Many of us thought he was just another passenger, but suddenly he stood and started to talk with a very sober face almost crying saying, his family needed financial help since his wife is at present undergoing dialysis in a hospital and their money is not enough to pay the bills and medicine. As he was telling us this, he walked from one end of the bus to another to solicit donations while trying to convince everyone of his predicament. There were however mixed reactions from the passengers. Quite a number just turned away while he passed, others kept asking him questions while many dug from their pockets and gave a few centavos. Not far from where I was seated, I saw a middle-aged woman donating a 20-peso bill as he passed her. On my part, I gave him a few bills and some coins. As he reached the entrance door, the man thanked those who handed him some money and afterwards alighted from the bus with his daughter sleeping on his right shoulder.

After he got out, people started talking. One man said he was having second thoughts about believing what the "beggar" was saying. Apparently, he said he had been fooled many times by people whose "modus operandi" were more or less the same - asking help because somebody in the family is sick with cancer and the money needed to buy medicine is not enough, or requesting financial assistance so that one could have enough fare to travel to the province and celebrate the holidays with their loved ones there. One woman passenger was saying she just gave the man the benefit of the doubt since nobody really knows whether he was telling the truth or not. The lady next to her replied that the man was probably bluffing since she said she sensed something in the way he "acted". She observed how from the start while he was informing everyone about his "plight" he looked miserable to the point of crying. But once people begun to give him some money, his face suddenly transformed from one of misery to delight even half-smiling. She said she doubted the man's sincerity since "how can he get so easily delighted by the meager sum he received, most of which were mere coins? Definitely that amount would be far less than the money sufficient to pay for his wife's dialysis. Furthermore she said he doesn't look like a beggar, his physique looked good, good enough for him to find work in a factory. He is just lazy to find a decent job, and begs so that he can buy a couple of drinks with his friends tonight or bet on card game". There were other sorts of reactions besides.

I myself a couple of times had been taken advantaged of in the same way. There were people who requested my assistance for varied reasons aside from those mentioned above, even as far as giving one a considerable sum of money only to find out later that he lied to me (I learned that he used the amount I gave him to spend a night with a prostitute. Subsequently, according to my source, he got infected with some sexual disease). Occasionally I see him but everytime he sees me he runs away perhaps in shame. Now I have become more careful about helping another in need because of what happened.

However, I have not totally declined myself in helping anyone in need. This is what I do in discerning whether someone, who comes to me particularly for financial assistance, is truthful or just making an alibi. If the person tells me he needed money to buy medicine for a sick member of the family, I ask him to wait for me while I buy the medication myself at a nearby drugstore. Sometimes, the person who is not truthful would resort to excuses and goes away. If he asks for money to buy a bus fare so he can go to the province, I request him to accompany me to the bus station and buy the fare myself for him. If he is truthful, he will abide by my way of helping him, if not, well, he goes his way.

Of course, we need to help people who are really in dire need. But at the same time, we also need to be careful and discerning. Helping another person to satisfy his own vices or "helping them to deceive others" would be unexcusable on our part - we become their "accomplices" to the detriment of those who really need our help.