Alak for a 2-year old child?
I was on my way to Legaspi City yesterday to attend a meeting. I took the 1:30pm ferry ride to Tabaco City. The boat left at a little over 1:30pm.
Few minutes later, I heard a baby boy about 2 years old cry at the back of the seat where I was seated. The cry started slowly and grew louder and louder. To my surprise, the baby boy was asking for “Alak” (wine). He shouted in a very loud voice “Alak Papa..Alak”.. The crying and shouting was turned into tantrums which the father could no longer control.. He kept on telling the child, “Bawal yun dito anak”.. (It’s prohibited here my child..) The father carried the child near the canteen and bought him “Mooo” a chocolate drink. But still the child would not stop crying. I bet he was hungry and was asking for something to fill his tummy.
I didn’t exactly know what the father did to the child. I just saw the child already asleep when they returned to their seats. I was really touched by that experience and I can’t forget the incident. The father and child seem to be living in Manila or nearby Tagalog speaking provinces because they were talking in tagalog. The father was young, maybe less than 30 years old and they didn’t have a mother of the child with them.
I felt so sorry about the child. Was it the world he was living? “Alak!” He seem to be living the life with a young troubled father who has “Alak” as a recourse to life’s never-ending troubles. But the child was so young.. Was it possible that whenever the father drinks “wine” he also gives his child a shot? Maybe to stop him from crying or asking for child’s attention?
How many fathers are doing that to their children? Is it the life that many children may have been living today? Where will this practice bring them? And what kind of citizens will they become in the future?
I guess I have reasons to be afraid of the future.
