We are all familiar with the first Christmas story – how our rich and powerful God left the comforts of heaven and come to us in the most inconvenient way. As recorded in the Gospel according to Luke, He was born in a manger because there was no room for Him and His family in the inn. Just imagine how pitiful the site is – Mary – heavy with the Christ-child in her womb – and her husband Joseph, rushing to find a place for his distraught wife. Indeed, during their time, Jesus’ birth into a poor family was uneventful.
Most of us are blessed to have been born in a hospital, or maybe, just in a clinic or even at home, through the help of a midwife. But did you know that, in some places in the country which are home to several indigenous people groups, there are those who are born and, in fact, grow up without any identification at all, no birth certificate to prove their existence and affirm their citizenship?
In this day and age, we may find this incredulous. Some of you may even shrug it off and say, “So what?”
Aside from legal and statistical purposes, a person has to have a birth certificate to be entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship, such as education, suffrage, ownership of property, business, even the right to marry. Those without a birth certificate, especially children, are extremely vulnerable to exploitation by scrupulous people involved in various crimes, such as drug trafficking, gangs, militia, prostitution and slave trade. There are instances when unregistered children who commit a crime or are crime victims themselves can be mistaken for adults. As such, they are not afforded special treatment for children.
Thank God for the opportunity for partnership between our station 1116 DXAS Zamboanga City and Western Mindanao State University for a project to assist in facilitating the late birth registration of indigenous peoples, or IPs, and Muslims in Zamboanga City. Presently, staff from the National Statistics Office and the City Civil Registrar’s Office are going through each the barangays for community scanning or checking out who needs to avail of this help. At least 20 families of either the IPs or Muslims in each of the barangays of the City are targeted to benefit from this project.
The next phase of this one-year project is putting the seven to 15-year-old beneficiaries, along with other out-of-school youth, on a literacy program on air. Modules of the Magbasa, Magbilang at Magsulat, the Alternative Learning System (ALS) of the Department of Education, will be translated into Tausug and Samal and produced into a radio program of 1116 DXAS. Each of the students will then receive a pre-tuned radio set so they can join the on-air classes. In addition to the ALS program, the station also plans to broadcast health education programs for the IP and Muslim women which will, hopefully, relevantly address their health and wellness issues. In the long run, our prayer is that the station may help build strong, progressive, healthy and sustainable communities.
The Advent means God coming down to earth and giving us the greatest gift of all – His only Son, and eternal life through Him. But it also means a call for a life of selflessness and sacrifice. Of looking beyond ourselves, looking around us and putting the needs of others before our very own, such as the IPs and Muslims who are grappling with late birth registration and literacy, among other life issues.
When Christ first came as a baby, He could have chosen to be born in a more comfortable place and to a more affluent family. But He did not. Throughout His time on earth, He continued to live a simple and unselfish life – giving much of Himself all the time, to minister to the needs of others. This is the meaning of Advent, summed up more clearly in this short poem:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost, to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry, to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…
and to radiate the Light of Christ, every day, in every way,
in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.
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