Roberto Tablatin Jr., a former street kid, who now plays football and dreams of becoming a chef, shared the following story during the annual membership meeting of the Center for Community Transformation Group of Ministries at the WackWack Golf and Country Club in March 2014. (To read Roberto's testimony in Tagalog, please click HERE.)
My name is Roberto Tablatin Jr. I am 20
years old and the eldest of three children. My parents could not afford to send
me to high school, so when I started studying [at the Visions of Hope Boarding
School] in Magdalena, Laguna two years ago I had only finished grade school.
My mother is a balut* vendor. My father
dove for mussels, clams, or crabs. He couldn’t do much work, though. He was frequently in pain but we lacked the
money to find out what his illness was. They never earned enough for our daily
needs.
So I became a street kid. I helped my
mother by selling fruit and vegetables at the Las Pinas market during the day
and balut and nuts at night so we
would have food to eat. Once, when a typhoon flooded the whole place, I sold
just four balut all night. It
was six in the morning before the rain and wind stopped and the floodwater
subsided.
Grandma Ruth [the founder and president of
CCT] often bought from me on Sundays. She and Brother Angel Diel, one of the
pioneer staff of the Kaibigan Ministry, would bring us food every time they
came.
One day Grandma Ruth asked me [and other
street children with me] if we would like to go back to school. She suggested
that we ask our parents if they would allow us to go to Magdalena. My parents agreed to let me and my brother,
Rolly, go, but on the day we were supposed to leave I decided to stay with my
mother knowing she would find it even more difficult without me. I went on
helping her with the selling.
About a year later my mother suggested,
“Why don’t you join your brother in Laguna?” She was worried that I might fall into vice or
become wayward if I stayed at home.
I started studying in Magdalena on April 3,
2012. Adjusting to life in Magdalena wasn’t easy. There was so much to do and many
rules to obey. Rising time was four in the morning for devotions. It was
difficult, but everything changed with the Lord’s help. I came to understand
that everything was for my own good. I learned to follow the rules .
I grew to understand and learn the
importance of a family. You may lose everything but your family will never
leave you. I thank the Lord that He
taught me to dream. I want to be a chef on a ship and travel to a lot of places
someday.
I also hope to lift my family out of
poverty and help send my youngest brother to school. (My brother has had to
drop out of school. My father was killed in January 13, 2013. Someone accused
him and my uncle of stealing a chicken and shot them both.)
I thank the Lord for giving me talents for
football and guitar playing. The CCT
Magdalena Campus Team has played in the Coca-Cola Cup and in the Alaska [Milk
Corporation] Football Cup. I play the guitar at the CCT Community Church in
Magdalena. Another blessing is the chance to go to Malaysia in June representing the Magdalena Boy's Brigade. I thank
the Lord that a street kid like me has this opportunity.
Thank God that I met Him and He continues
to transform my life. To Him be the
glory!
*Balut
is a Filipino delicacy and street food.
It is a boiled duck egg with a small embryo inside.
