Yes, you are. During this pandemic, you probably have done many acts of kindness for somebody especially at home. You might have babysat your younger siblings, you might have prepared meals every single day during those days of quarantine, you might have run errands for the family, or you might have helped your kids with their online assignments. Being your brother or sister’s keeper means doing something, no matter how small, for the good of that person.
On social media, I have seen many ways by which people help one another, but I am struck by a particular group of people whose acts of kindness is beyond measure. This group are the farmers of Benguet, Province who are the number one producers of vegetables in the Philippines. They supply the entire Northern Philippines, if not the entire country, with their produce. So, you can imagine that the amount of produce they sell are not what you see in small town farmer’s markets. They produce truckloads of cabbages, carrots, potatoes, celery, chayote, and many other vegetables. Due to the two-month COVID_19 lockdown imposed by their local government, the farmers could not sell their vegetables to the public. Besides, there were no businessmen traveling from the lowlands and other neighboring towns to buy their produce.
While these farmers could have chosen to let their produce rot in their gardens, they chose to feed their entire province.
Realizing the pandemic is longterm and knowing their produce will go to waste, these farmers decided to distribute them to families in their neighborhoods. Although many people in this province have agriculture as their means of livelihood, not all of them till the land. So, every single family needed some supplies of vegetables, and the farmers whose harvests were plentiful gave to these families generously.
But the farmers did not stop after doing local distribution. They had more to give, and they could reach to more families, so they decided to take their produce to neighboring towns. Then they coordinated with their local government who helped them take their produce to the city where hundreds of families were in need of food supplies. These farmers did all these for free.
After spending money to grow those vegetables and hoping to be able to sell them at a good price, provide for their own families, and probably have extra cash to buy needed materials for the next crop, these farmers were met with a pandemic they could not do something about. But no matter their losses, these farmers, through their generosity and acts of kindness, showed us the best in humanity.
They were indeed their brother and sister’s keepers.
This Borrowed Scrap of Time 