I am a martial law baby and have shouted my share of chants at rallies and demonstrations as a student, but what I know of Crispin Beltran are only what I read in the papers.
Today I find myself deep in thought at the life of the lawmaker who fell yesterday to his death while repairing his roof, with merely P50,000 to his name and two barong tagalog, a pair of eyeglasses, cabinet shelves and t-shirts listed as personal assets.
Was Crispin Beltran poor? What does it mean to be poor?
There are times in life when you find yourself and your whole value system challenged by a thought, an act, a single event. Ka Bel’s death challenged what I know about being poor. In personal finance, we talk endlessly about being frugal and saving coins in a jar. We hem and haw about where to put our P20,000 windfall and whether we can grow that into P1 million … eventually ☺. We debate with ourselves whether the rollercoaster ride in the stock market is worth the headaches.
At the end of the day, is it just about how much we make and how much we keep? Or is it about how we live our lives, using whatever we have?
I came from a poor family but strangely enough, I didn’t feel poor until I became a moody teenager. I know of another person who, because of poverty, hoarded food in her cupboards even as a successful businesswoman because she was scared of the painful pangs of hunger. Those who had gone through much financial suffering are marked by that experience for life. But take a look at this paragraph in The Philippine Daily Inquirer article on Ka Beltran:
“Despite millions of pesos available to him as a lawmaker, Beltran lived a simple life.”
We all know about “those millions”. In my mind, choosing to be poor that way is noble. In our lives, we will probably come across those kinds of crossroads. Hopefully when it’s my turn, I will have the moral courage to take the path he chose.
There are other kinds of choices that can help us live fully and nobly while reducing the chances of suffering financially. The choice to be responsible with debt. To live simply and save more grandiosely. To delay gratification. To check this blog from time to time. (heh)
Kidding aside, at the end of the day, better money management can also help us do more, serve more, laugh more, and spend more time with family and friends.
I do not know everything about Ka Beltran and his life. But assuming everything that was written about him in the end are true, then he knows something about being poor and being rich that many in this world don’t. I’m inclined to think his was the better choice.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
@hachiko. I hated Philo 101! Hahaha. Back to Ka Bel, I actually admired him and did not pity him at all. I admired him although I did not agree with his beliefs, which I think was the universal reaction to his death.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
“how did ka beltran lived? he lived the life that socrates, gandhi, buddha, confucius, marx and jesus christ called “human life”. ^_^”
I agree with Leon
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
For me being financially poor means not having enough to take care of your lifestyle.
Some people may earn P50,000 per month but they keep paying for a lifestyle that costs P100,000 per month to maintain. This gets them into debt, and doesn’t allow them to have savings or an emergency fund.
For me, that makes them poor.
Of course, when you look at most of the urban and rural poor, they really aren’t making enough to support regular nutritious meals and medical care to begin with. These are normally the people we think about when we think “poor”. There are many reasons why these people are poor, but these have a lot to do with things being outside their control and it would take tremendous will power, luck, and street smarts to get out of that situation.
But with the poor people I mentioned earlier - the ones who are making good money but choose to live way beyond their means - they’re the ones that are truly pathetic because they choose to live that way.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
ideologists made simple for the “simple-minded”:
capitalism - the vicious cycle of insatiable greed
consumerism - the illusion of capitalism that “anything and everything can be bought” by material things
materialism - in the economic sense, living a life of vice/excess
“free” market economy - subjecting humanity to the artificial and manipulable “laws” of supply and demand
communism (the real deal) - the state when man “acknowledges” man not just in economics but in life as a whole
being “poor” - being “the last, the least, the lost” in life
hey, there’s nothing wrong in entrepreneurship, as long as humanity comes first before profit.
how did ka beltran lived? he lived the life that socrates, gandhi, buddha, confucius, marx and jesus christ called “human life”. ^_^
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
One of Crispin Beltran’s sons, an equally unassuming but brilliant man, attended a prestigious graduate school. If he can ill afford the tuition fee, with his kind of intellect, he can get a scholarship anytime, anywhere. I sat next to the guy, and he could easily have taken over any of the classes. All of us have different graces, however, poor does not mean stupid…