Paying Attention

by Mariel Soon

19 February 2013
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Responsibility," Ethics and Infinity

Every now and then, I commute going home due to various reasons. My usual route from Katipunan would be to take the LRT to Cubao, take the MRT to Shaw and take an FX going home. Through my adventure, I would obviously encounter lots of people but I wouildn’t really pay any attention to them. Nevertheless, I’d still acknowledge their presence.

One of these people are the MRT cleaners. The situation would just usually be: I do my thing, you do yours. Let’s mind our own business. And it’s just so ironic that I was able to get MRT-3 for my JEEP. We were tasked to help the MRT-3 cleaners with their day-to-day tasks: from sweeping the floors to scrubbing the bathroom tiles.

During the first day of Area Engagement, we were treated as normal workers… until they found out we were Ateneans. Suddenly, their treatments changed and it was quite obvious that they were giving us the (unwanted) special treatment. They were constantly asking us if we wanted to take a break, even though we have only worked for a little less than 30 minutes. That went on and on until we finally decided to take our 30-minute break for the shift.

They’d bring out their packed lunch or canned goods along with their rice cooker and consistently offer their meals. As we were mingling with them, we were able to hear one of our co-workers saying “Sa bagay, marami naman sigurong pagkain sa inyo.” That became the major turning point of the whole 4-hour shift experience that day.

I was then reminded of the economic gap we have with them. Admittedly, I’m used to taking things for granted simply because they were already there and they were never taken away from me. But it was because of this that I was reminded of the responsibility I also had for them. This responsibility may not be much of the economic responsibility, but it’s more of the social responsibility for the Other. It’s not about being able to completely help them but it’s doing the little things which can help them go on.

These are the sort of things you’re not supposed to do to show off, but you do them simply because you want to and you feel the responsibility to do it. I’d be asked by people “Why pay attention to the people you don’t even know?” Well, why not?

“Think about it. Maybe it was fate. There are no coincidences. Everything that happens happens by design and there’s nothing we can do about it. A force greater than us conspired to make it happen. Fate, destiny, whatever you wanna call it. The point is, maybe we met for a reason.”