Modista

I was supposed to write about my past week and how grateful I am for all the people I've met and all the activities I've done... BUT I decided to post it later on when I have the pictures to support my story.

Tonight, I decided to write about a person who I have not yet met. Her name is Lanie.

Ate Monica, my older sister who is now an intern in U.P. PGH, used to have her uniforms made in Lanie's home. My youngest sister, Ling, accompanied her back then and said that they went to a place so vivid that even the most forgetful person would remember it.

Today, my other younger sister, Nikki, went there with her friend, Frances, to have their med school uniforms made too. They're about to enter the wonderful world of U.P. Med, which I would never ever get to experience except vicariously through my parents and siblings. I used to tease them that it was probably similar to entering Hogwarts. :p A culture and world totally different from mine. I am a bloody mudblood.

Going back to Lanie's home, I couldn't help but think that perhaps my parallelism wasn't that far at all. With the way my sisters described the place to me, it was as if they were shopping for school supplies just like the way characters of Harry Potter do.

Along Salas street in Manila, an apartment stands. Inside the apartment is a long corridor. At the end of that corridor and under a staircase is a door. And behind that door is where Lanie lives with her sewing machine.

Lanie would take measurements and sew uniforms inside that small room. For most of us, it would seem like a cupboard or a shoe closet but for Lanie, it IS home. That is where she lives, where she works, where she earns a living.

I wonder how many more medical students would have to have their uniforms done before Lanie would be able to move out from her little room and be able to live somewhere else? Or maybe she wants to stay there, her comfort zone. Or maybe even if she tried to make all their uniforms, it still wouldn't be enough for her to move out. The labor for each uniform costs P450. How many uniforms can one person make in a day? How much does one person need for a day of survival? Especially during hard times like ours now.

One of the perks of studying in our state university is the expected low tuition fee. However, I heard that for Batch 2011 of U.P. Med, the tuition fee would increase from P12,000 to P20,000. Although far from the usual P80,000 tuition fees of medical schools, P20,000 is still a far cry from the present P12,000. To my parents who used to pay P700 during their time, P20,000 was alarming.

In case the students have to pay higher tuition fees, would they sacrifice other expenses like let's say their uniforms? And wouldn't that make modistas like Lanie work doubly as hard as they do now in searching for clients and opportunities to earn? In extreme cases but still highly plausible, what about the others who would not be able to afford the increase, would they quit medical school altogether? Expenses in medical school do not stop in tuition fees. There are uniforms, books, and other medical apparatus to worry about. Just like in Lanie's case, expenses do not stop in the materials for making the uniforms. They keep coming in, making "earning a living" become more difficult than it already is.

I will not be surprised if students rallied against the tuition fee increase. There is a reason why they are called Iskolar ng Bayan. I believe they earned the rights of real scholars when UP accepted them in the program. And I will not be surprised if laborers rallied against other price increases. I believe they earned the rights of real "living" the moment they were born.