Gerald: Living life in his full potential
CARMEN, Cebu â He comes out from his room. His hair is wet and he wears a white polo shirt. He is Gerald YbaĂąez, 24, with Cerebral Palsy.
A wheelchair sits empty just outside his room. But he beams a smile and he walks, leaning his hands on the wall, trailing the wooden sofa in the living room, towards the front door, approaching his working table crowded with wires and tools in the verandaâa five-meter distance from his room.
He is ready to succumb himself to work that requires scrupulous attention to detail. Today, Gerald is repairing a speaker.
A decade long ago, Gerald could only sit and crawl. His legs and feet were stiff. At nine months old, his mother, Lita, detected that Gerald was different from the typical children of his age. âWe had no idea what was his condition. I only sought the help of a quack doctor,â Lita says.
For ten years, since Geraldâs birth, Lita relied on the albularyo only to get an advice to have her child underwent palinaâan ancient practice of drenching oneself believed to cast evil spirits. âI stopped seeing the albularyo when Gerard reached ten years old, and for ten years, improvement was never seen.â
At six years old, Gerald started attending classes in Day Care. He had no wheelchair and the only viable option was for Lita to carry him on her back to schoolâfive-kilometer distance, five days a week, home to school and home again.
When Gerald graduated in elementary, Lita decided not to enroll him in High School. âI was frightened with the thought that Geraldâs days in High school would only be marred with unpleasant encounters, with bullying, with discrimination.â
Persistent, Gerald cried. He had dreams, and he will âcontinue to dream until the last thread of his breathâ. Â While Lita had worries, Gerald was more terrified, given his situation, with what would be his future. He was serious in getting an education.
And so, persistent, Gerald cried and Lita, a mother, eventually enrolled him in high school against the odds of routinely dropping and fetching him from home to school and home again, five days a week, now in a nine-kilometer walking distance, and now with a wheelchair.
But Lita was wrong. Gerald had many friends in school. He cocooned in a caring school community where âteachers and classmates never gave me the opportunity to put me down.â
Geraldâs first step, and he wanted more
Years ago, when Gerald was 14 years old, he got a visit from NORFIL, a non-profit foundation that provides help to children and youth with disabilities through community-based rehabilitation. They came to discuss to help Gerard.
Gerald underwent a medical check-up. A check with the doctor confirmed that he has a Cerebral Palsy.
NORFIL provided them with home-based therapies and exercises. The stiff leg and feet muscles of Gerald were softened because Lita, characterized by a motherâs love, zealously implemented the exercises and therapiesâevery day, for two years. Â
And so, Gerald had his first step at the age of 16, and this time again, âfirstâ proved to be indelible. âThat first step brought me massive joy, literally. Right then, I wanted another step, another step, and another step,â recalls Gerald, perhaps without realizing that such first step was a great leap towards living his life in his full potential.
More steps soon followed after. Gerald graduated in high school. For him, it was not enough. A year after the graduation, he went off to enroll himself to the technical vocational program at the Area Vocational Rehabilitation Center of DSWD. He studied electronics.
These days, Gerard is now an Electronic Technician repairing cellphones, rice cooker, electric fan, speaker, amplifier, and DVD. He earns 1, 000 to 4, 000 pesos a week. He has a bank account for his savings and a fair share of his earnings goes to his mother.
Gerald can now walk with assistive home-made walker. He intends to raise a family one day. He is courting someone, a girl of 22 years old who fully knows about his disability. And in the process, Gerald, at 24 years old, feels there are butterflies in his stomach.
In the Philippines, 2010 census says 1.57 percent or 1.4 million persons of the 92.1 million household population had disability. Of this number, one could alarmingly lose count of the number of persons with disabilities who live in the grappling tales of hurdles and hopelessness, day after day.
For Gerald, he hopes that his boldness to dream and his willingness to live may echo that âour disability, our marginality must not deter us from leading our lives to our fullest potentialâ.
âWe must blot out âdisâ in the word disability, for the truest disability we could have is the inability to believe that we all have abilities we could use in achieving our dreams,â says Gerald.
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