In fast food chains located in Manila, such as McDonalds or Wendy's or Jollibee, the tables near the windows are the least desirable to customers. Only during the lunch hour or at dinner time, when these fast food stores are crowded, would you find these seats occupied. The reason why customers do not like to sit at tables adjacent to these windows is not because the sun shines directly through the glass, or because they prefer to eat in a more private corner. One of the bigger reasons why these tables are avoided is because of the street children lurking outside, watching every bite that the customer takes out of his cheeseburger and begging for the leftover French fries or soft drinks.

You can find these street children nearly everywhere in Manila. They are dressed in dirty, threadbare or tattered clothes and wandering the streets in worn-out rubber flip-flops or even barefooted. They beg for alms from passersby, knocking on car windows or climbing jeepneys to wipe at passengers' shoes with dirty rags. Some sell sampaguita garlands, cigarettes, wiping cloths called pranela or newspapers. Some just sit at sidewalks, staring empty-eyed at nothing, or are huddled with their friends sniffing solvent to forget their hunger and their misery. Some are driven by hunger and need to steal the belongings of unwary passersby. Some are forced to sell their young bodies to those who would buy them.

It is a miserable life that these street children lead, and it is certainly not the kind of life that they would have chosen for themselves. Ask any street child, and he would tell you of their simple dreams: to be able to eat properly three times a day, to be in school and study just like well-off kids do, to be able to play with nice toys, to be able to bathe and dress in decent clothes. These dreams of theirs are just simple things that most people take for granted.

Why could they not have these things? The answer to that question is none other than poverty. Some of these street children come from families where the parents are working to death and yet earning barely enough to survive. Most of the time, such families are made up of too many children that the parents can barely afford to feed. There are street children whose parents are too sick to work. There are some whose parents would not work at all. And then there are some who have been orphaned or abandoned.

Whatever future that these street children have, it is nothing but bleak. And when they have their own children, it is this bleak future that will be heirlooms they shall pass on. It is a vicious cycle, and a cycle that needs to be broken.

Thesa is an experienced writer and publicist. She has 12 years experience in writing well-researched articles of various topics, SEO web content, marketing and sales content, press releases, sales scripts, academic essays, E-books and news bits.