Living in the Rurals

My Tito passed away this morning and the news about his death has reached my relatives living in the U.S. even before it reached my relatives living in Bicol. My parents had to send an LBC just to get the news to them. I’ve always thought anything is possible in a blink of an eye with our technology today but the truth is it isn’t. Our relatives in Bicol have cellphones but they say that the signal of cell sites in the area where they live is very weak that most of the time, there’s no signal at all. They even have to improvise an antenna and attach it to their phones if they want to text or call us, who are in Manila. They don’t have internet service in their place too. They own a desktop computer but it’s used mainly for school papers and projects.
The difference in the way of living of people from the far flung rural areas and the urban areas is striking. However, those in the urban areas remain oblivious to the current condition of those in the rurals – to the extent that they’d be utterly surprised to find out that there are actually still a lot of Filipinos who have never been acquainted with Yahoo, Google, or Facebook. I for one haven’t thought about this until today when we were having difficulty reaching our relatives in Bicol. Maybe if people were made aware of the conditions of those in the rurals, then they would be more empathetic. And perhaps, they would think and consider doing something to help out bring technology closer to our fellow Filipinos.