A DECADE LOST, A LIFETIME GAINED: MOTHER AND CHILD

Posted by Philippines - 28.07.2011

Since 2003 the Homeless World Cup has produced many inspirational stories, but the tale of Bert and Virginia Sienes is undoubtedly one of the most engaging and heart-warming to date.

A decade ago a young boy in the Philippines fled his home.

The boy was barely ten years old, but more frightened of his violent father and turbulent home-life than the prospect of walking the streets of Manila alone, hungry and begging for food.

He roamed the streets for two months, almost invisible, before an elderly woman fed and clothed him for two days before referring him to the Reception Action Centre at the Department of Social Welfare.

From there he was placed in the Manila Boystown Complex, an institution for neglected and abandoned boys which would be his home for the following eight years. There he took solace in football.

Three days ago, on Sunday 17th July 2011, a woman knocked on the door of a dormitory room hoping nervously that she would be greeted by the little boy she had searched for since he disappeared a decade before.

The door was not answered by a little boy, but a twenty-year-old man called Bert Anthony Sienes. He did not recognise his mother at first, and she barely recognised him.

All Virginia Sienes knew was that he was her son, that he had become a football player and that he was a member of the Philippines team for the Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup.

It was only days before that Virginia had been alerted by a relative when Bert and his team-mates appeared on national television. Bert had been interviewed and spoke of how he hoped to re-unite with his family before he travelled to France to represent this country.

Virginia contacted Street Soccer Philippines immediately and made plans to travel to see her son, who was staying in Quezon City with the Philippines squad in preparation for the tournament in August.

Shortly after her arrival, as he stood at the doorway surrounded by his team-mates, Bert was visibly shocked and confused, unable to believe the woman standing before him could be his mother.

When she asked: "Are you Wenok?" he replied without hesitation and in an instance they embraced, tears flooding from their eyes.

‘Wenok’ was Bert’s childhood nickname, a lasting memory of a relationship between mother and child that had been broken ten years ago and re-kindled moments before in a dormitory hall in Quezon City.

Bert is now re-united with his family and his sixteen-year-old sister Mary-Anne who he last saw as an infant. His father left the family years ago but they still live in the same house in Taguig. Virginia never moved for fear that Bert would return and she would not be there to greet him home.

In less than a month Bert will represent the Philippines at the Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup, safe in the knowledge that he will return for the first time to a home of his own, and into the loving arms of his proud family.

Special thanks to Cecill G. Artates.

---