Amid the lack of Yuletide cheer with the soaring of food and petroleum prices, the recent Ampatuan massacre and a government that seems not to care, a quick look at the things that we overlook most of the time would remind us that Christmas is not that bad, after all.

An abandoned gasoline station, located at the corner of La Salle Avenue and BS Aquino Drive in Bacolod City, is now home to at least 20 families from the villages of Sum-ag or Punta Taytay or from the neighboring city of Bago. Every December, these families go to the city to beg so they can have something to buy for their Noche Buena.

Infants are left out to sleep in the cold evening wind, cartons are laid out to serve as play mats for children and a makeshift stove of rocks and tree branches is used to boil rice.

Photo by JULIUS MARIVELES
(Bulatlat.com)