CRIBS Foundation

From the moment we were pushed out into the world, we’ve been soaked in the need to hold a hand that will hold ours back. As we grow older, we learn to tame that need, to understand the difference between strangers and friends.

Along a sloping street in one of Marikina’s buried crevices, there is a small orange building with equally citrus-colored gates. CRIBS (Create Responsive Infants by Sharing) Foundation is a non-government organization that serves as a temporary shelter for surrendered and neglected infants aged only several days to 2 1/2 years old. The center facilitates future adoption of the babies or, less frequently, reunification with their biological parents. There are excellent professional caregivers but due to inadequate staff and funding resources, they can always use a helping hand from volunteers.

People either love or hate Valentine’s Day for a single reason: we surprise each other with the many embarrassing ways our raw emotions manifest themselves. Tomorrow, a friend will gush to you about how the boy she met five minutes ago happens to be her soulmate, or about the girl he would cross oceans for if only she would stop calling him a stalker. There is so much misplaced affection that remains unaccounted for, and we often witness more of it than we care to see.

This is why Valentine’s works, despite the criticized marketing charades. We are all seemingly desperate to find a real, graspable connection with the rest of mankind — which, ironically, is just as desperate as we are. It’s not so strange that I write about babies on this particular holiday. Of whatever nature it may be, the human affection we all crave is never really so different: we look for somewhere we can bury ourselves, basking in the warm delight of a familiar scent. Nowhere else in the world is this more true than with one-year-old infants, forsaken by the very people who should have kept them safe.

From the moment we were pushed out into the world, we’ve been soaked in the need to hold a hand that will hold ours back. As we grow older, we learn to tame that need, to understand the difference between strangers and friends. For these little souls who are left to fight the world on their own, the need becomes unprejudiced, shameless, and reciprocally generous. In that little room of milk-stained pillows, only one thing is more primal than the need for human affection: the ability to give it back.

For donations, volunteering and other forms of assistance, CRIBS Foundation may be contacted at 647-1329 or 681-5921 (ask for Liway Flores).

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