Editor’s Note: The author, 17, is the eldest daughter of actor Robin Padilla and Lizelle Sicangco. She came home to Manila in November 2007 after completing high school in Australia, where she lived for eight years with her mother and three siblings.

MANILA, Philippines—Early this month, I joined a relief operation in war-affected areas in Mindanao. It was my initiation to social responsibility.

Having spent my childhood in Australia, I had yet to be exposed to communities less privileged in terms of livelihood and social benefits for their residents. And after long months of training in acting, music and the martial arts, I felt I had to move on to the next level of my personal development.

It was past noon of Sept. 13 when I, representing my father, Robin Padilla, the current president of the Liwanag ng Kapayapaan Foundation Inc., boarded a Philippine Airlines flight to Cotabato City.

I was in the company of an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, the foundation’s administrator, and our host, Hassan Palimbang of the Office on Muslim Affairs.

Our destinations: Pikit in North Cotabato and Datu Piang and Talayan in Maguindanao.

In Cotabato City, we proceeded to the market to buy the commodities that we were to distribute to families displaced by the fighting and were now staying in evacuation areas.

Packing the canned goods, rice, bread, coffee and sugar took us until the wee hours of the following day. A group of young artists in the city helped us pack the stuff.

At 8 a.m., our caravan of about 50 people on board several vehicles, with the truck bearing the relief goods positioned in the middle, was already on the highway going to Pikit.

The two-hour trip seemed an eternity; adrenalin made me tense with each kilometer that we traveled.

I knew we were almost there when I saw tent-like sheds in blue shades along the highway. As the number of these unusual dwellings increased, the hushed voices in the car we were riding in dissolved into complete silence.

Only the hum of the car’s engine could be heard, as if it were the only thing alive.

Then a throng of people came into view, and we stopped at a thickly populated site—the school grounds of Bulagawan in Pikit.

The evacuees were milling around as if trying to pick up whatever bit of food that they might set eyes on. But there was no food that we could see.

They all looked very hungry.

Near pandemonium

Quickly we started distributing the food packs.

Those who had been issued stubs preferred not to stand in line, maybe fearing that the packs would run out if they made no effort to get to the front of the queue.

It came to a point of near pandemonium when some of the evacuees started climbing into the truck, grabbing some of the food packs and throwing these to their kin in haste.

But they could not be blamed for that. They were too hungry to wait.

Five hundred food packs were distributed to the evacuees in Pikit. But all that was not enough; so many of them did not receive any.

That’s the sad reality of having limited supplies to give people who evacuated their homes to get away from a war in which they are the victims.

We called it a day after 3 p.m. We had to return to Cotabato City to get more supplies.

But this time we could only afford to buy a lesser quantity of food, including rice.

Packing the canned goods, rice, bread and coffee was faster this time as the grocery owner, a concerned citizen, volunteered to take charge of the entire preparation.

On to Talayan

We started traveling to Talayan in Maguindanao at 6:30 the next morning.

The trip was shorter. It took us only a little more than an hour to reach the area.

We found the evacuees in a market that had yet to operate.

What I saw—naked, sunburned children, obviously not having bathed for days, old people grimacing with hunger, pregnant women who had no certainty that they would give birth to normal children because of the emotional and physical stress they were going through—sapped my strength.

I froze briefly, unable to think, and was overwhelmed with sadness. I had never seen such suffering in my life.

I knew there were poor people in Manila living in slums, under bridges, near garbage dumps, and on sidewalks. But I also knew they were not as hungry as those people I saw in the evacuation centers.

I saw no one who was wounded—and that was a blessing, I believe—but the hunger they were experiencing was much more serious than being wounded.

Why?

There has to be an end to this war.

I can’t help but ask why there is war in Mindanao while people in the malls in Manila seem oblivious to the suffering of many people.

Why, despite the war, is there such glitter at Rockwell, Eastwood, and many other places for the rich, who spend large amounts of money for expensive food, clothes, cars, cell phones and many more luxurious things? I simply can’t comprehend it.

I have to find ways to understand the causes of the conflict in Mindanao, and I am inclined to help resolve it in my own little way.

I wish I could go back there to help once more—to put an end to the war, and not simply to bring food.