We do have our own brothers' keepers. In the figurative sense, the equivalent of mothers of perpetual help. The kind who consider us as brother. In worst times of our lives, they are the kind who bailed us out in the quagmire of financial crisis. Low profile as they are, they are so financially independent that they can afford to extend six-figure credit lines without interest. No nothing. Since becoming a full pledged farmer ( we become so after living in a farm house), we look forward to every December that we enjoy a bumper crop of our farm produce.

With God's grace, the main produce of our product line—purple yam or ubing kinampay and its white counterpart, kabus-ok, yielded beyond expectations. So big are the harvest that one piece is the equivalent of one kilogram. We credit the success of our farming venture to the fertile soil that has been sown by the ubi seedlings. This was coupled with the lush vegetation that has been subjected to the kaingin type of farming. Ubi farming, for all you know, is slash and burn per se and therefore just like the destructive kaingin system. Anyway, it has been the practice for generations, and we just follow what has been there for ages. In fact, ubi farming is encouraged by the provincial government by way of the yearly Ubi Festival. Back to our ubi cropping this season, we really are amazed of the turnout of our ubi farm. Never in the history of our farming enterprise that we experience such a productive harvest.

Anyway, thanks God for the blessing, as we count it in time with the spirit of the Christmas season. This season of gift giving, this proud farmer, is reciprocating what we have produced from the farm. We cannot think of any other individuals who deserve our reciprocity save the “brothers” who occupied a soft spot in our heart because they are the kind whose brand of help is beyond measure. To this BGlante, giving them a part of our farm product, is the best thing that ever happens to gift giving this Christmas. They may be lowly to some but to this gift giver it is not the kind of gift that all that matters, it's the spirit and love that go with it. There no gift so precious than the ones that come from the fruit of our labor in a soil we till in what we call as The Farm.