In Manila, you will see a painting. It is the “Last Supper” of Joey A. Velasco. It portrays poor children from Metro Manila, all between the ages of 4 and 14, at the Last Supper with Christ Our Lord. He has called it “Hapag ng Pag-asa”, the table of hope.
To start with, it is not really a table. It is a big delivery box, knocked apart and nailed together again as a table. Joey Velasco himself has said: “This painting reveals a story of greater hunger than a plate of rice could satisfy. What these children are starved for is love.”
Realizing that his little models were real persons, he investigated the life of each of them, and wrote a book, telling their stories. The title of the book came from a young woman who was mentally handicapped. She studied the painting and said: “You know, these children are not really poor. They have Jesus.” So he called the book: “They Have Jesus: The Stories of the Children of Hapag.”
To me, the most fascinating was the story of the child, in the painting, who is under the table, eating the crumbs that have fallen to the floor. Joey says: “The child under the table is ME!” The model for this child was the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine. It shows a starving child who collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to a food center in Sudan , Africa , in 1993. In the background, a vulture is stalking the emaciated child, waiting for him to die.
Three months later the photographer, Kevin Carter, was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg , a suicide at 33. His red pick-up truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child. A green garden hose attached to the vehicle’s exhaust funneled the fumes inside.
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