MEDIUM RARE This one’s for you, Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian. There’s a family living in the Baseco Compound in Tondo, Manila, where a 43-year-old is the mother of 14 children. They would’ve been 15, except for the one who died in infancy. Their father is a mechanic of sorts, but it’s not a permanent job. One day before World Population Day, our enterprising photographer, Juan Carlo de Vela, thought he needed a population theme for his subject, and what more fitting hunting ground  than Baseco, home to hundreds of families in the belly of one of Manila’s densely crowded neighborhoods? What Carlo’s camera caught was a big family where the kids looked like the steps of a staircase, one step leading to the next, each child not much bigger or smaller than the one before and after him or her. What I found most touching about the picture that landed on page one of this newspaper on July 12 was the face of the mother, Mary Ann Santana, who looked 15 to 20 years older than her 43 years. No joy of motherhood bloomed on her features; instead she looked haggard, exhausted, as she held the youngest, a baby six months old, close to her chest while six other children sat, expressionless, on the floor, seemingly looking at somebody or something out of camera range – their seven brothers and sisters, perhaps? Carlo said the family didn’t look any different from other families, though he was soon to learn that none of the children has a birth certificate (!) because they were all delivered by a midwife at home. He also noticed that right outside the door of their house, a vendor was selling food in plastic bags at P10 per bag. Did Mary Ann buy food from this vendor, or would she have time to prepare the family’s meals, granting they ate three times a day? How can our compassionate social workers help the Santanas? Carlo didn’t have time to interview Mary Ann, busy as she was, otherwise he would have asked her what she and her husband thought of family planning, or if they want another child, or if they’d care to ask Secretary Rex or the parish priest for “ayuda.”