“It was hot in the middle of the jungle,” 19-year-old H.M. laughs.

When he was in Grade 5, his family was forced to flee their home in Basilan. For the nth time, Abu Sayaff troops and military men had overrun their village. His mother, shoving aside men in fatigues and their armalites, shouted at H.M. to “go upstairs to fetch (her) make-up kit.” For him, that time of his life, even with all that war and chaos, was “fun”. His family was whole, and they were content.

At 13, he was sent to study high school in Ateneo de Zamboanga, where he says he “grew to love the Jesuits, and appreciate their way of thinking.” There, away from his family and everything he knew, he had to learn how to fend for himself.

The boy had always known he was different, but with the uneasy stirrings of adolescence, he felt even more estranged from the rest of his small, insular, fiercely conservative hometown.

It was with a Jesuit priest that he found his true self. For the young, sensitive H.M. who had never been particularly close to his father, the priest became his foster parent in Zamboanga. After school and between breaks, H.M. would often come to talk with him and seek his advice.

H.M. had always struggled with his identity: he could not understand why he had always been attracted to boys instead of girls. In rural Mindanao, such feelings were considered taboo, forbidden, unheard-of, unmentionable, Not-Good. He tried to date girls, most of whom flocked to him anyway because of his good looks and easy charm. Try as he might, he could only bring himself to feel friendship and brotherly affection for them.

The priest helped him process his feelings, enabling H.M. to come out about his sexuality to his family. “(He) helped me accept who I was as a person,” H.M. explains, “I could not have done this without him.” Grateful to the Ateneo and the Jesuits, H.M. decided to take up Information Design in the Ateneo de Manila University.

While H.M. was in the second semester of his freshman year, bad news arrived from home: their family business, a small ice plant long patronized by the fishermen on their island, was failing. Earlier that year, a Taiwanese investor had come to Basilan to put up his own ice plant. There, thanks to its more efficient machinery, ice was sold in larger quantities at a cheaper cost. Unable to compete, H.M.’s family inevitably lost many of their most valuable patrons.

H.M.’s family now owes more than 5 million pesos to relatives, friends, banks and creditors. It seems uncertain that H.M. will be able to continue his studies in the Ateneo.

Shortly thereafter, H.M. sank into deep depression. His parents fought constantly over money: another kind of war invaded their home, the specter of ruin hung over everything, so that even the smallest disagreements over lunch menus and gas money nearly came to blows.

To get by, H.M. had to sell his laptop in order to pay his tuition fees last semester. As a freelance graphic designer, he is slowly earning more money on his own. Though he is only 19 years old, he has already been able to successfully design print campaigns for several restaurants in Greenbelt and three new clothing brands.

Also, eventually, through therapy at the Center for Family Ministries, H.M. was able to recover. His parents, however, have not been able to weather the storm: they are now separated.

His mother chose to leave for New Jersey to work as a nurse for newborns. H.M. and his brothers do not know when or if she will ever be able to come home.