Dare to be, dare to do*

(Third of three parts)

Unfortunately today, we find few examples of leaders willing to admit their mistakes and rectify their wrongdoing; and the rare times they do, their apology rings hollow. Recall, for instance, Mrs. Arroyo’s “Hello-Garci-I-am-sorry” line, a stage-managed apology intended to assuage an outraged public while evading the legal and ethical consequences of her call to a Comelec official. The irony is that we Filipinos are a forgiving people (perhaps to a fault). But all we demand in return is sincerity, for it embeds the truth and makes the attainment of justice possible. Our history shows us that it is the refusal to bear the consequences of one’s actions and the inability of our society to enforce this responsibility that lie at the heart of injustice. Leaders can commit one crime after another and still get elected, hopping from one position to another. Tax evaders relish every indulgence their wealth permits, while tax-paying public school teachers scrape what they earn to the last centavo just to get by.

So here’s advice #3: accept the consequences of your actions and account for them not just to yourselves but also to all those you affect. To fabricate excuses, hide behind another’s back, or pin the blame on the whistle-blower — acts we have seen our leaders do rather shamelessly in one form of another — is to lay the foundation for injustice.

There are consequences, too, when we choose not to act. Human agency is Janus-faced: things happen not only because we act but also, and quite frequently, because we opt not to act. Thus you can create an effect both by acting and by not acting. In my view, it is far more painful to suffer the consequences because we did nothing than because we at least tried to do something. Silence or indifference in the face of wrongdoing amounts to complicity or at least implicit agreement. Corruption, cheating, wholesale fraud and all sorts of social offenses happen not only because there are perpetrators but also because by our apathy or blindness or unquestioning mindset, we allow these crimes to take place. Thus when they happen, we, too, become responsible for the consequences. Complain all you want about the current situation but if you choose to do nothing, you also are part of the cause when you could well choose to be part of the solution. Now are there situations in life when it is more prudent to refrain from action? Yes, there are such as not rushing into marriage or taking your time to plan your family. But when confronting injustice and human and natural disaster, it is not prudent to refrain from action. It is inhuman and immoral.

My third point is that the power to create is both individual and social. In life we rarely act alone and oftentimes, individual decisions have impact on those we love, our friends, workmates, and yes, the society we live in and are a part of and, lest we forget, the society of the future. You are beneficiaries, for example, of the struggles of earlier generations for the freedom you enjoy today. We all build upon the achievements of humankind before our time, in the arts, science, and medicine; new technologies have seeped into the crucible of our daily lives. But we all also bear the burden of mistakes committed before our time. You suffer, for instance, from the ills of women and men in power whom you had no hand in selecting (which is why you better vote next month!). You and your children yet unborn will pay for debts that governments past and present incurred and squandered. The unfortunate paradox is that despite its massive effects on the society of the future, the collective aspect of the power of agency is the easiest to ignore because we tend to be preoccupied with our own needs and circumstances, here and now. I realize that this time- and space-bound self-absorption is aggravated by economic need — to ease the burden on parents, send our younger siblings to school, and support ourselves. But given that poverty is a systemic problem, must we surrender even that as a weapon of the strong to further weaken the powerless?

Consider our past. In the midst of our struggle for independence from Spain, the United States entered the picture and offered an alluring proposition: drop your bid for independence and in return, you will enjoy progress and certain freedoms that Spain denied you. In the eyes of the founders of the Katipunan this compartmental approach was false and unthinkable for the values of independence, progress and freedom were patently indivisible. Our revolutionaries a century ago did not battle to be free and poor or rich and possessed by another, but to be free and prosperous and independent. But economic hardship and the lack of education, the conditions of the weak, became the very weapon used against them in the name of “benevolent assimilation.”

Decades later, this time as an independent nation, Mr. Marcos offered our people a similar proposition. Do you want to be free, he asked, or do you prefer to get rich? Of what use are civil liberties when they only create noise, foment divisiveness, and worse, do not fill your stomachs? And so martial law pitted political freedoms against economic rights. Forego your freedom and authoritarian rule will deliver economic growth. Once again, the conditions of the weak were used as ammunition against them. And today the same allure continues, coined as the “enchanted kingdom” that Mrs. Arroyo promised to lead us to.

So if our preoccupation with the self and the here-and-now is exacerbated by economic deprivation, I ask that you at least be aware that this very state of poverty is the most effective weapon of power wielders to ensure that you keep to yourselves and your families and care less or not at all for the rest of society. Again and again our history has shown that the social dimension of human agency is, in fact, the most potent armor of the powerless. Eighteen-or-so-year old Emilio Jacinto explained the philosophical foundation of this strength when he wrote: “Life which is not consecrated to a lofty and sacred cause is like a tree without a shadow, if not a poisonous weed.” Jacinto added:

The nobility of a man does not consist in being a king, nor in the highness of the nose and the whiteness of the skin, nor in being the priest representing God, nor in the exalted position on this earth, but pure and truly noble is he who, though born in the woods, is possessed of an upright character; who is true to his word; who has dignity and honor; who does not oppress and does not help those who oppress; who knows how to look after and love the land of his birth.

Let me end, then, with a challenge. Speaking of American politician Sarah Palin and her ilk, who seem just like many of ours, a US columnist said, “The problem is that they’re all wow and no substance.” So my final challenge to you is forget the wow factor. Dare instead to be and dare to do! Remember that being and doing must always come together. The moment you unglue them, you become just like the leaders we abhor, who speak nicely but behave ugly, who profess nobly but act ignobly, who claim to care but in truth, care only for themselves. Dare to be, dare to do not just for yourselves and those you love, but also for people you precisely do not know but whose humanity you share, and whose land of birth is yours, too. Dare to be, dare to do not just for the present but also for the future you will shape and leave behind. To the College of Science graduates of 2010, the century awaits you; our country embraces you with arms wide open. Go forth, dare to be, and dare to do!

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Maria Serena I. Diokno is a professor in the Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman. She was former vice president for academic affairs of the UP System. E-mail her at [email protected]

* College of Science Recognition of Graduates, UP Diliman, 23 April 2010

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Emilio Jacinto, “Teachings of the Katipunan,” cited in Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Revolt of the Masses (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1996), 98

Gail Collins, “The Curse of the Wow Factor,” The New York Times, 9 April 2010