For a while, the present administration had thought to take advantage of this mindset and turn it into some sort of a business proposition and a national slogan. Holiday economics, they called it – encouraging us to take a vacation leave and visit local tourist sites, and making use of the so-called nautical highway to do so. This notion was promptly discarded when public reaction decried the callous and unrealistic attitude that this suggestion implied: the masa could ill afford to take time off from earning their daily wage, much less take expensive romps around the country.
So it is that the Christmas-New Year holidays impose upon us a festive mood, ready or not. Attendant to the anticipation of the new year are the obligatory new year resolutions which, as is our wont, we vow to keep – and surpass even – this extraordinary resolve due to layers of guilt for having broken previous resolutions for as long as we can be remember.
Collectively, we envision several millions of resolutions issuing forth from the millions of Filipinos who make this occasion an opportunity for self-renewal or, in a manner of speaking, turning over a new leaf. There are no written contracts or legal statutes to enforce these resolutions; it is more of a personal commitment, helped (or not helped) by peer pressure, usually manifested by friends or members of the family who tease and chide you for having broken your new year’s resolution. Before the end of the first month of the year, 99 percent of these resolutions will have fallen by the wayside and the old, encrusted you of last year’s vintage would have resurrected from the ashes of broken promises.
Yesterday’s celebration of Christ’s birth should have given us the opportunity for introspection and discernment of our true calling – whether we are on this earth for a noble purpose (such as raising our children, doing the laundry and observing the car ban) or ignoble one (such as diverting fertilizer funds, pilfering office supplies and cutting in line). It is time for us to reset our moral compass and find our bearings in this boundless ocean of grief and hopelessness. We would have come out of this with renewed vigor and enthusiasm to do good to our fellowmen and stand up for injustice in this world. This energized morality should guide us in making up our list of new year’s resolutions and arm us with a firm resolve to change for the better in the coming year.
The Discovery Channel featured recently a study that attempted to review the story of Christ’s birth based on scientific and factual documentation of the time. It postulated that Jesus Christ must have been born on April 17, 6 BC and that the so-called three kings – three magis – visited the infant Jesus at around Dec. 19 of the same year (having come from Persia or Iran, and traveled hundreds of miles around a desert to reach Bethlehem, and guided by the planet Jupiter, later dubbed the star of Bethlehem).
No definitive dissertation on Christ’s birth can change the traditions and rituals that surround the once-pagan Dec. 25 commemoration now, but modern findings such as this only bring a 2,000-year-old fable closer to our own experience: there is, in fact, a Christ Jesus, born on this earth, a fact corroborated by historical documents and validated by the confluence of astronomical events and natural phenomena. All this means that Christmas is not just a symbolic celebration of a real God-person fast fading into charismatic showmanship ("Amen? Amen!") nor of funny Christmas songs trivializing its solemnity.
For those who possess the fear that our mortality naturally imbues us with, Christmas should have given us another chance at changing our old profligate and selfish ways. There is a Jesus Christ, a Son of God. There is good and there is bad. There is heaven and hell. What more motivation do you need to draw up a list of new year’s resolutions and stick to it? The list will not consist of reaching-for-the-stars items like losing 10 pounds or sticking to a weekly exercise schedule. Rather, it will include simple things like truly giving your employees the wages they deserve, caring and listening to your spouse, spending more time with the kids and helping out the most unfortunate member of the neighborhood. Simple things.
More importantly, before we can even begin to start afresh, we need to come clean of our past sins. Whatever God you pray to, such faith requires a cleansing – a purging of impurities, of sins. Whether this cleansing is of a personal nature or of national consequence, we need to acknowledge our fallibilities and make our penance and amends, and have a fresh start. While there may be worldly personages who deem themselves above the laws of man, there are none of divine laws. As my monsignor-friend summons, "Come clean, do penance and, only after such time can there be new beginnings."
We need to break the moral cycle that has sentenced us to keep repeating our mistakes and suffering our people to physical and spiritual poverty. We are, after all, the oldest Christian country in Asia, a most pious people and a race born from warriors and noblemen. Another year approaches; it may be the year we finally break out of its hold. But we can only do so if we start to take ourselves seriously, and fully appreciate the consequences of our self-centeredness. Perhaps we can start with a really good list of new year’s resolutions. Finally, I wish to propose that Congress call for a special session to draw up a list of national new year’s resolutions, which we will all endeavor to keep in the coming year.