What values do you hold close to your heart?
It’s easy to form positive bonds with other people when one lives his/her life according to moral values that are based on respect, honesty, compassion, courage, modesty, and forgiveness. Each one of us has a core set of personal values we hold dear to our hearts. Read on as these personalities share how moral values guide and propel them to the top of their field
Menchi A. Abalos, president of ANAO-NCR and NAOPA, Inc./wife of Mandaluyong
Mayor Benhur Abalos
The moral value that is closest to my heart is being positive through the acknowledgment of all my blessings. In that way I am more open, understanding, patient and generous with others. I don’t see reason in bringing harm.
Pasay Rep. Imelda Calixto Rubiano
The ones closest to my heart are love and respect. I believe they encompass most, if not all, of our Filipino values, love for God, love for your family, the elders, your community, your country and yourself. If you have love and respect in your heart, you can prioritize and you are willing to make sacrifices.
JayR, singer/album producer
Be how your are to others as you would want others to be toward you.
Zia Quizon, singer/songwriter
I think “Treat others as you would want to be treated” is always good to live by.
Carlo Orosa, Stages talent manager
The value closest to my heart is speaking the truth to others even if it hurts sometimes. I take risks in speaking the truth to a person even if he gets hurt because I care for the person. It’s not always easiest to do but it shows that I love them.
Marco V. Sardillo, pro-bono lawyer/coco levy recovery and farmers’ welfare advocate
The values that I hold dear and try to live by are humility and integrity. Humility enables us to be dispossessed of any sense of entitlement. It allows us to accept things as contingent — that is, “they need not be, but they are” — and in so being, we are able to make peace with our place in the greater scheme of things. It is with that lens that we are able to perceive and receive everything as grace, and that includes where we are and the things that happen in our lives as being grace-filled. With humility having cleared the noise and clutter, that is where integrity becomes essential. It is, as I have learned (from my college philosophy professor and life anchor, Fr. Roque Ferriols, SJ), about being able to “keep one’s self together”: being morally consistent and uncompromising in the active pursuit of our values and principles, around which our actions and intentions coincide and cohere. Integrity is about telling the truth through the lives we lead.
Malou Tiquia, founder/GM Publicus Asia Inc.
Courage is closest to my heart. In my field of expertise, one needs to be able to say one’s mind without a tinge of hesitation to a candidate or politician even if this goes against what is popularly accepted or expected. Courage is a strength I would want to equip myself with to dare say the Emperor has no clothes or to walk away from an account who hasn’t leveled with me, who doesn’t value word of honor, or who is too stubborn for his own good. Lastly, courage is what it takes to accept an account knowing there’s no tangible reward one gets from it, yet it is carried on because of passion and ideals.
