Service above self

It is just so hard to see any silver lining behind the dark clouds of gambling payoffs and election irregularities engulfing our society now.

The atmosphere has been so polluted with so many accusations and denials that only tend to bury the truth even deeper. The protagonists in the ongoing political drama obviously involving an insidious attempt to wrest power apparently have only their own selfish interests in mind even to the extent of bringing the entire country down with them. People are really beginning to wonder whether our kind of government has become irrelevant what with self seeking politicians wrangling over the right to rule, govern and hold the reins of power. They have awakened to the reality that our government has become unreliable in delivering good governance expected of it.

Our situation now reminds me of the situation in America some 100 years ago particularly in Chicago where social unrest and corruption in politics and business world also prevailed. Politicians in power then likewise took advantage of their positions to favor some businessmen like the one who attempted to get an unprecedented, exclusive 50-year franchise for his street car companies by freely passing out bribes to the aldermen. It was also the age of the "muckrakers", a term used by then President Theodore Roose-velt to describe journalists who would dredge up society’s ills and corruptions and exposed them so they could be dealt with. But an optimistic young lawyer by the name of Paul Harris thought that such a situation was "only the surface disturbances on a great river of good deeds that ran deep". He thought that there could be a "unity of goodwill, friendship and commerce in the community by having a fellowship composed of just one man from each of many different occupations without restrictions as to their politics or religion, with broad tolerance of each other’s opinions" to establish mutual helpfulness. So on the evening of February 23, 1905, Paul and his three friends, Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer, Gus Loehr, a mining engineer, and Hiram Shorey, a tailor, met and decided to form a businessman’s club that would emphasize acquaintance and fellowship among members, each of whom would be from a different profession so that there would be no competition between them but instead could support and promote his colleagues’ business. In a month’s time their membership doubled and Schiele was elected as the first president.

At the third meeting of the club, Harris suggested the name "Rotary" for their organization because their meeting places were rotated among the members’ places of business.

Although Rotary may have started as a simple and sort of selfish organization to get additional business for its charter members, it has evolved through the years into a "marvelous and great universal movement with elements of altruism, sparkling with beautiful gems of the philosophy and science of service to fellow man and society" (Chesley R. Perry, founding Editor, The Rotarian). From an initial club of four members in Chicago USA, 100 years ago, there are now 33,000 clubs with 1.2 million members coming from 168 countries, including the Philippines. The United Nations (UN) may be the most powerful organization in the world today politically speaking, but Rotary International (RI) is more powerful in terms of its socio-civic and humanitarian endeavors as shown by its firm commitments to promoting health and education especially among children, providing home and shelter, extending natural disaster relief and protecting the environment without discrimination as to race color or creed. The UN is only composed of countries all over the world but RI is composed of the very people coming from all these countries comprising one big family with hearts uniformly throbbing and aching for an intense desire to help others and with high ethical standards founded on truth, is fair and beneficial to all concerned and builds good will and better friendship as embodied in its four way test.

Last June 18 to 22, 2005, the RI held its convention to commemorate the centennial anniversary of its founding with a record attendance of 42,000 members coming from 168 countries compared to the first convention also in Chicago in 1910 with 60 delegates from one country (USA) in attendance. As a Rotarian for the past 20 years, I found it more imperative to attend this gathering to renew fellowship with people of diverse languages and cultures all over the world and to reinforce my belief in Rotary’s motto of "service above self: he profits most who serves best" And true enough, I became more inspired by its various humanitarian projects demonstrating more convincingly the truism that in "lending a hand we gain more hearts".

Filipinos, especially the public officials themselves certainly stand to profit most if they just adhere to this motto of service above self.

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