Single Awareness Day

To an old fogie (perhaps I should say pogi) like me, Valentine’s Day is really single Awareness Day. It serves to remind me that I can no longer classify myself with lovers who exchange Valentine cards. I don’t even have a small valentine. Otherwise, I would be commemorating Valentiny. As national artist, what I can do is to extend my regards to all my readers by saying, I love you all with my art! On this day, be sure to heart the one you love.

It is not generally known but wayback in 1969, the church already removed St. Valentine’s as an official holiday from its calendar. But St. Valentine’s is still a popular celebration and is the second largest card-sending holiday next to Christmas. The Greeting Card Association’s estimate is that a billion valentine cards are exchanged every year. I don’t recall ever having received a valentine card and I never kept one even up to my sleeve. To those like me who have outgrown their Valentine years, we say, "Give your shoes a Valenshine." Many people lost theirs during the Ultra stampede.

We are all for any holiday or event that emphasizes man’s love for one’s fellowmen. We hope this Valentine’s Day serves to put two events in the sidelines. The first is the Ultra stampede; the second, Islamic demonstrations against cartoons that depicted the Prophet Mohammed in a negative light. We must show respect for all religions. We can denounce Muslim terrorists, but not attribute their terrorism to their founder. We had Islamic terrorists from the very start. We didn’t call them terrorists then. The local team used was juramentado, from the Spanish word Jurame, meaning "swear to me."

Like all religions, Islam is for peace. Their traditional greeting is "peace be unto you." And the traditional answer is "And unto you be peace." It is sad that nowadays we have world terrorism and a lot of people attribute it to Islamic terrorists. The Philippines was a model of good Christian-Muslim relations. We should continue being a world model of that relation specially during this time. Peace prevailed between Christian and Muslim Filipinos because both followed the teachings of their respective faiths. It is only when one or both depart from their teachings that we have disputes and violence between the two. All great religions teach only two things: to love God and man. All should serve to unite mankind. They should be the answer not the cause of the current terrorism.

We have a Valentine’s Day when lovers exchange greetings. Perhaps what we need is a day when persons of different faiths wish each other well, an occasion that Christian, Muslims and other religions celebrate the same day. God would like to see such a day. In short, it would be a day hailing religion itself.

Religion entails two things: what we are to believe and what we ought to practice. We may differ on the first, but on the second, we are all agreed that it is basically doing the least harm and the most possible. Its true measure are the sacrifices the individual is willing to undergo to attain those two goals.

We wish lovers well this Valentine’s Day. But what the world needs is more than romantic love between two persons of the opposite sex. We have to love all of mankind.