The Babe and The Old
Remember how the new and old years are conventionally depicted? New Year is always represented as a young baby, often healthy and smiling. Like any newborn, Baby New Year is heralded and welcomed with much fanfare, noise, joy, expectations, and hope. In contrast, the old year always appears as a very tired, bony, long-bearded elderly hardly able to stand or withstand any more burden brought by time.
Has it occurred to you that within only a span of one year, a baby new year grows quickly into an old, tired one? Seriously though, are you feeling like the old elderly so burdened at the end of a year or are you feeling like a baby eager to meet an entirely new year?
It is not easy to imagine oneself as an eager babe out to meet the new year in this present world, marked with so much national and international crises. The Benazir Bhutto assassination is causing much concern not only to
Locally, just a few days before another new year, freedom of expression receives yet several blows with broadcaster Ferdie “Batman” Lintuan gunned down and our own Leo Lastimosa served a warrant of arrest. Will these events herald more media repression in the coming year or will these events unite more to speak and search for the truth? Will the fate of Lintuan and Leo ignite fear and silence among their colleagues or will they serve as fearless models for truth and accountability?
The year about to pass has had its share of corruption and abuses that we pray should not be carried over to any other new year.
No more passing the buck in terms of responsibility like what we are witnessing now with the case of Romeo Jalosjos. Was he released or did he flee? The varying answers are now, like a pendulum, swinging from one agency to another, from one government official to another and while the finger-pointing goes on, Jalosjos remains in festive Zamboanga, not back in dready Muntilunpa.
Dodging responsibility has become very common with this administration, with so many deals and transactions that compromised public funds unaccounted for. People remember the brown envelopes containing hundreds of thousands given out in Malacañang for certain local officials, the unresolved ZTE deals, and more.
Dole-outs have also become commonplace in this country. To silence the critics about the huge bonuses received by the Batasan lawmakers, bonuses of P7-P10000 are given out to public employees who worked and continue to work hard each day for very meager pay. In contrast, there are thousands of government officials who do not work as hard but receive so much perks and privileges in exchange for loyalty and patronage.
Not only are the people deprived of their rights, even nature and the environment are not exempted. One merely has to remember how much tribal lands of our indigenous peoples have been privately commercialized and how much of God’s creatures in the seas, like
Should the Filipino people allow themselves to carry the burden of these abuses onto the new year? Should the Filipino people allow themselves to be depicted as thin, bony, hopeless, very tired elderly close to their burial at the end of this year? Or should our people allow the hope and zest of newborn babies to inspire them to move on and meet the new year with much unity, strength and faith?
The birds are still flying freely and so must all people, including our people, including us. Not one swallow falls to the ground without the Lord knowing about it.
God will take care of us all. Let us recognize our burdens, our national ills, the abusive included and leave all these at the foot of the Lord for His justice and judgment. Just as in the past and in all the days and years that passed, God is present for us all always and will precede us as we cross today and this old year for tomorrow and a truly blessed new year!
Once again, let us together leap in faith and love, let us let go and let GOD!!! HAPPY BLESSED NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!!!
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