When you read or listen to the news these days you will notice a general message from the people and that is – what is in it for me? I just do not get that absolute feeling that people are actually committed to work for the country. When I say people – I guess I am really referring to the public officials or government officers but this goes out for all of us (citizens) as well.
Let’s take some recent cases like the Loren Legarda and Noli De Castro issue. You would think that two public officials (a Vice President of the Republic and a Senator) would rise above the tide. Instead they are barking at each other on a personal level. Hey! Do that elsewhere, not in public. Is this your way of catching attention? Grandstanding?
Another case (of which there is several of the same nature) is the Jamby Madrigal and Pia Cayetano sudden burst of emotions. From that brawl we can obviously tell who the real spoiled brat is amongst the two – don’t we? Oops! Sorry, just got carried away by the fury… but this is exactly what I mean. Instead of putting our (the publics’) energies in building the country, we use it in unproductive ways like creating intrigues, rumors, gossips and the likes. We should consciously stop all these nonsense and get on moving.
What about the case of the now –you- see- him, now- you-don’t acting CHED Chairman Neri. How can people (especially public officials) just evade or hide from the law? What is wrong with you? Why don’t you just show up in the Senate hearing and get it over with? Why is the Palace cuddling this guy? What are you scared of? What is GMA worried about? Why doesn’t GMA encourage you to go? The public’s perception is that you do not want to put your life in danger by speaking the truth. And by hiding you are eluding to something with high and mighty forces that put you in total fear. Cowardice will not get us anywhere!
What about the case of government agencies who initiates projects left and right just to make money? There are myriads of them. Actually, it has already become a way of life in government service to propose projects that don’t get to see the light of day. They do research works, develop programs (including computer programs) to improve their department’s systems, travel and yet the services have not improved. Ganon pa rin! Why develop and use programs that have never been tested? Why not just get an existing program that has been tried and tested in developed countries? Take the cyber-education program. Don’t you know that there are many “open (or distance) schools and universities” around the world that have been existing for years if not centuries? We do not have to spend so much in developing such a system (and even the software) if we really want to pursue it – just get experts in field. DepEd surely can link to them but why China for heaven sake? China is not known in this field, they are still improving their industries. Why not look at England, Australia, Singapore, Canada or America? Why waste time and our money. Explore the fields and think country. Do not think of ways of malversing the people’s hard earned money anymore. Think of commitment to country.
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We all wish our nation to progress, not just in the material but in the moral sense. The true brotherhood of Filipinos is to act as one to make ours a just, generous and noble society. Honor and conscience, not fear of retribution, would be the touchstone of every decision and all endeavors. Our politicians have been taking advantage of the people’s patience and silence. What is their “real” commitment to this country?
The dream, in this world of festering slums, chronic political chicanery, rising skepticism and deepening despair, should be awakened. We should stay away from cynicism that preaches the advantage of shrewdness over ability, selfishness over generosity and wealth over honesty.
There is too much cheap talk about “nationalism”, when love and reverence for the nation has evaporated. The education of our young has been taken over by bureaucrats, when it should be returned to the teachers. The politics of pragmatism has replaced the inspiration of hope.
My late father who was so passionate about nation building wrote, “We have abandoned teaching our youth – and our adults at that –the virtues which made our forebears strong. Our national hero Jose Rizal in his famous essay “La Indolencia de los Filipinos” (The Indolence of the Filipinos), which appeared in the Filipino fortnightly review in Madrid La Solidaridad (in a series July 15 to September 15, 1890) warned that unless a field is cared for continuously, it goes to ruin. Alas, many pretend to revere Jose Rizal – his rigid statue stands in stone in every public plaza – but few have read him. In that essay, he observed: “The abandonment of the fields by their cultivators whom the wars and piratical attacks dragged from their homes was sufficient to reduce to nothing the hard labor of so many generations. In the Philippines, abandon for a year the land most beautifully tended and you will see how you will have to begin all over again: the rain will wipe out the furrows, the floods will drown the seeds, plants and bushes will grow up everywhere, and on seeing so much wasted labor, the hand will drop the hoe, the laborer will desert his plow.”
“Our greatest enemy, then as now, is therefore ignorance. We constantly, in our perorations, pay hypocritical lip-service to “the war against poverty”. No individual and government can win against poverty unless lack of knowledge and wisdom is first remedied. The arrogance of the poor impedes progress even more greatly than the arrogance of the rich – and both spring from ignorance. We should first, by this token, be waging a “war against ignorance”, for only an understanding of ourselves and what we must do will make our people free.”
He goes on by quoting one Korean who said: “You Filipinos are remarkable. You have all the traits which should make you the best of the best. You are alert, intelligent, talented, articulate with words, and free of expression, with an inborn sense of rhythm and music – you have everything except a feeling of nationhood. I hear speeches, but I see no unity and as a result no action.”
So, what is your commitment to our country? Will you continue to ruin it or build it?