For this year: Be a better nation. But how?

It’s the first day of the brand New Year 2009. We’ve made it a tradition to come up with our New Year’s Wish List on what we would love to see happen this year. However, most of these wishes do not come true. Because of some kind of genetic anomaly, we Filipinos never seem to learn from our bitter past. We never fix our problems, despite our world-renowned talents. Hence we are always doomed to stagnation. This is why we are probably the longest (we were the original signatories of the UN Charter) serving developing nation on earth!

As this is our very first column for the Year 2009, allow me to deviate a little from our traditional wish list and will quote things I have learned from the books I read. If we embrace them, perhaps we might become a better person and a better people.

In my Philippine Star column “Inside Cebu last Nov.5, 2008 we wrote; “If today Filipinos are still considered politically immature or incapable of giving ourselves a better government despite our independence, it is probably due to what the Americans thought of us a long time ago.” I got that information from the book, “Native Resistance: Philippine Cinema and Colonialism 1898-1941” written by Clodualdo A. del Mundo.

In that book I read a quote by Robert Rydell (author of All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions) “Under the primary direction of government—appointed scientists, the reservation affirmed the value of the islands to America’s commercial growth and created a scientifically validate impression of Filipinos as racially inferior and incapable of national self-determination in the near future.” Indeed, Filipinos were studied and culturally graded way back in the early 1900s, that many Americans considered Filipinos as an inferior race and with the way we are showing the world that we are still incapable of governing ourselves. So this year should be the time to change ourselves for the better.

We’ve given our readers spiritual nourishments with our weekly Sunday Gospel readings in the hope that they would learn more about Scripture. As St. Jerome once said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” So for this year, we shall continue educating our fellow Catholic brethren through the thoughts of a layperson.

However, we can learn more from other people. I was in Japan a month ago and got a book, “The Samurai Ethic and Modern Japan” by Yukio Mishima. Mishima is a famous Japanese director and author who committed Seppuku in the 70s. I also got another book, from FullyBooked entitled “Bushido: The Spirit of the Samurai” by Inazo Nitobe. Too bad, the Japanese lost World War II. If they won, perhaps Filipinos would have long embraced the Bushido Code.

Bushido is the Samurai Way. It is the code of morals, ethics or honor that the Japanese people live by. There are eight virtues of the Bushido: Justice, Courage, Benevolence, Politeness, Sincerity, Honor, Loyalty and Self-control. Most Japanese today live by the same Bushido code as their Samurai ancestors. If you studied each virtue closely, you will notice that it doesn’t clash with the doctrines of the Catholic Church or Christianity as a whole.

Let’s examine each virtue. Justice is something that has eluded the Filipino people since the EDSA Revolt in 1986. Japan has very few lawyers because majority of the Japanese live by another virtue called Honor, a word that seems to be on the verge of extinction in our country. We have so many lawyers because Filipinos are no longer honorable, especially those public servants who carry the title “Honorable.” This is also because most of our public servants lack another virtue called Sincerity. This is why our Courts of Justice are clogged, despite that legal dictum, “He who comes to court must come with clean hands!”

As Catholics, we are taught to be benevolent. This is one good trait of the Filipino. We are courteous people but we lack Politeness, a very known trait of the Japanese. They bow when they greet each other, something that we ought to adopt. Do we have the Courage to adopt new ways to make us a better people and a better country? That’s a problem that we still have to resolve.

Loyalty. We learned about the Kamikaze planes that crashed into American warships at the close of World War II. We looked at it as fanaticism. But to the Japanese, to die for one’s country is part of his loyalty to his nation, something Filipinos seriously lack. Finally, Self-control. If we have self-control, corruption will vanish overnight! So there you have it, the eight virtues of the Bushido Code that we Filipinos ought to embrace so we can be a better people. I will be writing more on this. Happy new year to one and all!