Humility unites us

If there’s anything the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly taught us, it is that life can indeed be but a fleeting moment. We should all take pause, and reflect on what it is that is most important for us in life: Money? Power? Fame? Influence? When death stares us in the face, all that is irrelevant and immaterial. 

This vicious virus does not make distinctions on whether you are rich, poor, ordinary or powerful. As a matter of fact, it can even wipe you out financially.

This reminds me of two powerful and influential men whom I got to know quite well. I had a conversation with them at different times when death was practically staring them in the face.

Ninoy Aquino was a powerful senator whom I first met during the mid ’70s when I was a news reporter for Channel 9, interviewing him on several occasions.

I was in Tokyo sometime in 1982 on a business trip for my private production company when I bumped into the senator at the lobby of the Imperial Hotel where he was staying. Senator Aquino was on a furlough at that time. He was with former senators Ernie Maceda, Doy Laurel and Lorenzo Tañada. 

The senator invited me to his suite for coffee and I vividly remember what he told me: “You kept me company for seven years and seven months.” Surprised, I asked the late senator what he meant – and he explained that he used to watch me from his cell everyday while I reported the evening news. 

I asked him why he insisted on going back to Manila, knowing fully well the government would put him back in jail. To this day, I will never forget the words of Ninoy when he told me point-blank, “Padre, I have already made my peace with God. They can tell the soldiers to start cleaning their guns.”

I knew then that Ninoy had already accepted whatever awaited him because he had humbly placed his fate in the hands of God, giving him peace in the face of death.

Another person who I became close to was Enrique Zobel, known to his friends as Enzo. He was an extremely wealthy man, proverbially born with a silver spoon, perceived by some people to be arrogant. He flew around in his jet and helicopter, but all that ended abruptly when he fell from his horse Juanita during a game of polo in Sotogrande, Spain. He became paralyzed from the neck down, living as a quadriplegic for almost 13 years.

I’ll never forget that moment shortly before he died when I went to visit him for the last time in his Calatagan hacienda.  He told me he would give up everything he had if only God would let him walk again. During a sober moment after our lunch, he said he built a church in Calatagan, which to me was his way of making his peace with God. He then took me and our friend Tony Garcia to a burial place in his Calatagan estate/hacienda which would be his final resting place. It was just so poignant to see such an extremely wealthy man like Enzo humbly accepting his fate and surrendering his life to God. 

The act of humility is one of the most difficult things to do, but it is also one of the most impactful actions that gives the doer enormous moral suasion. This was evident when President Duterte apologized, on nationwide television no less, to PLDT chairman Manny Pangilinan together with brothers Jaime and Fernando Zobel. “The COVID humbled me... I am ready to talk and I would be reasonable, to the Ayalas and to (Manny) Pangilinan, I apologize for the hurting words,” the president said.

In fact, the president had earlier accepted an apology from Gabby Lopez of ABS-CBN – made public by the Kapamilya network’s CEO Carlo Katigbak – for the failure to air some of the then-Davao City mayor’s advertisements during the campaign period for the May 2016 presidential elections. This was in February, almost three months before the order of the National Telecommunications Commission for ABS-CBN to go off air when the latter’s franchise expired last May 4.  

But I told my friends at ABS-CBN including Gabby that the network will surely be back on air sooner than later. No one can deny that overall, ABS-CBN has played a major role in nation building. 

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque even expressed the gratitude and appreciation of the president to the Kapamilya network for its service to the nation, and for its role in the midst of the coronavirus crisis that the Philippines is facing today by disseminating information and facilitating donations for the frontliners and the people especially the needy and marginalized.

When all is said and done, ABS-CBN will undoubtedly have a fresh mandate. The legal issues surrounding their application will eventually be resolved, plus the fact that congressmen and senators have already expressed their readiness to approve and pass the franchise bill of ABS-CBN. 

In the end, all of us will face death at some point in our lives – no one escapes it. This pandemic has taught all of us that humility is a virtue that can bring us closer to God. We need unity for our nation to survive this great crisis, and ask God for mercy especially for the people who are marginalized with little or no resources that would help them pull through from this horrific crisis that has humbled powerful and wealthy nations. Ultimately, in humility there is unity.

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