Confront The Truth

Glimpses
Jose Ma. Montelibano

When I read the latest report of how the Equity Bill for Filipino Veterans
was “dead in the water,” I could not help feel the pain and frustration of
old men and women who fell for the line that serving a foreign master is
equivalent to serving one’s motherland. At one point in time, I would have
felt anger at America. Today, I only feel pity for those who cannot yet
shake off a false reality that the land of milk and honey can often be more
rhetoric than real.

There is no doubt that the United States of America has been a world leader
in promoting a political system called democracy. Its current multi-ethnic
population, which will become even more so as minorities increase their
numbers while Caucasian American depopulate, offers the United States a rare
and radical opportunity to lead the world further away from racism to true
color blindness. Being color blind means a great convergence not only of
blood and skin, but of cultures and ideas that cannot happen in a society
bent on in-breeding.

Racist to libertarian, however, is not a passage of law but a transcendence
of human patterns towards their higher potential. The process is not only
long, which it has to be for total assimilation in several dimensions, but
also quite painful to the once dominant. Racism in different hues has
remained active in human history because societal structures were built
around it and governed from one era to another. It is only in modern times
when a few societies gingerly stepped into unknown territory called
equality, libertyh and fraternity - stumbling every step of the way.

Societies struggle still, very few showing great success but many more in
rigid resistance. As Western European countries slowly tear down walls of
division between each other, ethnic cleansing continues to smear humanity in
several countries in Africa and the Middle East. The spectrum of human
behavior is a shocking reality as the best and the worst collide in a globe
that is definitely growing smaller, once imagined as limitless and now
sometimes seen as a mere village in a vast universe.

Filipinos are caught up with the drama of change as they try to shed off
their colonial past and the destructive consequences that befall a long
conquered people. Facing massive poverty that is inherited more than
created, facing exploitation from the powerful that was once the norm of
colonial masters, and constantly threatened by violence from armed conflict
between government forces and rebels from the Left and Moroland, millions of
Filipinos turn to the rest of the world for opportunity. And they find it.

The harsh truth is that massive poverty remains at the bottom third of the
population and hunger still stalks millions of poor Filipinos. This is a
social anomaly that scoffs at false claims of religious fidelity, whether
Catholic, Muslim or other Christian denominations. The kind of poverty that
shames our society and religions must be confronted as a primary challenge
of government and NGOs, not as a “by the way” concern.

At the same time, individual initiatives of the more determined among less
poor Filipinos to stake family separation for a chance of a better future
for the next generation are making their own impact here and abroad. Foreign
remittances amounting to $14 billion go straight to households who otherwise
will be much poorer and more frustrated. Beyond the money from abroad that
they send, overseas Filipino workers bring a new outlook, new influences
from foreign cultures, new ways of looking at the same old things. All these
slowly but surely lift the common consciousness to paths yet untraveled.
Many social scientists will have a field day reading, monitoring and
interpreting the evolution of a new Filipino mindset.

Which is why I wonder out loud why many first generation Fil-Ams who have
been passionately pushing for the Equity Bill for Filipino veterans of WWII
have the hardest of time discarding the illusion of a compassionate colonial
master who remembers with affection the loyalty and sacrifices of former
subjects. How many years will it take for the United States to remember,
recognize and compensate if it wants to? It does not want to and it is so
humiliating to keep pushing the fate of dying veterans to those who do not
view them as equals.

The shame of poverty and corruption is aggravated by the shame of
mendicancy. In the Philippines are productive citizens and natural resources
of immeasurable value despite the abject poverty of millions. In the United
States are Filipino-Americans by the millions who spend not less than $50
billion annually. How much is being begged from the US Congress for our
remaining and dying Filipino veterans? If we cannot take care of them as a
people of one motherland, why should we expect the United States to be more
caring?

To build our nation is to first build our character. Our societal leaders
from government, from business, from religions, from the academe, from civil
society, they have the responsibility of being role models to a people
transitioning from the colonial times to an opportunity of independence.
Abdication or the ineffective application of that responsibility is damaging
to a people’s growth but not the final excuse of not growing nevertheless.
Though difficult, the evolution of higher consciousness and ethics
ultimately redounds to the individual Filipino.

Filipinos must grow even if their formal leaders do not show them the proper
way. In our midst are not only an abundance of neighbors and friends who
have enough character to be good models, but a whole generation of young,
idealistic Filipinos who are raring to make their mark in every society
where there are Filipinos. A global Filipino generation is born and its
growing number will yet give its idealism and nobility the force required
for meaningful and sustainable change.

In each of us, in the generation of our children, is the answer to our
dreams. We must look to ourselves and to our youth to finally win the battle
for a future full of hope.

–
“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to
hunger among ourselves.”