Our Sons And Daughters

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

While I have been critical of what is happening in the Philippines, I do see
that many other countries, including the United States, are also in need of
leaderships who authentically have the people’s issues at heart. However,
the misery of others is not consolation to our poor who suffer daily and the
whole citizenry who are deprived of role models. Worse, Filipinos cannot
escape a fate proportional to the learning required to transcend a pattern
of corruption, poverty and violence.

As a writer, I have taken two tracks; 1) to instill fear at the consequences
of the wrongdoing we do, or the wrongdoing we tolerate, and 2) to spark
inspiration by the good we do and the good that others do. I do this
because, as a writer, I know of no other way to touch hearts and minds away
from what is wrong and towards what is right.

As a concerned citizen, I have participated in advocacies and organizations
that consistently, to my judgment, discourage wrongdoing and encourage
pathways to societal reform and transformation. My life in Gawad Kalinga is
an example of such participation, and I remain open to contributing in other
ways and to other individuals/groups whose views and sentiments parallel
mine.

My continuing journey is becoming more optimistic despite clearer eyes that
can discern more quickly the shenanigans of thieves, liars, and manipulators
- even at the highest levels of governance or from the elite of nations. I
grow more optimistic because of the nobility that beats in the hearts of our
young, of the guarantee of idealism by creation itself embedded in the soul
of each emerging generation.

I had seen the idealism of our own generation. I had seen in the 1960’s how
the young poured into the streets to decry what they saw as poison to the
nobility of equality, fraternity and liberty. I saw how the government,
riding on the paranoia of the West against Communism, used force to suppress
the first expressions of idealism and then use fear to extend a rule without
laws except those coming from a dictator. Many resisted, but in the end, our
generation succumbed. And those who could not take a life without hope or
ethics at home chose to leave for foreign shores.

Many question if 14 years of martial law and a conjugal dictator were enough
to corrupt a whole people into accepting or tolerating wrongdoing. By
themselves, the conjugal dictatorship and a pliant military would not have
been enough to subvert a value system from good to bad. They had help,
however, from a global environment that was in the midst of a Cold War and a
not so distant colonial history that made it easier for a people to re-adopt
submission. With many families unable to resist the benefits of an
environment rife with exploitative opportunities, Filipinos gave in to
relative peace without freedom rather than harsh strife in insistence of
freedom.

For 14 years, therefore, a people reverted to colonial times and habits, a
few exploiting and many submitting. Thus, it was not only about 14 years, it
was also the revival of the last four centuries. Old habits returned rather
than new habits developing. When, finally, higher aspirations overcame fear
and people-powered revolutions overthrew discredited leaderships, a lack of
what to do made it impossible to sustain the struggle against greed and
exploitation.

It is now obvious from our own recent history that an overflow of anger
against what should not be is, indeed, enough to overthrow but not enough to
build a new culture and establish higher ethics in Philippine society. In
other words, anger is not a pathway to development but a simple trigger of
opportunity to break the hold of evil. We need the anger, but we need much
more than that to sustain efforts towards meaningful change, towards new
lifestyles and higher values.

Filipinos need a vision and visionary leaders, new pathways of development
which address the cancers of poverty, corruption and violence, good role
models of proper and effective leaderships in every level and dimension of
societal life. Lacking these, we can remove bad governments but cannot build
good replacements.

We have the first requirement – recognition of wrongdoing and resentment
against it. That resentment is not only among tens of millions home-based
Filipinos but now even more so among millions of Filipinos abroad. It will
take very little for this resentment to converge in a concerted action, but
it is that little which is still missing in the minds of most.

What is that vision which the disillusioned and discontented will accept and
follow? Who are its chosen messengers, the new Filipino leaders in
possession of virtues, values, and expertise to lead and achieve?

I have seen the vision of Gawad Kalinga and know it is enough to be the
heart of a national development program for at least one generation. Gawad
Kalinga means “to give care” and is kind to historical victims, committed to
correct a historical anomaly, determined to build a work and community
living ethic that empowers the least and leads them towards responsibility
and accountability. Gawad Kalinga also honors the accomplishment of the more
successful, of the more aggressive and established in society, and precisely
invites them to lend their superior expertise and greater resources to spark
an economic renaissance.

What is more important is that Gawad Kalinga believes it is only a
repository of the best in every Filipino, our higher aspirations, our nobler
dreams. It invites, it welcomes, is not afraid to change, to move upwards
and to bring others with it, and sworn not leave the poor and the weak
behind. In other words, Gawad Kalinga is a spirit of caring, healing, and
transformation. It is that part of us which we have denied, or forced by
circumstance to deny. It is that part of us which seeks the light and wants
to race towards it.

Among the youth more popularly known as the Y generation, I have sensed a
palpable desire to live out those higher ethics, to build integrity among
themselves, to live a lifestyle that honors the best of our culture. They
have aspirations which want the best but not laced with greed, which want
the highest but not laced with discrimination. I have seen the future full
of hope. The Knights of our Round Table have arrived. The sons and daughters
of the motherland prepare to build our Camelot.