The Lost Shepherds

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

Being the most corrupt in the Southeast Asia region is not enough for our societal leaders. Most understand that corruption is an issue of governance, and they are right. Corruption is also an issue of morality, and nobody denies this. Shepherds, too, are not only of the Church and religion; they are also all other leaders - our parents, school administrations and faculties, civic and business leaders. When corruption rises to a level where our shame cannot be kept hidden anymore from a global audience, all shepherds have stumbled and fallen, with their flock after them, of course.

There are those who say that the world is very materialistic and hedonistic. Money and pleasure have outpaced virtue in the lives of people, until such time when aging bodies and the fear of death bring back some sense to our value system. More than ten years ago, I wrote about God the Money whom I called the Fourth Person and who was greater than the first three. I was not being funny, I was very serious. I just used a little humor to remind everyone of an embarrassing truth. After all, two thousand years ago, someone already said that money was the root of all evil, and that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The corruption of a country and its governance is but the tip of an iceberg. There simply cannot be corruption at a massive scale unless societal shepherds had surrendered to wrongdoing as a force greater than themselves, or themselves have become perpetrators of wrongdoing. Filipinos have a four hundred year history of subservience to authority imposed and foreign. Prior to that, a datu system which rewarded obedience and loyalty was in place. Subservience, or obedience, has been a behavioral and collective trait. If societal shepherds had not recapitulated to immorality, corruption beyond random, individual cases would not be possible.

Reviewing our history in the last several years, it seems understandable that societal leaders did, indeed, surrender or play footsies with wrongdoing. Under the ambit of colonialism and conversion, State and Church ventured to institutionalized exploitation and the use of intimidation and force. For centuries, societal leaders were the State and the Church, and together, they conspired to take away a people’s freedom and resources. Consequently, they took away human dignity even as they claimed to introduce a higher form of civilization and the one true faith.

If leadership in the last four hundred years meant exploitation of the many and the native in order to promote the well-being of the few and the foreign, then a perverse leadership lifestyle was established. Sincerity, honesty and loyalty could have been practiced by those in power, but they operated in a two-tiered value system. Individual virtues could be exercised but in a greater context of wrong, virtues towards conquerors but injustice towards the conquered. It is a pattern that has survived beyond colonial times to dominate the Philippine social and political environment where the few remain to be more equal than others.

The failure of State and Church does not end with them. Being the superpowers of Philippine society, the examples that the hierarchies of State and Church give trickle down to the lowest levels of governance. These examples are followed them rather than the written law. In proportion to the gravity of corruption in the Philippines where the horrible cultural impact is worse than its financial losses, our shepherds are strangely quiet. Perhaps, it is their helplessness. Perhaps, too, it is their guilt.

Shepherds herd the sheep, lead them to pasture, protect them from wolves. In the Philippines, shepherds are often what are known in the vernacular as “bantay salakay,” who lead the sheep to poverty, not pasture, and who turn wolves themselves, preying on sheep they are sworn to protect.

An abused constituency has become so weak that many now go hungry. The latest figures quickly raised the Philippines to be measured as the fifth hungriest among nations. The country that hosts one of the richest, if not the richest, in bio-diversity has also become the fifth most hungry. Can anyone imagine how a rich nation can be hungry? Simple, look to its shepherds.
Hunger is a dark cloud which brings tragedy in its womb. It is not as though there are no political problems that provide tension, and hunger will intensify it. Mindanao is at edge, the NPA has become more active, and scandals rock the administration. Inside the military, there appears to be a steady shepherd in Gen. Alexander Yano and no serious murmurs destabilize the organization. But the steady shepherd is not the type who will bend to deliberate wrongdoing. If confronted by conflict of interest, sheer integrity and professionalism might be the trigger to an honorable revolution akin to 1986.

Poverty aggravated by hunger will cause crime, including the reckless and careless ones. Today, we read of more daring, or desperate robberies. We hear from the grapevine of victim families about unreported kidnappings and ransom payments. Silence by shepherds as streets become unsafe does not lead to apathy, it leads to tragedy.

Corruption and poverty are cancers that grow more aggressively in the face of paralysis from shepherds. Hunger and violence are consequences that create even more horrible end results. The sheep have to lose their innocence, their quiet obedience, move into flight or fight mode while their shepherds lose their courage, lose their voice.

Peace cannot be mistaken for cowardice. The first exudes equanimity, the other fear and confusion. The silence of peace is the quality of serenity while the silence of cowardice agitates the soul. High positions give great responsibility but demand great courage as well. When shepherds are silent while their flock is in grave danger, when leaders take the path of tentativeness in a crisis, the threatened will then witness Davids rise from the ground to battle the enemy.

It is the flock now looking for their shepherds. It is the shepherds who now are lost.
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“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to hunger among ourselves.”