Choice and Change
Choice and Change
by : Paolo Domondon
The present predicament of the Philippines cannot be attributed to one false moment in our history. It was never the fault of a single corrupt individual or even the compromised system. What led to the continuous blaming culture that we have is the culture of people not owning up to the choices that we all have made. Right now, we have the collective guilt of the normal Pilipino, who have been in constant quest of defining who he is and his value to his own country. While Inang Bayan continues to cry as her people go hungry and abused, the older Juan is still too busy analyzing what is wrong with her and the young Juan is too busy worrying about the distant and hazed future that he will have.
At least this is what I thought of most of them until I met an ordinary Filipino who owned up to the mess and mire we are all in.
Tony Meloto once said “ The situation of this country is my generation’s fault. I wont die doing nothing.”
What you might call a courageous admittance of his own wrongdoing is a challenge to the awaiting young. Let me be clear to the Me- generation where I also belong- it will then be our generation’s fault if we don’t do something about this now.
The long tale of the so- called cardinal veracity of life- instilled and molded in our psyche- to strive to live better, to be educated to live better, to go against all odds to live better. To earn money, to gain power, to incur wealth- to live better, before you can help- is an accepted myth that is to blame. Because personal aggrandizement cannot be the path to bliss, when you know that injustice is the next big thing.
Just as much as when Gen Aguinaldo signed Biak ng Bato, as much as when Douglas McArthur made that promise, and as much as the decision of returning by the greatest –president-that-we-never-had in Boston, the choices we now make will define the state of our people.
What we need, first, is to make the choice to love the Philippines. I beg to differ when they say that the difference between first world and third world countries is how much a people love his homeland. We made the biggest noise when a famous desperate housewife made an incriminating remark and just recently when a writer tried to downplay the sacrifices of our OFWs. We have people fighting for justice. It is the choice to do something about the promise “of ang mamatay ng dahil sayo” that is missing.
Love your country and show this love by doing something for her people.
Ironically, I was in a party in a Metro Manila Bar, April 1 year 2006, when I decided that my early years in the “real world” will not be wasted in chasing a dream that ignores others who cant dream for themselves. It was tempting to strive for a personal dream that you know is attainable, but painful to realize that everybody around you was doing the same.
The choice to act is best evident in the zealous people I meet in Gawad Kalinga. CEOs retiring early to contribute their expertise; top graduates quitting high paying salaries to devote themselves fulltime; fathers who refuse to accept job offers to continue their service; and our volunteers, regardless of socio- economic status, spending time and resources to live out the call of Christ of being a brother’s keeper and of Mohammad’s cry to serve the people.
GK has restored the dignity of the underprivileged when they built the almost 2000 communities affecting the lives of a hundred thousand of the poorest of the poor in the span of a few years. And because of this, we know that creating significant change in the lives of the poor is no longer an impossible feat. When we transcend our religious and political differences, we know that transformation of the face of poverty is now in the realm of reality.
People sacrifice because, after much waiting, there emerged a movement led by the ordinary taos that has made the poor ‘unpoor’ by using the Filipino values of bayanihan and kapwa-tao.
We must fervently believe that the choices we will be making will be the reason for the change we will be reaping. May we not take the same mistake of turning our backs to golden opportunities that have made significant impact to the lives of the poor, just because we have been conditioned that we are a hopeless and a helpless people.
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Bono, a rock star articulated it well when he said “because we are the generation that has the right resources, enough technology, and the willingness to change the plight of our nations, we are the generation that must. Because we can, we must.”
Because we can – fight poverty, injustice, and corruption in the Philippines- at this very moment in the life of our nation, we must do it now.
The fastest and longest three years of my life was spent in serving side by side with the most respected people in our country, those who believe in the cause and actually worked for it. And because of them, I am now a better man- far more than what I could have become in any of the paths that I might have been called to do. My own service is not and will never be enough, puny compared to the sacrifices of the people in our work, but the transformational values that my mentor instilled in me will equip me to live out idealism and to fight injustice anywhere I go. The choice I made before, led to the change in me right now.
I call to my generation to consider the poor in all their decisions. I call for them to take into consideration that the statistics we know are not just numbers. The one- third poor should not remain faceless and nameless. After all, the things we do will determine a poor child in whether he will be a stealer or a principled policeman; a beggar or a teacher of injustice; a murderer or an advocate of life. This is what we should be working for during the best years of our lives- to restore the value of treating the poor as an extended part of our family, worthy of love and sacrifices.
I call to the older generation to lead us in our values as we continue to remain true in our pledge of “sisikaping kong maging mabuti sa isip, sa salita at sa gawa.” I call for them to pass the values they inherited in EDSA 1 and to really believe that they will witness this change.
I extend my gratitude to the tireless caretaker teams of Gawad Kalinga who are crazy enough to make the decision to love the poor as they love their own family- because of you my children will no longer know what poverty is because there will be none; because of you my children will no longer know what a shanty is because there will be none; and because of you they will know longer know what a corrupt politician is because there will be none.
By leading thousands to do the same, Tony Meloto kept true to his promise, he will not die doing nothing for the country.
This is a tribute to all the caretaker teams whose sacrifices are now written in the history of our country, to my fellow GK workers who never stopped believing, and to my GK father Tony Meloto whose passion and integrity carried the work to where it is- Walang Iwanan!