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Monday, March 07, 2005
Uncutgems: Back to the center
By Orlando P. Carvajal
Uncutgems
The most stable part of anything is the center. Discomfort, problems occur away from the center. Balance, therefore, is regained, and problems solved, by going back to the center. Hence, a ship is most stable when docked in port where, after a long and perhaps stormy journey, it comes home for repairs and replenishment. In like manner, a person striking out on his own often comes back to the comfort of home to regain his/her bearings and to be recharged for the challenges ahead.
In our individual and personal lives we need to be moored to a center, a home port, that is usually our core value or purpose in life. When we encounter problems we need a place inside us to run to. When we are way off our center, we are not only unhappy but we also hurt others and cause them more than a moderate amount of distress.
Nations have a collective center for their part. It is called commonwealth, also known as a quality life for its citizens. It is, therefore, the collective responsibility of all citizens to see to it that all institutions, including and mainly the government, stay close to the center and work to fulfill its mission of contributing to the attainment of a quality life for all. Just like a person and more, when a nation strays from its center it causes a lot of distress to a lot more people.
Recently we commemorated the Edsa Revolution but now only to wonder why we remain the basket case of Asia after Edsa. What have we learned, people ask. This writer believes that the question begging to be asked is, what have we not learned since Edsa. And the answer is, we have not learned that it takes more than just a one-day revolution to bring the ship of state to its true course, to bring the leadership around to its true center which is civil service, in the fullest sense of the term. We have forgotten and need to relearn that the roots of corruption and elitist governance are deep in our colonial history and would take years of united and dogged effort to uproot.
It is obvious that after Edsa and to this day our leaders continue to do things that would ensure their re-election and the perpetuation of their political dynasty and the protection of their families’ vested interests. Which, obviously, puts them way off center. We have reasons to suspect, for instance, that it is not so much conscience that prevents them from undertaking an effective population control program to help alleviate poverty as the fear of the power of the Catholic hierarchy to effectively tell millions of Catholics not to vote for them. We, moreover, do not need any more convincing that one big reason corruption is not uprooted is the fact that more than a few of our elected officials use corrupted money to finance and ensure their re-election.
It is obvious from the size and complexity of our problems that the leadership of this country has strayed and continues to stray farther away from the center. For one day in 1986 we worked as one and we toppled a dictatorship. We need to learn to work as one not just for a day but for many more days, many more years in fact, if we are to true the course of all the institutions of this country. More accurately, we need to sustain our collective effort to bring the leadership elite in this country around to their true center that is service of the people. Why do you think their work is called civil service and they civil servants? We need desperately to hurry back to the center of our national life that is the attainment of the citizens’ freedom to live quality lives.
Finally, if working to unite the country looks too daunting a task, I suggest we start by keeping Cebu one and not divide it to satisfy some dynasty builders among us.
(March 7, 2005 issue)
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