Legaspi: Normal events?

RECENTLY, the nation was shocked by the over magnitude 6 earthquake that hit a part of Southern Philippines. Today, we await before Christmas day a pending typhoon to hit once more the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR). We are also shocked by the news of cold and heat waves across the globe as well as floods in many areas. These are natural calamities that we have no control of.

We are also left to wonder at the unscrupulous murders and killings in our midst in Bacolod and in other nearby towns and cities. We are left to play with our imagination of what is happening. I guess this will not be a natural scenario soon in the most livable city in the Philippines.

Family disputes and conflicts here and there. Parents versus children, siblings versus siblings, in-laws versus in-laws and a lot more are heard over the radio and read by the young people in newspapers. All conflicts boil down to material properties. Where is the saying “Blood is thicker than water?” Where are our Filipino values of “Kapamilya and Kapuso?

Where is the harmony in the family? Relationships are destroyed because of technology. Family members no longer talk to each other. They are so preoccupied with their latest electronic gadgets. No more quality time for one another. They speak but their reference is either the post of another in facebook, the tweet in twitter, or the picture on Instagram. Where are we heading?

Some families are destroyed by illicit affairs in the name of modernism and contemporary fad and fashion. “Live-ins” are now in the scene while the sacrament of matrimony is slowly becoming a taboo in our society.

My greatest fear is that most of the model traditional families are now breaking-up and no one knows until when the glue will hold. Many influential families have hidden skeletons in their closets but the worst is that today no one is afraid of publicly declaring an illicit affair. It seems that morality is an issue while immorality is a fashion or fad.

Established organizations are also on the brink of falling. Institutions are breaking down also. Many institutions hug “change” as the magic word. The leaders think that this is the solution but to many organizations, this is the start of the downfall. We change leaders but we retain the characters. In the name of change we choose new ones but to the detriment of the organization. Where will big corporations go? I predict that in the next ten years, these corporations will crumble and will be reduced into pieces all because of embracing a wrong notion of “change”.

So are all these already normal events in our lives? My mind tells me that these are neither normal nor natural. These are abnormal and non-natural events. These are all effects of misuse, miscommunication, and mistrust. Some say these are signs of the end times. But I say these realities could have been evaded, especially in this season, if we focus on the real message of the savior in the lowly manger.

Merry Christmas.