WHEN I saw on my television screen how “colorum” tricycle drivers responded to traffic enforcers, I said to myself that something had to change. We cannot allow anarchy in our city streets simply because some of us refuse to abide by the law and order of this land.
AS Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth, puts it: “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
We can start with awareness of what makes sense. We can ask ourselves: Is there sense in getting out of places declared by the government as danger zones? Is there sense in moving to relocation sites given to informal settlers? The lack of common sense perpetuates enablers among us.
We also need to step up our awareness of what we do to our environment that damages our ecosystem. The citizenry continue to ignore the directives of their barangay officials to segregate our trash.
Tolle pointed out that what we are really doing is not “being.” The question then is: Are we really mindful of what we do that would define us as being conscientious?
I hope that the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam investigation has created awareness that it is indeed not a good practice to sell our votes because some politicians will try to recover campaign expenses.
Janet Lim Napoles recently revealed that there were politicians who owed her money for use in their campaign. The money borrowed was considered settled against PDAF commissions.
Our awareness should include the notion that overpopulation is not just an economic problem but an environmental issue as well. Look at the overcrowded MRT systems and buses, our polling places, our school buildings. On a bigger scale, seven billion human inhabitants are depleting our natural resources. Will our future generation then suffer deprivation?
Considering the things happening on a global scale, awareness is not just an option. It is a necessary tool for change. Change has to begin with oneself. Collectively we might still alter or fix what we have damaged.
Until we learn to conserve energy and water, awareness remains to be an inconvertible virtue that needs to be appreciated and then acquired.