Where are we now...?

I have no idea, whether I have given this piece a correct title or not. But I guess the title is apt in a way considering the kind of dazed state that we are in right now.

Dawning of a new day, Bantayan Island

I welcome this month of April with renewed hope and vigor. I hope the same holds true for the rest of us, though we had to leave the month of March with the tingling memories of such tragic events as  earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan and the more recent execution of the three Filipinos in China. 

I would like to delve on the latter considering its proximity and relevance to every Filipino's heart. I have always been against the idea of capital punishment and always for the idea of giving every offender the chance to reform himself. For me, it is both inhuman and barbaric and I am appreciative of the fact that the Philippines no longer adheres to capital punishment as deterrence against crime.

There are salient points regarding the recent execution of these three Filipinos that we need to tackle. For one, I abhor the attempts of local NGO's to misrepresent the three as overseas Filipino workers when in truth, they were not. Reportedly, they were recruited by unscrupulous  individuals to peddle illegal drugs from the Philippines to China. They didn't have contractual agreements with any employer in China and did not have the necessary legal documents to show proof that indeed they were OFW's. So it is an insult to OFW's everywhere to insist that those three were Overseas Filipino Workers. 

Not to add insult to an injury, my sympathy goes to their relatives and friends, and to every Filipino who felt the mournful impact of their execution, I have reasons to ask for the whereabouts of our values--integrity and moral uprightness. The same question goes to all of us. Have we succumbed to the lure of this profligate world, throwing away our cherished-values in exchange for a dime. Wasn't it the lure of easy money that led those three to their final damnation? This instance was an exemplar of that Tagalog expression, "kapit sa patalim". However, we can never use poverty as an excuse for doing wrong. 

This situation is reflective of how degenerate our present society has become. Our country has been named as one of the most corrupt in the world. We are living in a country of thieves, liars, crooks and murderers. We have a fugitive who calls himself a senator. It would be so easy for someone to draw the parallelism between the kind of government we have and the people it represents. I know that it hurts to hear and learn all of these; but unless we shape up as a people, there can be no lasting and profound change in the way our government works. We will be condemned to deal with the same crooks, liars, thieves and murderers rampaging our bureaucratic structure. Remember, a government is only as good as the people who elect it to office.

In my lifetime, I would love to see my country reclaim its old glory as the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the Light of the World, a giver not receiver, and a country and people imbibed with high moral standards. I know that a lot of us have the same aspirations, but, these things will not come easy. They don't happen overnight but we can start now.

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Copyright © 2011 by Leonel Agir