Religion - Palm Sunday

This Palm Sunday at mass, we heard part of the life of Jesus Christ. From the time he was sentenced by the people to be crucified. I was expecting the homily to be about that but I heard otherwise.

The priest instead read the letter from Cardinal Rosales of Manila. I was expecting it to contain anti-government statements or pro-government ones. But I heard none of those.

The homily centered on the need for our willingness to go through "the desert of change." It asks each and every Catholic to recognize our wrong-doings, commit oursleves to correct them, and vow never to do the same again.

Rather than calling for change in leadership or express support for it, the letter instead appealed for change. Change in our hearts. Change in our lives.

The letter pointed out the corruption and abuses that plaqued our country. A plaque that once was and is still considered as a cancer of society. Corruption is seen not just as an ill in the government but that of the society as well.

In the movie Evan Almighty God, played by Morgan Freeman, asked Evan to build an ark for a great flood is soon to come. As Evan struggled with himself, his work as a Congressman, and as a family man, tools and lumber were delivered to him.

The flood did came but it was not the same flood that wiped the world clean during biblical times. It was a sudden rush of water when a dam, whose construction was substandard due to corruption, ruptured.

In the end, what was emphasized in the film is not doing great things but a simple act of random kindness at a time.

Cardinal Rosales and the bishops of Manila call on all Filipinos to make some changes in themselves. One simple change done altogether a day at a time is one great step toward a better future.

A child's death in exchange for social support

The government has been created to provide basic and important services to the people. When the government fails to deliver such services, the government needs to answer for that failure.

Early this November, a grade 6 pupil from Davao City in the Philippines committed suicide due to poverty. In the girl's diary, she wrote that she could not stand their situation anymore. She is one of the youngest among 7 children -- she has a younger brother.

On November 1, Marianette asked her father for 100 pesos for her school project. Unable to give the money to his child, he asked her to ask her mother instead adding that maybe she has some money. Unfortunately, her mother does not have money available.

A father that he is, the following day the girl's father went to the construction site where he works to get some advance payment. He got a thousand pesos. Sadly, when he got home, he found out that his little girl is already dead, she hanged herself.

Her four other siblings were not with them because they already have families of their own. Her mother is a part time clothes washer and her father is a seasonal construction worker.

The national government, in a press statement, assumed responsibility for the girl's death.

Being a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, it has a daunting task of ensuring the welfare of the people it serves. But who really is to blame?

There are several other issues that came up based on newspaper reports. The girl was known to have been taunted by her classmates for "being poor." She had been absent from school for three days according to her mother that the little girl have thought to have been four months as stated in her diary. Her absence was because they do not have any money for allowance. She even asked permission from her mother to work but was dissuaded to do so. These are a lot of factors already.

Taunting is a painful thing to happen. Being young as they are, children tend to brag about what they have. And in the process, some even put down others who are not as well off as they are.

I never got wind of what else happened to the girl before she died. My friends and I have discussed what happened and we came up with several reasons or factors that lead to her committing suicide at a young age.

1. Value for Education - we could never comprehend how at such a young age the girl thought of committing suicide. Is it because of her hunger for education that her absence deeply affected her? You do not find a lot of children who truly value education. In our discussions, we share that during elementary school days, we did aspire to excel in class but we also look forward to reasons to be absent. We believe that she may have given her education greater value than we did.

2. Television - she may have watched several soap operas in their neighbors television that bore so much drama on life's challenges. She may have witnessed several scenes where actors say they want to die because of the suffering they endured. And this may have prompted her to think of suicide. Again, my group thought that at those times, what we thought of doing was to get adopted by rich families, not take our lives.

3. Depression - the taunting may have pushed her on the edge. Children taunt others without regard to what those other children feel because it is "fun." We even assumed that some kids may have told her to just die because they are so poor. And we all know that children say what they want. At such a young age, we believe that they do not have the capacity to ascertain that what they say may be taken seriously. Take a kid being scolded for example. They will even challenge their parents' authority until they get a gentle slap on the cheek or a piece of leather on their behinds. Children are brave but they are careless or rather care free.

And most far fetched of our theories is: Drama. Taking everything into consideration, the little girl may have thought that to get attention, she must do something big. And she may have believed that death is the biggest attention getter of all. Where she may have learned this, we can only guess. She had long wanted to have her family's life be given some comfort. She wished for school supplies and jobs for both her parents.

And her wish came true. Help came pouring in just this week to the bereaved. But it is too late for her. She may have thought that a sacrifice is needed so that her younger brother could have a better life. And that sacrifice is her own life.

So who's to blame? I believe we all are. We have taken our kids for granted. We have immersed ourselves in our work to give them better lives that we forgot that what they need most is our presence. The opposing sides of the government is intense in their struggle to take each other down that they have forgotten about the little ones who should have been the reason they are where they are now. The people elected by the people lost sight of who they work for. They lost sight of their collective goals. They are lost in their individual battles. And so we lost a promising little girl.

How many more little ones have to do such horrible acts for us to wake up? How many more should we lose to start working together.

Someone once told me that for a country to really achieve real change and realize that something is wrong, it must pay the price of loosing 2/3 of its citizens in a civil war.

We do not need war to change. All we need is commitment and intent to change.

In aid of legislation

A most common excuse for having senate- or congress-level investigations to high profile issues is doing it "in aid of legislation."

In my limited political knowledge based on my decades old high school history lessons and college political science classes, I assume that the senate and the congress are elected to represent the interests of their constituents.

The Senate of the pre-clone war Republic in the Star Wars franchise shows a chamber of representatives from various planetary systems, special interest federations, and alliances. This gave me an idea that the senators are there to ensure that the rule of law is respected and adhered to by all members. They are also there to defend the actions of the entities they represent and raise and settle any disputes between bodies represented in that senate.

According to my mental notes, both the senate and the congress are tasked to craft laws that will strengthen declarations embodied in the constitution. Being the representatives of the people who voted for them, they have the obligation to look into the effect of the laws being crafted and make certain that it does not in any way negatively affect the rights of their voters.

For three years the budget has been reenacted because of senate or congressional "investigations in aid of legislation." For three years the people made do with what the government allocated for basic services. For three years the problem of adequacy of resources was set aside.

I was not able to do much research but what legislations were aided by those investigations? Was the government able to get back the money spent to keep the investigators comfortable during the deliberations? Did the people gain anything from those investigations?

Blame is a two-way street

I have read an article this morning on the education crisis. This article somewhat puts blame on the education sector for its various shortcomings.

I have also read several articles on the deteriorating roads, low-quality of services in some hospitals, and many more.

Often, I read about experts or people in power putting the blame on those who are directly involved in preventing this "shortcomings." Those directly involved will most probably loose interest in their work, and think of themselves as unqualified for the job.

Personally, I believe putting all the blame on one person is not going to solve anything. I believe that those "experts" and "people in power" are also to blame though not is the same degree, probably.

The question that comes up my mind every time I hear a blame is, "What did we do to help prevent whatever from happening?" Another question is "Did we ever do our part to help prevent bad things to happen?"

I think critics should do the same. I believe we are all in this together. We can't just sit idly by and let other people do what they have to do.

We don't need to be nosy and be like backseat drivers. We have to do our share. Offer our help. Suggest solutions to the problems.

A friend once said, "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem and I am going to take you out along with it."

Have a good day!