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By Eleanor Nellasca Balaquiao
During the election for Sangguniang Kabataan
Federation President in my town, allegations spread that political
support from SK chairmen was fought with fifty thousand pesos.
News about bribery and vote buying is not new to
me but hearing about teenagers acting like trapos was very
disturbing to me.
Something is terribly wrong in a culture that
teaches its youth to cheat and bribe their way into seats of power.
Something is terribly wrong in a society that condones the
indoctrination of its young to a tradition of dirty politics.
When I heard about the Sangguniang Kabataan and
the money, something suddenly came to me. In this country’s
struggle for development, what the country needs is not just charter
change. This country does not need just another presidential
election. This country does not need any more heroes. Regardless of
how much change is done in the system, if the core remains
problematic, then change is just superficial.
In the struggle for development, what this
country needs is a revolution. No, not a violent overthrow of the
government but rather a movement in the name of liberation from one
of the biggest barriers to development—a misguided sense of
values.
This country needs to understand what it is and
who its people truly are. This country needs to teach itself
nationalism. Such a process of teaching nationalism must start with
the youth.
This country has to teach its youth that the
Philippines is not a country of thieves and cheaters, that the
Philippines is not a country that bows down to money, that the
Philippines is not a country of dirty politicians.
This country has to teach its youth that the
Filipino people are hard workers, and therefore, they do not need to
cheat in order to succeed. This country has to teach its youth that
the Filipino people are honest, and therefore, they do not need to
bribe and to lie in order to win. This country needs to teach its
youth that the Filipino people value their faith, their family and
their society, and therefore, they do not have to worship money.
In this process of teaching nationalism, the
best channel is the educational system. Now, more than ever, the
educational system must be reinvigorated. Great importance must be
given to the study of the nation’s history, culture and values.
The educational system must counter the prevailing cynicism that
there is no hope for the corrupt Filipino. If the youth are truly
the hope of this country, then they must understand, as early as
possible, that they are not born to be corrupt, that they are good
and that their goodness can change the system. Through the years,
the educational system has focused on the sciences and the languages
without seeing the significance of values education. In an age where
the young would rather work abroad than stay in the country, the new
impetus of the educational system should be fostering nationalism.
Along with this process of educating the youth,
reeducation of the rest of the populace should also be undertaken in
order to battle the biggest disease that has continuously eaten the
country’s chance to develop—corruption.
This country has to teach its people to stop
nodding their heads when cynics say that Filipinos are corrupt. This
country has to teach its people to stop accepting the view that
corruption is normal in the Philippines. It is this resignation to
the conception of the Filipino society as a corrupt society that
justifies corruption itself. This country needs to chastise not only
the corrupt but also those who believe that to be a Filipino is to
be corrupt.
Killing corruption entails the eradication of
its roots. This means taking a look at the values that contribute to
a culture of corruption. This means that Filipino practices such as
the padrino system, personalistic politics and false expectations
from government leaders as the poor’s ultimate saviors from their
poverty should be reassessed. True, these age-old practices cannot
be changed overnight. But there is a need to finally address the
fact that corruption in the country is not just the product of an
error in the system of government. It is also the result of a
culture that lacks discipline. The culture of impunity worsens
corruption. Hence, this country needs to recognize what is wrong and
begin the great debate on how these crippling values can be changed.
For countries that have survived the sting of
corruption such as Singapore, killing the roots of corruption took
the form of strict laws and less freedom. This country, then, must
also start asking itself about what it is willing to give up in
order to stop corruption. This responsibility does not belong to the
government alone. It is also the burden of the people.
In the struggle for development, this country
needs to reorient its values so that its people can make better
choices. This country’s government must endeavor to find lasting
solutions to its problems instead of promoting temporary answers
that only create false hope in the long run.
To bring about development, this country’s
government needs to focus not only on exporting workers but also in
generating more jobs inside the country. True, overseas Filipino
workers help heal an ailing economy. But the OFW phenomenon has also
led to a diaspora. It has convinced Filipinos that there is no
future in the Philippines and that the only way to succeed is to
leave the country. The real remedy to an ailing economy is not
leaving and giving up. The real shot at development is to have
skilled workers actually work in the country and bring the
investments here. This poses the challenge of creating a political
atmosphere that will encourage investors, stability in the national
security and competitive laborers.
Put in simpler terms, what is required is
choosing between political ambition and the common good, between
dollar remittances and a strong peso, between short-term remedies
and long-term solutions. Again, everything boils down to the
country’s sense of values. It all boils down to a sense of who the
Filipino people truly are.
Policies for development have come and gone and
many of them have been unsuccessful. But they have failed not
because the Filipino people are lacking in talent. If anything is
lacking among the people and their leaders, it is the capacity to
choose the better over what is simply good.
Making an underdeveloped country fully developed
is an awesome task. But as the cliché puts it, you eat an elephant
piece by piece. This is why massive values reorientation is needed.
Change must start from the core and from there it will spread to the
edges.
What is needed is a revolution in the Filipino
heart so that one day, young people like me will no longer have to
write of how the youth are bribed in a country that has no respect
for who it truly is. What is needed is a revolution so that one day,
Filipinos can choose to stay in the Philippines and be proud of that
choice.
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