Change is possible, if…

‘Change not possible under GMA’ – Trillanes

What a relief!

I held my trap and withheld banging my keyboard when BGen. Danny Lim announced his intention to go after a seat in the Senate, because for awhile there, I thought he changed his mind that “election is the least desired (acceptable) mode of change.” Or something to that effect.

Even with half plus one of the Senate, ergo, forming the majority happens to be men and women with the integrity of the genuine reformists like Sen. Trillanes and BGen. Danny Lim, there is no way this scenario can have an immediate and lasting impact on transforming our people into responsible, hardworking and honest law-abiding citizens.

The changes we all aspire for cannot bloom in the current socio-religious-economic-political atmosphere. Exactly why I fully agree with Danny Lim’s assessment – the only path to our nation’s salvation is through a “generational change.”

Even with GMArroyo out of the picture, ganoon pa din. Changing a president does not make dishonest and dishonourable men and women overnight or 3 years later, to honest and honourable men and women.

Top to bottom. From the well-heeled to the struggling “masa,” kailangang may mga modelo at higit sa lahat, nagpapasunod, ng mga pagbabago na ating minimithi.

Apropos to Michael Jackson’s endearing song – “Man in the Mirror” – we direly need the environment that encourages people to have deep and penetrating self-reflection, and effect the very changes they expect from their leaders. Hindi pwedeng matitino ang mga pamunuan kung walang planong magtino ang mga pinagsisilbihan.

Of course, if the “reformists” can tone down the nationalist thrust of their agenda for the Filipino people, there is a slight chance the super-puppeteers behind Philippine society may allow this generational change to come to fore.

It is not the honesty, integrity and austerity that frightens the “powers that be” – it is the rise of genuine nationalist leaders who have the “arrogance” (sarcasm intended) to believe our national patrimony must always serve the need of the MAJORITY of the Filipinos, and not just the same-dogs-different- coiffeur-genuine-or-fake-breasts-wearing leaders with changing PMA class as praetorian to ensure a few middle class get to taste “the good life” so they will have enough creature comfort to distaste helping and enlightening the poor majority.

“Change not possible under GMA.” True. Yet for as long Barack Obama and what he represents can cast doubt and condemn the election in Iran, yet more than tolerate a proven cheat that is GMArroyo (Garci? Raise your hand!), change is not possible under anyone…

Let us simply start with basic goodness

snipped from:
http://www.litobanayo.blogspot.com  and

http://www.ellentordesillas.com

“Long starved of good governance, the Filipino people should now act to reclaim their dignity, remove the pretender from power, and steer the nation towards the path of greatness … (through) radical reforms and restructuring.” – Brig. Gen. Danny Lim

= = = = = = = = = =

Sadly, I believe it is my duty to help Danny and people like him who we must all salute for their willingness to risk their careers and lives for the Filipino people they love, to pull his Castle in the Cloud a bit lower to the ground of reality.

My day-today observation of how Filipinos, from the “unwashed,”  to those whose other half is sending 10 to 75 thousand pesos a month from wherever foreign shore they are now toiling nowadays, to those who either work in the government or who are young enough to bear making a living answering questions from foreigners too lazy or too dumb to understand the operating manual of a DVD player – I may be mistaken, but how do they define “dignified living?” -

1. A 3-thousand cellphone is less dignified than a 15-thousand cellphone, regardless if the spelling or mis-spelling of what one compose with his thumb is the same, and will reach the recipient just as fast. It doesn’t matter if a good number of those expensive phones are usually rendered useless for running out of “load.”

2. It is “undignified” to have God-given dark skin pigmentation to protect us from the sun’s harmful rays, so the dignified thing to do is either swallow those metathione pills or go to a Bello clinic, and strut along like a bleached zombie.

3. Dignity comes from having a nose job, a botox injection or any vainglory attempt to cover-up ones deep-seated sense of “not being good enough.” It is undignified to look natural.

4. There is “dignity” to share a sumptuous buffet and listen to the delusions of a political “leader” and wait for the “pabaon” or the donation for ones parish, than to mingle with the unwashed and extol them not to succumb to selling their votes. A P500 for ones vote is undignified compared to the “dignity” of receiving P500,000 or more.

5. There is “dignity” for having all the formal education and mastery of the laws, even if this knowledge is used not to protect the powerless from the the powerful, but instead is used to prop the lawlessness of a non-elected president so as not to be charged for sedition, after shouting “sugod! Sugod sa Malacanang!” I was there that night when she urged the unwashed. I went to that event that fateful night just to see for myself, and hear it from those people why they were there.

6. There is no dignity to stay behind bars for standing up against GMA, but there is a lot of euros and dollars to go around for those who have the “dignity” to preserve the “chain of command-of-corruption,” and the audacity in telling their children, “do not pay attention to the media. Inggit lang yung mga yun! Believe me, I am an officer and a gentleman. You can even ask  Hermogenes Esperon, or Mike Arroyo.”

Generations of what this “OFW syndrome” has wrought to the Pamilyang Pilipino, and the relentlessness moral vandalism inflicted on our youth and their bored mothers from what passes off as “noontime entertainment” and show business “talk shows” cannot but leave a wilderness of groping-around-Filipinos who barely know what responsible citizenry means or what the heck nationhood stands for.

I can go on for three more pages banging on my keyboard to illustrate what unfettered corruption and generation after generation of suffering from Spiritual Violence have done to transform the meaning of DIGNITY for most Filipinos.

Many, many years ago, like Brig. Gen. Danny Lim, “we” thought we can effect the changes we all believed Filipinos are longing for. Well, as the old saying goes, “mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan.” Simply put? God will not change the condition of men, until they themselves change the condition of their hearts. To change from within.

Let us set aside this call for “greatness,” for now. Let us simply start with basic goodness.

To rally a famished citizenry too busy in trying to survive to put a stop to their Pavlovian existence is futile. As for those who can, just go ahead and do it.

–
Speak your truth kindly, if you must.
Humbly respect other’s truth.
Never compromise your truth.
But always welcome the changes in your Truth.
The only thing permanent is change.
- rsinform