As are families, so goes the nation

The 4th World Meeting of Families ended last Sunday with Pope John Paul II addressing the closing ceremonies at Rizal Park via satellite from Rome. Families antedate the Church and the Vatican has always viewed the family as the first form of the Church on earth. The family is the first extension of one’s self. It is the basic cell of humanity. It is also the starting point from which we proceed towards a community to a nation and love for all mankind.

Time was when the greatest influence on every person’s life was, first, his family, second, his school education. This is no longer true today for the biggest influence in the lives of many people today is the values he gets from mass media which are sex and violence. Add to these the great problem of poverty which is the direct cause of our having so many homeless children and we can see how the family is undergoing a great crisis in our times. It is the dollars that they send from abroad that has kept our economy afloat. But, sad to say, working abroad is one of the causes of the breakdown in many families.

We completely agree with William Makepeace Thayer’s observation that "As are families, so is society . . . If well ordered, well instructed, and well governed, they are the springs from which go forth the streams of national greatness and prosperity˜of civil order and public happiness."

Expanding the theme to individual nations and civilization, William Aikman observed: "Civilization varies with the family, and the family with civilization . . . Its highest and most complete realization is found where enlightened Christianity prevails; where woman is exalted to her true and lofty place as equal to with man; where husband and wife are one in honor, influence, and affection, and where children are a common bond of care and love. This is the idea of a perfect family."

One thing we must say about the Filipinos is that their family ties are very strong. When I went to the United States to study way back in 1945, I visited as many Filipino homes as I could. Most of them were homes of Filipino laborers. What touched me most in every home I visited was a picture of a young Filipino or Filipina graduating from high school or college. The house-owner would tell me that the picture was of a younger brother, sister, nephew or niece, whose schooling he had financed in the Philippines. Families sacrifice to send their eldest child to college. To do this, they have to deprive the young children of some things. But when the eldest finishes college and gets a job, he helps his parents send his younger brothers and sisters to school. There is also no doubt that Filipinas are exalted members of the family and this is because in the Filipino legend of the first man and woman, Malakas and Maganda, emerged from a bamboo clum simultaneously. In the Biblical account, Eve came from Adam’s rib, that is why to this day Spaniards introduce their wives as their rib.

The Filipino family is a symbol of unity and strength.