Today is the first day of December!
There is so much hope, so much faith placed by Filipinos for this month. It marks another celebration, the most important for our country- the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. His coming is a happy reminder about the greatest love that God the Father bestowed upon humankind - giving up His only Son Jesus Christ to redeem everyone else on this earth- to reconcile all and be reunited with God forever.
The happy songs, the bright glitter and decorations all point to a very festive mood all throughout. Just like the happy news of a 7.1 economic growth, a stronger peso, higher rankings for the Philippines along certain international business and investment lists, the real essence of Christmas and economic growth has to enter the homes of every Filipino and has to be experienced, especially by the most needy who have been around for many countless seasons.
The high business confidence has to turn inward- create stable and sufficient-paying jobs for our unemployed. Economic growth also should not be at the expense of losing our natural resources and should not be at all at the expense of peddling our laborers for cheap wages.
Good, transparent governance, that is one of the factors for this present growth, should be sustained and most importantly, internalized by good Filipinos who sincerely want to see this country turn around for good and for God.
There was never any doubt among those who sincerely love and offer their service for God and for Filipinos that we have what it takes to make the lives of our people better, with our own resources, through our own collective efforts.
One major step to take, and one which has long been suggested, is to look inward – to work on what we have, together and not to overly depend on outside, external trade and investments.
Short of sounding like a broken record, our indigenous peoples have survived centuries with their simple yet autonomous, independent way of life. Their continuing lives of simplicity and adequacy can teach us precious lessons we have completely continued to ignore for centuries.
For example, rather than spend our limited funds uselessly to collect and transport garbage in grand, expensive trucks to very expensive and wasteful landfills, why not install a more labor-intensive way of segregating and more effectively managing the waste, hence using the waste dividend for job creation, product development, and alternative and productive land use of hectares now used wastefully by garbage?
So much idle lands, in schools, in offices, in churches, in the streets can be converted to key food areas. Food security must be our first priority. No Filipino should ever be hungry at all, what with the abundant land and resources all over. Water, water all around us yet safe water availability remains to be prioritized by officials.
Sharing, not selfishness, not crab mentality also need to be internalized, especially among the present elites in this country.
Inequality, both local and global, has and remains the root of all evil, the root of so much hunger, unemployment, homelessness, despair and more negatives in our country and throughout our world.
December and Christ’s birth are here again to remind us all to ask if we had lived our lives to make the rest of the days and years ahead brighter for ourselves and for everyone else?
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Email: cherryb_thefreeman@yahoo.com