November has two very important celebrations. One is being the Filipino Values Month and second as the National Children's Month. The former is for all of us and the latter is specifically for our young individuals whom we anchor the future of our country.
In a span of three decades, I have witnessed the transformation of children and our young with regards to how they regard their adults. Probably others would share the same observation while others would also have a dissimilar experience.
But before anything else, let me highlight the spirit behind the two celebrations. The first one, the Filipino Values Month, is under Proclamation No. 479 in 1994 under then president Fidel V. Ramos. It is "in response to the need to strengthen the moral resources of the Filipino rooted in Filipino culture, values and ideals that are pro-God, pro-people, pro-country, and pro-nature, and thereby mobilizing all Filipinos for nation-building through the practical exercise of human values in our daily lives as citizens and to awaken us all to the power of these values in achieving our individual and national goals."
Undertaken on the regular basis, such celebration must be a desirable and effective measure to create moral awakening and national consciousness on human values that are unique, genuine and positively Filipino.
On the other hand, just last year was the enactment of Republic Act 10661 or an Act Declaring November of Every Year as a National Children's Month. Such declaration commemorated the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989, and seeks to instill its significance in the Filipino consciousness.
Values are not taught but caught. Our children's values are formed on the basis on how they are being exposed to the society, including their immediate surroundings. Whether good or bad, all these influence on the way they think and behave. The kind of upbringing they have at home, their interactions with the members of the family could very influence in the formation of their personalities.
I can hardly find students who would extend assistance when a teacher has difficulty of bringing a lot of instructional materials to the classroom. And it is equally difficult to find them greeting a teacher as they are preoccupied with what they are doing or just simple oblivious of the basic courtesy. Gone are the days when students would compete each other as to who could first offer assistance to their teachers. Outside their classrooms, they would stand up and greet their teachers with utmost respect.
In today's society where academic achievement and performance is at prominence, the importance of character building has been underemphasized. We are more engrossed in finding out our children's academic performance than imbuing them with positive values. And so there is an imperative need of shifting the paradigm of acknowledging achievements more than valuing characters.
Values are not taught but caught. Children don't learn the values that make up good character simply by being told about them. They learn instead through observing and then emulating what other people are doing and acting out around them. And so parents and other adults would set good examples and provide positive environment where love, respect, understanding and other constructive values abound.
One cannot simply be blinded by the significant erosion of the value of respect and care for each other, the sense of community we had, the community which cares for its children. More and more people are self-centered individuals rather than community minded and are not prepared to share the pleasure of bringing up children.
Giving importance to our children speaks of our high regard of the future. Valuing them like precious gems means laying down the foundation of their character and their future. They need to have a strong foundation grounded on good values and their pride of the Filipino identity, which they can use whenever and wherever they are.