Throughout my life what has always been a dominant concern has been the future of our country and our people. I was deeply involved in the struggles of the martial law period, in the transitions that led to EDSA I, in facing the coups during President Cory's term, as well as in EDSA II in these latter years. But never has our future been to me more threatened. I would thus like to focus this speech on the images that keep recurring to me: images first of a threatened future and some images of hope. The images of a threatened future are in the prayer that more of us will act and join the images of hope. The Founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius Loyola, said that we should as much as possible act out of love, love of God and love of our neighbor. But when love of God and love of neighbor grow weak, fear of hell, he says, is not a bad fallback.
A Lost and Confused Youth
The results of a youth survey, commissioned by the Jesuits and led by Fr. Tito Caluag, as well as the survey of religious beliefs that appeared in a recent issue of the Jesuit magazine, Windhover, are immensely worrying. In an earlier article I wrote:
"The surveys show a youth, ages 7 to 21, that has lost its moorings. In terms of morality and integrity, they have little sense of right and wrong. Only a concern for getting caught or not getting caught. In terms of faith, they do believe in God, but it is a shock to find out that less than 30% indicate belief in an after-life or in the existence of heaven and hell. In terms of Osama bin Laden's critique of the U.S. and the West, we seem to have fallen into the pursuit of the American dream of pleasure and riches as the ultimate goals of life."
I spoke earlier this morning to a group of educators and one of them asked me how we might address the problem that so many of the leaders of government and business, who come from our top schools, do not provide the quality and integrity of leadership we so badly need. I told them that when I speak to faculty and parents what I address is the sad lack of what Scott Peck in the "Road Less Travelled" calls "dedication to truth" and "acceptance of responsibility." We overprotect our children. We try understandably to shield them from pain. To the point of covering up (maybe even lying) for them. I always feel sad when in the face of a serious discipline violation, it is not the student (even in college or professional school), who comes to see me, but his or her parents. By overprotecting them and shielding them from pain, we also prevent them from learning and growing up -- for pain is central to learning and to growth. In any case, we are faced today with a lost and confused youth.
An Angry and Alienated Poor
Many of us continue to be haunted by the faces of the poor attacking Malacanang last May 1, 2001. The faces are of anger, desperation, alienation. The anger did not end with May 1. We have groups at Ateneo who were working on the election process last May, to help us understand how the poor make their electoral decisions. They could not go back to their urban poor places. The poor were still very angry with the Church and with many of us. They kept reminding me of the poem of Edwin Markham "The Man with a Hoe", based on the painting of Millet of the alienated poor in peasant France. Some of the older ones here must remember those lines, favorites at one time in declamation pieces:
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
?Whose breath blew out the light within
this brain?
?. O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is-
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
We survived the challenge of May 1. We may not be so lucky next time. For have you ever asked yourself where the families of the soldiers facing the rioting poor live? They live in the same urban poor places. One of these days they may choose not to stand up to the rampaging mob. Who will protect you and me then? We often criticize the military and the police for being involved with druglords, jueteng lords, and the underworld. But have we ever asked where the families of the policemen live? They live, many of them anyway, in urban poor areas. And when their child gets sick or they lack tuition for school, who can they turn to for help in their areas? Those who have money to give or to lend and, in many cases, these may be the druglords or jueteng lords.
The Crisis in our National Soul
At the same time, we find the enemy within our walls. Perhaps the single most immediate threat is drugs and narco-politics. Drugs, mostly from China, are flooding the country. In a talk I listened to with the Management Association of the Philippines many months ago, Secretary Golez said that drugs are the biggest threat to our national security. With them come international and national crime syndicates, Triads, Yakuza, etc., linked with allies from military and police. We are told that several mayors were elected last May through drug money. And that they are aiming to win even more political positions in the elections of 2004 -- with huge financing from drug money. Already over 2 million Filipinos are addicted, mostly among the young. Political leaders, military and police leaders, businessmen, the youth are being swallowed into this underworld. They are caught not necessarily in the addiction of drugs, but in dependence on the money coming from drugs.
A Wayward Immune System
One way of characterizing our situation is that we have lost a sense of direction and a sense of boundaries, boundaries in the sense of right and wrong, enemy and friend, good and evil. The youth surveys show that clearly about our youth. But a brief recall of the drug menace, of what is going on in the senate and other branches of government and in business as well shows that this loss of direction and loss of a sense of boundaries is in the country as a whole. A sense of right and wrong has been replaced by expediency or convenience or what makes one feel better.
Dr. Alran Bengzon has a comparison, which perhaps highlights the seriousness of our situation. Comparing the body national to a human body, he says that we are like a body whose immune system is no longer functioning or is functioning abnormally. In a human body, that means that the body no longer knows what is friend or foe, accepts deadly viruses, attacks its own tissues, rejects friendly anti-bodies. One may compare the drug menace with its temptation of money and pleasure with the AIDS virus attack on the T-cells of our immune system, disarming our capability to stand up and fight for our future and our youth. Like the AIDS victim we are vulnerable then to all dangers and diseases.
A lost and confused youth, an angry and alienated poor, the growing power and influence of international drug and crime syndicates. These are my nightmares of our threatened future.
SIGNS OF HOPE
Yet there are signs of hope, if we have eyes to see and hearts to listen.
A Youth that yearns for God
I have been meeting with the religion teachers in our Ateneo High School. They were feeling great difficulty and stress in their teaching of our high school boys. When we zeroed in on their difficulty and stress, one of them remarked, "The problem is that we have a definite content and syllabus to follow, but our boys have different questions and they do not listen because we cannot respond to their needs and questions." So I said, "What do you teach, for example in first year?" They teach salvation history -- Genesis, the call of Abraham, the call of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses and so on. "What are the boys' questions," I continued. They ask, "Did God really talk to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Moses? And, if so, does He still talk to us and call us today? And if He does, how would we know?" So, we said, those are deep and wonderful questions -- the questions of a youth that truly yearns for God -- not just to follow commandments, but to really know and experience God. I have been meditating on a book of Carlo Cardinal Martini, the Jesuit Archbishop of Milan, entitled "Jacob's Dream". It is a recollection that he gave to the youth of Milan and he precisely talks about God's call to Jacob and seeks precisely to answer the same questions. He says, "Yes, God still talks to us and calls us. And this is the way we discern His voice and follow His call."
Many of our youth do long for ideals and do long for God. But we must take time to listen to them.
Responding to the Poor from the depths of the Filipino Soul: From Family and Faith
Last January 5, several Ateneo alumni (and alumnae) in the leadership of the Couples for Christ met with me and other Jesuit leaders of schools to find how we might help them in the education component of their work for the poor. They told us about their foundation, ANCOP Foundation, and their work, particularly at Bagong Silang. How they started with a center and working with the youth. But then they realized that they could not really help the youth unless they worked with the families. Once they started working with the families, they found a special problem with the menfolk. Many of them were into what we might call not-so-savory activities: drug-pushers, members of the akyat-bahay gangs, other crime syndicates. What amazed me is that they actually decided to talk to these rather lost souls and invite them to change their lives. And they were persistent enough so that finally some said, they would give it a try. Then a true moment of grace and inspiration. They invited a playwright and director to spend time with the poor, listening to their kuwentong buhay, getting to know them, and writing a play about them: Bagong Silang. They became the actors and actresses in this play and in the daily practices for 6 weeks, natauhan sila and realized that they did not want to live this kind of life forever. There began deep change -- founded not simply on economics and the desire for a better house or a better job, but on values of family and Filipino spirituality. Of course, the change was neither instantaneous nor miraculous. But the path to change has been made.
I know that there are many other groups engaged in similar efforts. If I have cited the Couples for Christ, it is because I believe that the way they have founded their social commitment and work for the poor in two values shared by all Filipinos rich or poor, family and faith, has allowed them to achieve scale.
In a beautiful article reflecting on his experience of attending a large meeting of the Couples for Christ leadership at the Araneta Coliseum, Jose Montelibano wrote in the January 18 issue of the Inquirer:
The CFC way of life is a journey to our roots, to our identity as Filipinos, to our nature as children of God. That is why their members are fusing the culture of bayanihan and the theology of sharing under the sensitive and watchful guidance of their national council.
The thrust of CFC beyond the spiritual objective of healing and nourishing, personal and familial relationships is decidedly socio-economic in thrust but using methodologies that give more weight to the spirit of sharing rather than profit, the spirit of caring rather than confrontation, the spirit of justice rather than opportunism. In fidelity to their mission of total human liberation, a host of family and social ministries have emerged to become armies of white knights poised to do battle with despair and despondency, with poverty and corruption.
By design or not, CFC will slowly but surely be introducing working models for community development founded on non-negotiable Christian tenets and the heralded traditional Filipino values of the Kartilya.
We left the affair with the lingering sound of a small girl's rendition of the song, "Tagumpay ng Ating Lahi." I am convinced I have seen the future of my dreams."
I would also like to cite the outstanding vision and work of my brother Jesuit and your honorary member, Fr. Pierre Tritz, S.J. Last year, the Ateneo de Manila had the privilege of honoring Fr. Tritz for being single-handedly such a sign of hope for the marginalized youth of our country. You know his work quite well and I do not need to go into it in detail. I was asked to mention, in particular, the project for the Filipino Youth with the PHINMA Group to join the Swiss cement industry to support Fr. Tritz's ERDA-TECH school.
A Spirituality in a time of Leadership and Great Enterprises
To rise to the signs of hope rather than succumb to the signs of despair, we need a spirituality of leadership and great enterprises. I reminded my brother Jesuits in early January, that this has been the spirituality of our founder, St. Ignatius. In the language of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, we have to be ready to combat the forces of Satan and the world. In our day, the forces we must battle are drugs, threats to faith, injustice and poverty, and a world culture that preaches pleasure and riches as the endgoals of life. We need a spirituality that gives us the courage to stand up and fight against these threats.
A Call to Hope and Sharing
I said at the beginning that I hope the images of a threatened future are enough to frighten you to act and join the images of hope and sharing. We need leaders who will embark on great enterprises and live the spirituality demanded by the struggle against the forces of darkness. This is the only way we can prevent the people we love from being swallowed by these forces and allow them to live in hope and, imbued with this hope, to share of what each one has with those who have less. It is this love of our people and our unwavering hope in the victory of the Lord that will sustain us in what may be prolonged and difficult times to come. |