Repressive signals
President Duterte’s threat to UP student ralliers sends repressive signals. Is it only the administration’s bloggers who may invoke Voltaire’s “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?
The youth’s hearts and minds are part of the shaping of Philippine democracy — indeed a very human journey of both faith and doubt. But, as Wilson Mizner once said, “I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.”
One hopes that even now that we have made some progress from a state of democracy which Aristotle observed as “… a government from the hands of men of low birth, no property and vulgar employments.”
On a lighter vein, for there is wisdom in occasionally laughing at ourselves, we could enjoy the humor of Logan Pearsall Smith: “The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.”
Youthful vitality might be flawed, but a society transforming itself needs it: “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” (Aphorism). May I paraphrase J.B. Priestley as a last sobering thought: “Like its politicians, and its war, so society has the youth it deserves.”
VIRGINIA CALPOTURA, RSCJ
