When I read the latest report of how the Equity Bill for Filipino Veterans was "dead in the water," I could not help feel the pain and frustration of old men and women who fell for the line that serving a foreign master was equivalent to serving one's motherland. At one point, I would have felt anger at America. Today, I feel only pity for those who cannot yet shake off a false reality that the land of milk and honey can often be more rhetoric than real.
There is no doubt that the United States of America has been a world leader in promoting a political system called democracy. Its current multi-ethnic population, which will become even more so as minorities increase in number while Caucasian Americans decrease, offers the United States a rare and radical opportunity to lead the world further away from racism to true colorblindness. Being colorblind means a great convergence not only of blood and skin, but of cultures and ideas that cannot happen in a society bent on in-breeding.
Turning from being racist to being libertarian, however, is not done by passage of law but through a transcendence of human patterns toward their higher potential. The process is not only long, which it has to be for total assimilation in several dimensions, but also quite painful to the once dominant. Racism in different hues has remained active in human history because societal structures were built around it and governed from one era to another. It is only in modern times when a few societies gingerly stepped into an unknown territory called equality, liberty and fraternity — stumbling every step of the way.
Societies struggle still, with very few showing great success but with many more in rigid resistance. As Western European countries slowly tear down walls of division between one another, ethnic cleansing continues to smear humanity in several countries in Africa and the Middle East. The spectrum of human behavior is a shocking reality as the best and the worst collide in a globe that is definitely growing smaller, once imagined as limitless and now sometimes seen as a mere village in a vast universe.
Filipinos are caught up in the drama of change as they try to shed their colonial past and the destructive consequences that befall a long conquered people. Facing massive poverty that is more inherited than created, facing exploitation by the powerful, which was once the norm of colonial masters, and facing a constant threat of violence from armed conflict between government forces and rebels from the Left and Moroland, millions of Filipinos turn to the rest of the world for the opportunity lacking at home. And they find it.
The harsh truth is that massive poverty continues for the bottom third of the population and hunger still stalks millions of poor Filipinos. This is a social anomaly that scoffs at false claims of religious fidelity, whether Christian or Muslim. The kind of poverty that shames our society and religions must be confronted as a primary challenge to government and NGOs, not as a "by the way" concern.
At the same time, individual initiatives of the more determined among less-poor Filipinos to stake family separation for a chance of a better future for the next generation are making their own impact here and abroad. Foreign currency remittances amounting to $14 billion a year go straight to households that otherwise would be much poorer and more frustrated. Beyond the money from abroad that they send, overseas Filipino workers bring a new outlook, new influences from foreign cultures, new ways of looking at the same old things. All these slowly but surely lift the common consciousness to paths yet untraveled. Many social scientists will have a field day reading, monitoring and interpreting the evolution of a new Filipino mindset.
Which is why I wonder out loud why many first-generation Filipino-Americans who have been passionately pushing for the Equity Bill for Filipino veterans of World War II have the hardest of time in discarding the illusion of a compassionate colonial master that remembers with affection the loyalty and sacrifices of former subjects. How many years will it take for the United States to remember, recognize and compensate if it wants to? It does not want to, and it is so humiliating to keep pushing the fate of dying veterans to those who do not view them as equals.
The shame of poverty and corruption is aggravated by the shame of mendicancy. In the Philippines are productive citizens and natural resources of immeasurable value despite the abject poverty of millions. In the United States are Filipino-Americans numbering in the millions who spend not less than $50 billion annually. How much is being begged from the US Congress for our remaining and dying Filipino war veterans? If we cannot take care of them as a people of one motherland, why should we expect the United States to be more caring?
To build our nation is first to build our character. Our leaders in government, business, religions, the academe and civil society have the responsibility of being role models to a people transitioning from the colonial times to a period of opportunity for independence. Abdication or ineffective application of that responsibility is damaging to a people's growth, but it is not the final excuse of not growing. Though difficult, the evolution of higher consciousness and ethics ultimately redounds to the individual Filipino.
Filipinos must grow even if their formal leaders do not show them the proper way. In our midst is not only an abundance of neighbors and friends who have enough character to be good models but a whole generation of young, idealistic Filipinos who are raring to make their mark in every society where there are Filipinos. A global Filipino generation is born and its growing number will yet give its idealism and nobility the force required for meaningful and sustainable change.
In each of us, in the generation of our children, is the answer to our dreams. We must look to ourselves and to our youth to win finally the battle for a future full of hope.
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Responses may be sent to jlmglimpses@gmail.com.
