Last week in San Diego, California, I witnessed a Filipino patriot share his personal perspective of what can make the motherland find hope, progressive change and honor. Alex Lacson, author of the best-selling "Twelve Little Things A Filipino Can Do To Help His Country," stood before community leaders of the county of San Diego that boasts of a 300,000 population of Filipino-Americans. He stood proud and determined, humbly accepting of the sorry state of our nation but committed to a life journey to do his share, and more, in inspiring a people towards their destiny.
Alex spoke of a present challenge that would determine our future. While Filipino newspapers scream with a reality of corruption that reflects the eroded state of a nation's morality, Alex spoke of another truth, not to deflect an ugliness of leadership, but to show that its opposite is possible. In a season that is turning more political by the day in anticipation of a presidential election in May 2010, the thoughts of Filipinos converge in possible replacements of who must be the most unpopular president in Philippine history. Leadership has been pinpointed as the single biggest reason for the decline of s people's morality and national values. Alex had to talk about it, unpleasant as it may seem.
But before Alex spoke, his book already spoke for him. "Twelve Little Things .." is not about leadership, it is about citizenship, the kind that builds a nation, that kind that will prepare a people for the future they deserve. While many today highlight good governance, few realize that good citizenship is the stage that ensures righteous leadership. The people must look for good leaders for good leaders emerge only if enough citizens make the effort to ask and look for them. Alex speaks of the need for good leaders and the dramatic change that will happen when a new president will appoint only good people to the 2,000 highest appointive positions in the land. He does so because he first dedicated his life to promoting good citizenship as the foundation of a healthy society.
By addressing all Filipinos — meaning that he addresses most of all the most ordinary, the poor who comprise the majority of our people — Alex correctly gives value where little or none had been given before. By placing on the citizenry the responsibility of doing his and her share to build our nation, Alex sees the Christian and democratic principle of equal worth and dignity for all, rich and poor alike. It is not mendicancy that Alex promotes among the poor, not dependency on political bosses, but responsibility and accountability for all Filipinos.
To give value to the ordinary citizen is to accept that each has a capacity to help in a special way, and that no one is too big or too small that he or she cannot contribute to nation building. Only a person with a deep sense of equality will push for good citizenship. Others will mouth it, but their insistence on good leadership without the context of good citizenship reveals their inner value system which says the hope is primarily with those who govern and less on the people themselves.
The wise among men know that a weak people attract the most exploitative of leaders. Politicians who promise more are those who are desired by those who also need the most. If we have political leaders who love to make promises, then they see they have constituencies who are largely dependent on them. That is the foundation of patronage politics, the symbiotic relationships of weak citizens and leaders unable to resist corruption.
It is a pleasure witnessing a patriot urging Filipino-Americans to be patriots themselves, assuring them that change is possible and good leaders will be available when the people wish for it to be so. And at no time did Alex induce the audience to turn its ire on erring leaders although their sins have become too many and too big to all be hidden from public view. Instead, Alex pointed to the Christian, constitutional and moral way towards change in leadership and change in governance.
The greater pleasure, though, is witnessing how quickly the audience composed of two generations grasped the message and expressed their agreement. They did not need much explanation. The truth is obvious to all except to those who are guilty, or guilty by association. They know the truth much better than anyone but prefer to pretend innocent until proven guilty. Young and old Filipino-Americans see the poverty, are shamed by the corruption, and seem more ready for change than Filipinos in the homeland. It must be their exposure to an environment that is not perfect but punishes the guilty without undue delay.
After San Diego and his presentation to community leaders there, it was the turn of Alex Lacson to be wowed. He accepted an invitation of Gawad Kalinga to attend a GK Awareness Day at UCLA, an event that began in the School for Public Health, organized by Filipino-American student organizations and mentored by a high-ranking Filipino-American official of the college. Triggered by a desire to engage GK on the health situation of almost two thousand villages built and planned to be built within the year, UCLA’s School of Public Health has found a most ideal partner with communities that can serve as active laboratories for community-based health programs and experimentation.
Most inspiring, though, was a student compliment which oozed with dynamism and a sense of nobility, eager to take on challenges to make a better world. While Filipino-Americans dominated the numbers, many other nationalities had become part of the concerned organizations. Even representatives of other universities came, and those from the University of California, Irvine, or UCI, came as Rotaractors led by the indefatigable and dyed-in-the-wood Rotarian Ernie Delfin. The youth in America, Filipino by blood and their friends who are not, will play an important part in the evolution of the Philippine landscape.
In the air is excitement that impending change brings. I do not know in what form change will unfold, but I anticipate it to be full of drama that accompanies major battles between good and evil. What I do know, though, is that love of country and idealism will sway the tide and the youth will bring the battle of change to inevitable victory.
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