How free are we?

The celebration of freedom must not only be about the commemoration of our heroes’ gallantry and our people’s victory. It should also be a way to scrutinize the difference between now and then.

By name, we are a free country. On account of the Constitution, our leaders are elected through a simple democratic process and we, the citizenry, enjoy basic rights. But are these enough for us to be deemed truly free?

Basically, being free means not being under the power of anyone. But freedom is fully achieved not only through one’s enjoyment of his rights as a human being and as a citizen, but also through the elimination of social and political ills that hamper the enjoyment of such rights.

We claim to be free, but the taxes we pay are being pocketed by rapacious bureaucrats and politicians.

We claim to be free even though many of us go hungry while the wealth of the nation goes to the hands of a few.

We claim to be free despite powerless ethnic groups being driven from their ancestral domains to facilitate the entry of big businesses.

It appears nothing has changed much. We are still under the same old bondage.

IAN CARLO L. ARAGON, iancarloaragon@gmail.com