I have regarded my day-care students as my own children ever since I began serving as a child development worker around the same time Mr. Duterte became president.
Perhaps I was too naive to have hoped that Mr. Duterte, as a father to our nation, would regard all Filipinos as his children, too, instead of killing so many in his pet drug war. I have presided over a few obstreperous children who hurt their classmates and even me, but I never thought of hurting them to correct them.
Like the blind leading the blind, Mr. Duterte preaches the only powers in the universe he chooses to see above all: fear and death. He preached killing as the solution to criminality in a speech to Boy Scouts as young as 6 years old.
Being a teacher and shepherd to the young, I can see that our children’s minds and their very lives are not spared from the consequences of Mr. Duterte’s godless gospel of violence. We have students deeply scarred by the execution of their parents.
Despite my outrage, I pray for our leaders to somehow see God in their countrymen, especially in the children. For whoever welcomes a child, welcomes the Lord. I don’t need a divine selfie to see God, I see Him in my students. Mr. Duterte can still choose to see God in all Filipinos, instead of the millstone.
LEONILA LACANILAO, teacher.nila.2016@gmail.com