Musings from a Filipino grandfather

It is another warm summer morning in the city and I am listening to nostalgic, sentimental songs that melt the heart.

It is time for me to write my weekly column, a few days ahead of its Friday posting. I need gentle and love-filled music to soothe my disturbed spirit.

My attention has been so riveted on the grave concerns of most Filipino families who are poor and/or afraid-to-be-poor-again. Poverty now includes the emerging learning poverty. There is disinformation, as massive as it is funded. There springs the thought of what will happen beyond my lifetime, what I and my generation will leave behind for the generations after us.

I cannot help but recall the legacy my parents were building from the time I was born until they, too, reunited with their ancestors. I remember the stories of a world war that I was fortunate to not have experienced. Those stories were full of extreme difficulty for those actively resisting Japanese occupation. They were told with tears for those who died along the way, from illnesses or from bloodshed fighting the invaders.

Yet, when the stories were told, the pain and bitterness were far outweighed by the pride of Filipinos who chose to fight rather than surrender, by the nobility of sacrifice rather than safety and convenience by collaboration. The stories clearly spoke of honor, heroism, bayanihan, and had little regard to commerce and wealth. Food and water were the most important and critical of commodities.

Born when victory from Japanese rule was still very fresh, there was a wave of grateful energy in the air, a celebration of the highest virtues and values deeply embedded in our history and tradition. Freedom was the cause that made everything worth it.

Political independence followed right away, just a year after a victorious war. That independence was just not from Japanese occupation, it was independence for the first time since Spanish colonization 400 years earlier. Freedom and independence were powerful blessings that gave an impetus for a massive rehabilitation of a heavily damaged country. In this atmosphere, I grew up a proud and grateful Filipino.

I cannot disguise the joy of boyhood as a great and lingering facet of my life. I cannot forget the blessings of nature, the trees, rivers, mountains, sea shores, the fish, the fruits, the chickens, and the vegetables that grew everywhere. Because I was in the midst of these natural blessings and a proud history behind me, I felt all was possible. And I believed that what gave me pride and gratitude should be enhanced and extended to those who will follow my generation.

In my college years, however, I was being made aware of certain realities that had never entered my earlier attention span or interests. From the province to the metropolis before it became officially Metro Manila, I was not really awed by its magnificence except for the greater availability of consumer goods. Instead, I experienced vehicular traffic at a level I never imagined. And a fast-paced life that upset my traditional daily balance. I noticed, too, that political activism created a lot of noise and controversy although I did not participate.

Martial law, however, was my most radical experience. It shattered everything that I had always taken for granted. Rules were changed, rules that were part of our daily grind, our ABCs of societal life. My experience of martial law was nowhere as dire as others whom I learned of, and I later met some of the affected personalities themselves. We lost our taken-for-granted freedom, safety, reliability and I learned to live in compromise to regulations I did not believe in.

I had an awakening of sorts when my safety and reliable bubble burst. That awakening did not stop because I discovered that I was truly in a bubble, beautiful and privileged but a bubble nonetheless. 50 years later, I am still discovering.

By far, the saddest discovery about Philippine society has been about poverty and hunger. In my bubble, that did not seem to exist, or it existed in the background that I could not appreciate. Blessings and privilege tend to be like rosy sunglasses that block the glare of ugliness. Since I was exposed to the reality of poverty and hunger, nothing has disturbed me more.

On the other hand, I had a great blessing as well, a joy that has sustained my spirit even at the lowest of ebbs. I discovered our people, I discovered our motherland. I was always there with them, but I did not know them. I journeyed through our past as much as I could with the guidance of mentors much more expert about our history, our cultural evolution, our wonderful spirit and the values it evoked in us. I was shown the richness of our land and seas, extraordinary biodiversity, wealth we cannot imagine because we can imagine only wealth from money.

In my life, then, of discovering the best and the worst in us, I have had to reconcile contrasting realities. I have had to calibrate my understanding of the potential and of the actual – and present trajectories. Even viewing from the silence of my mind, I feel the pressure from opposing polarities. Where can my life as a senior find deeper purpose in this flux of national tension?

I can only accept what is happening now, the quality of societal life today with all of its contradictions, frustrations, and what is left of its aspirations. I am overwhelmed as I note the descending trajectory of an educational system unable to induce intuitively intelligent people into actualizing their inborn talent; worse, how to not make them throw it away. I clearly see quality surrendering to quantity – the consequence of a contrived populism driven by trolls and disinformation.

If we really want, answers will not be difficult to find. But can we find the desire and discipline to embrace and apply them?