Cusp of greatness

(conclusion)

We are capable of heroic imagination, we are capable of heroic action. We have shown it, we have done it. Our only problem is sustaining it. We blaze forth in one flash of time only to stumble in darkness afterward. We rise to brilliance in one blink of time only to plunge into interminable mediocrity afterward. Whatever the reasons, and they are legion, we have shown ourselves to be so full of promise but so lacking in fulfillment. We have been called a country with an unfinished revolution, and it is only too true. Whatever the reason, whether it’s the intrusion of a foreign power or the implosion of what James Fallows called a “damaged culture,” we’ve found ourselves faced again and again with an aborted revolution.

Can we change things? Can we change our fate? Can we change ourselves?

I look at what’s happening today, and I find myself revising my questions. I find myself asking instead: Why haven’t we done so already?

The ingredients for transcending ourselves and sustaining it are there, if we only have the wits to see them, if we only have the will to harness them.

Not least is the spirit of voluntarism that has arisen over the years. That is the spirit Filipinos showed when they flocked to P-Noy, a candidate who came from out of nowhere, brandishing good against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s evil, and volunteered their time and their talent, without pay and without hesitation, to his cause. That is the spirit the voters showed when they trooped to the precincts and waited in long lines under a raging sun, the way they had done in Cory’s wake, the way they had done in Marcos’ and Erap’s wakefulness, proving that 2010 was really an Edsa masquerading as an election.

That is the spirit Filipinos showed in Tropical Storm “Ondoy” and Typhoon “Sendong,” bursting out of their homes and their shelters, their comfort and their smugness, to help those who had lost theirs. The istambays, the movie stars, the musicians, the students, the civic groups, the media, the ordinary citizens, they came out without thought of pay or reward, without thought of glory or recognition, feeling the pain of others as their own, feeling only a sense of bayanihan, feeling only a sense of malasakit.

That is the spirit we see in Gawad Kalinga.

In a sense, all this is still People Power, yoked now not to the service of ousting a tyrant but to building a nation, Yoked now not to ending the regimes of those who have oppressed us bitterly but to ending the reign of the things that continue to grind us to heel mercilessly.

Just as well, and from the other end of things, there is a government capable of matching the people’s heroism with a heroism of its own, capable of mirroring the people’s heroism with a heroism its own. This is a government that is determined to push corruption to the sea, that is driven to drive corruption to the ends of the earth. A resolve it has just demonstrated by getting rid of the one obstacle that stood in the way of Arroyo’s prosecution, the former chief justice, Renato Corona. That the impeachment court’s verdict of guilty has been met by near-universal jubilation here as much as back home—I saw a footage on TV of a group of Fil-Ams toasting to the verdict—must say that we all want the same things, that we can come together on the same things.

The corrupt of course have criticized P-Noy for concentrating too much on fighting corruption thereby forgetting fighting poverty. As though the two things are separate, as though the two things are opposed. When fighting corruption is in fact fighting poverty, when fighting poverty is in fact fighting corruption. When corruption in fact is the one thing that keeps us separate and divisive. When corruption in fact is the one thing that keeps us from contributing our talents to king and country. When corruption is the one thing that makes us ask, “Why in hell should I want to have anything to do with a country whose leaders want to rip me off?”

Corruption kills. Corruption does not deplete, it kills. Corruption does not weaken, it kills. Corruption does not diminish, it kills. It kills the body, it kills the soul.

Corruption is the books and pencils and pad paper that are taken away from the kid who scavenges in the mountain of trash in Payatas but goes to elementary school on the side. Corruption is the roof over the heads of the family that broods and breeds in squalor underneath bridges or beside esteros, risking the fury of “Ondoy” and “Sendong,” that is taken away from them. Corruption is the doctor or nurse or medical student in some improvised clinic in the wilds of Aparri or the desolation of Sulu, who is taken away from the sick and dying. Corruption is the morsel of food from the leavings of Jollibee and McDonald’s  snatched away from the mouth of the hungry. Corruption is the child sleeping on the street, dead to the world, deader to pain and hunger, his frail brain roiling in the fumes of rugby and cough syrup.

Corruption kills. It’s time we ended that plague in our country, which is exactly what P-Noy’s administration is ferociously, relentlessly, heroically trying to do.

We can do worse than to yoke ourselves to that cause. Who knows? The world used to look at us and say, “There but for the grace of God goes the Filipino.” Maybe with this new opportunity, we can start to finish the unfinished revolution we began long ago. Maybe with this fresh start, we can climb to the cusp of greatness and not tumble back down like Jack and Jill. Maybe with a little help from heaven and a lot more faith in ourselves, we can finally say:

There and with the grace of God goes the Filipino.