Just a fraternal reminder to VP Binay

What will matter in the end?

Whether you’re ready or not, someday, everything in your world will come to an end. And when it comes, your wealth, whether it comes from honest toil or from kickbacks, will pass to someone else.

Your fame and political power will shrivel into insignificance.

The sprawling Hacienda Binay and everything inside it—the mansion, the piggery, the manmade lagoons, the swimming pool, the antique furniture, the orchidarium, the beautiful garden—will all be for nothing, including the overpriced Makati parking building and the overpriced medical equipment inside the Ospital ng Makati.

It won’t matter whether you are beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender preference and your dark skin will be irrelevant. So, what will matter? How will the values of your days, both as a person and as a politician, be measured?

What will matter is not what you’ve got but what you gave out of your honest labor. What will matter is not your winning elections, nor your success in amassing wealth, nor your gaining fame and glory, but your significance.

What will matter is your honesty and integrity, not the mastery in manipulating the poor of Makati in the guise of altruism. What will matter is your genuine desire to empower the poor, not the keeping them hostage to your self-serving political motives. In other words, what will matter is not your competence but your character.

Living a life that matters is not an accident. It is a choice.

“At the end of time, all the pawns and all the kings that walked the check board of this earth will be placed side by side in the dim dark box of Final Reckoning by the knowing Hand of God. Diplomas are nothing but paper roses that exude no fragrance and will not stand the test of time. It is our deeds that will outlast us and tell all and sundry what we did with our time while we lived. All else is vanity, a fading flower of a dying summer” (Antonio Calipjo Go).

—CARLOS D. ISLES,

carlos_isles@yahoo.com