(I was trying to find a material about loyalty and love of country that I might use for a manual that I am writing for a project when I came across this write-up from my old, old journal. And oh my, this is already exactly five years ago this week. I was actually trying to suppress laughing when suddenly I remember trying to submit this essay at a national daily but did not because I didn't know then how to use Mr. Yahoo-mail . Haha. Wow, five years ago was like another dimension. Ah, the boundlessness of my youth! But after reading this again, I was glad I stayed true to my promises. I made the right choices. And since today's a Thursday, here's this throwback :)
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Last week, our school suspended classes for three days in compliance to a CHEd Memorandum that came out with
reasons apparently blamed on the typhoon “Ondoy” which has devastated many parts of
the country, claimed many lives, and displaced thousands.
I took that opportunity to go home to my
hometown in Villasis, Pangasinan, and was fascinated with the thought that it
will be a long break to unwind from all the pressures of school and study. What
I never knew was that it would also be a time to learn some intimidating lessons that I
never thought would strike and disturb me more than the typhoon itself. It was
the kind that profoundly reaffirmed me the cold reality that the world I’m
living in now is no longer the same world I used to know, and that the
convictions I so desperately held on to before have already changed into something
deeper than what I can necessarily comprehend, or even try to understand.
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One time during that weekend, just when
another typhoon, “Pepeng” looms over the Philippine skies, I sluggishly went to
clean up my room as it is a household custom which my folks are very
enthusiastic to expect from me after being away from home for an indefinite
period in the university. I would often do it gladly. Besides, it is not a task
to take grudgingly but is actually a routine of making my room more habitable
and less perilous to live in.
Mopping the floor, getting rid of overgrown
spider webs from the four corners of the ceiling, and checking the jalousies
for damages, evokes a sense of home and warmth of a family, and a feeling of
tangible affection that many people in this world so dreadfully wish to
experience. In a quiet whimper, it made me realize that I am blessed to have a
home, and a room for myself; some people spend stormy days and nights in the
streets, under bridges, in filthy slums, and who-knows-where.
Part of the general clean-up drive was
conscientiously re-organizing and checking my growing collection of books and
other academic possessions for an inventory—a habit that I don’t really enjoy
but came to appreciate later when it allow me to smile at life a bit. Getting
over my past stuffs does nothing really special, but somehow it reminds me of
my outrageous past, including my frustrations, my mistakes, my secret longings,
heartbreaks, and childhood miseries and teenage ramblings and misfortunes. Of
course there were light and happy memories too, like when I finally passed my
college algebra. See, it’s not that special, but it makes one to feel a little
bit human, if only for a moment.
There were just so many stories
preserved in them that inasmuch as I want to discard them, I could not because
it actually pains me to lose something I have learned to value.
As I embark to dig more into some old
and some already forgotten piles of my high school mementos, freebies, and
other stuffs to which I refer to as “ancient possessions”, and that which I
accumulated through the years of probing into existence, I unintentionally
stumbled across an outdated high school Filipino textbook.
It was just an ordinary book that
already is obsolete, and only boasts of being an “antique” material as a measure
of its relevance. I remember acquiring it when I was in grade school when at the
height of the campaign for local elections politicians are forced to do
charitable works and give whatever it is that they would think as a good reason
for the people to vote for them.
Partly exhausted from and partly
satisfied with the day’s almost complete job, I huddled over the floor to scan
the book, whose scent reminds me of the university library, and is reminiscent
of an ancient story I could not anymore remember.
As I flipped through the aged sheets, I
chanced over a familiar page that bears a title of a likewise familiar story.
It is a story about a graduating student torn between the decisions whether to
stay and work in the country after graduation, or work abroad. I was deeply
impressed and saluted the story’s main character when in the end he firmly
defied his father’s wishes, and decided to stay and work in the country.
Impressive, indeed.
At the bottom of the page where the
story ended was a petty question that asks this in tagalong: You’ve just
finished your course. If you will be given a chance to choose where to work,
how will you rank the following? Easy I thought. Though I wasn’t surprised when
I saw that I already provided an answer for it perhaps years ago, I deeply felt
terrible about what I have written.
There were six options provided for the
question. I ranked first the United States because I believed this is where
everybody else would want to go to achieve their wildest dreams; I ranked
Australia as second because I see in televisions and on magazines that it is a
beautiful place to earn a living and spend good time; I chose Singapore as
third because they said it is the cleanest city in Asia and has the most strict
implementations of laws; and finally I chose Hong Kong because it is where most
of Filipinos go and I have some relatives who work there and seem to enjoy life
there, that’s why maybe it is good to follow them and have a family reunion
there sometime.
Why I never ranked Japan is because it
seems to me I could die learning Nihonggo. Why I never chose the Philippines—my
own country—was something my guts could not take in. Would I even dare to
choose it as an option when everywhere else in the world becomes inhospitable?
In a sudden vehemence, intensely and
furiously powerful like typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, the horrible truth stormed
violently and hit home: I am a traitor. I am betraying my country. The
excruciating realization dawned upon me that what I did, and intends to do, was
much more beyond the ravages and damages of the typhoon, and much more
cataclysmic than their devastation that left many cities and provinces in
shambles.
What threatening notion made me to
answer what I have answered? I don’t want to remember. Fortunately, I can take
comfort in knowing that I answered it during a time when my perspectives in
life were still, I should say, immature, when my dreams were just based on the
standards of the world instead of the standard of something sane and noble, and
when my only fear is to fail the expectations of my parents and not the
expectations of my country.
College awakened me to love my country,
and aspire for my country. Which brings me to say I love my course for that
reason. It taught me how to value being a Filipino, and that being a Filipino
is not state of being poor, but a state of being privileged to prove to the
world that despite our condition, we could still be better. It is crazy for
some, but we learn in our discipline that we have the responsibility to give
back something to our country to which we owe so many things.
And I don’t want to be a traitor to my
own country simply for the reason that it’s hopeless to establish a decent life
here. I don’t want to betray my country by looking away from it and go
somewhere else to serve somebody else, or and to solve somebody else’s problems
instead of fixing the problems of my own country. I don’t want to betray my
country just because I’m afraid to take the responsibility to change it and
make it better, or make it a little more humane. If we, the youth of this
nation who are called to be the hope of the Fatherland, give up their ideals in
exchange to a better yet mediocre life abroad, then what will happen? It’s
terrible to imagine that this generation learns that the safest way to achieve
success and get by in life is to give up country and invest time, talent,
effort and dreams in a foreign land.
Not too long from now, I will finally
graduate and receive my coveted diploma. And when the time comes that someone
will give me an option asking where I intend to work, I will only choose the
Philippines—the rest are just some of places for me to visit after I retire
from my work here and have offered that “something” to my country and to God.
They will say it is too ideal, too
corny. And since I can’t think of any other way to expend ideals and spend
life—I intend to be corny, than be a traitor, for the rest my lifetime.
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