#MINDANAO
John Tria
Recent years have turned our mobile devices into toxic rant platforms, with social networks overflowing with opinions and rants over many issues and inconveniences. In light of our common challenges, do we need to talk more about these rants, or should we discuss more solutions?
It is often easy to give in to the need to comment, to rant for its own sake, often negatively, and in many ways just to gain attention. Likewise strong is the tendency to share information from doubtful sources to shock and awe our friends with the fear and anxiety it can spur within us, them, and the many others with which these are shared. We have seen enough online scams and misleading posts.
Herein we pose a question. Are these tendencies and behavior helpful? Do such behaviors build relationships and community with others? Is it worth continuing and spreading? Moreover, is the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression a mere state of being to enjoy and end in itself, a license to misinform or mislead, or is it a means to communicate sentiment, ideas and more importantly, solutions?
This is something to think about.
We cannot deny that in the face of our many challenges i wrote about in previous articles (https://mb.com.ph/2022/05/09/challenges/) communication and collaboration to form solutions and implement them will be necessary moving forward.
We will have to accept that ideas and solutions in the new normal will demand our collective participation, as we share our experience and knowledge. Being from Mindanao, our diversity and varying perspectives and experiences serve as a productive well from which these ideas can spring. This will help us forge the way forward.
Yes, this may sound trite or repetitively corny, but whether we like it or not, collaboration in search of common solutions to shared problems is the enduring reality of our human history. How well this is achieved will depend on how mature we are to communicate, collaborate and use these freedoms to proactively create and implement solutions.
Mindanaoans in the Senate
Returning Mindanawon Senator Migz Zubiri and newly elected Raffy Tulfo join Senators Koko Pimentel, Bong Go and Ronald de la Rosa as the Mindanao five in the Senate.
Number one senator Robin Padilla also has a strong heart for Mindanao. I am sure other senators not born and raised on the island have a heart to push Mindanao’s growth. There are also new mayors in major Mindanao cities.
We look forward to engaging the new leaders and senators to develop economic and investment promotion programs to create opportunities for their constituents.
We wish these gentlemen and other senators all the best in crafting legislation and perhaps reviewing the implementation of previously passed reform legislation for the country as it faces great challenges in the new normal. This will be a crucial time to determine, quickly what adaptations will be needed to help us recover and build resilience. This is a time for further collaboration to find solutions.
Specifically, it will be necessary to look at measures to manage and overcome economic and social disruptions and further boost financial and economic inclusion in light of recent impressive growth in 2021 in all regions as well as the 8.3 percent growth in the first quarter. More on these in next articles.