THE LEGAL FRONT
Trust, the tie between the people and their chosen representatives, is strengthened when the latter reciprocate by working for the people’s care and welfare. The people further fortify this bond when they manifest their appreciation – by thoughts, words or deeds – resulting in an ever-stronger circular chain of actions, reactions, and interactions, and in a stable and harmonious society. This, in brief, is the dream that must be kept in our minds as a people – a nation ever in motion, with every segment exerting cooperative efforts and moving forward together to the realization of their shared goals.
Short of the delivery of actual tangible results, a government must at least send the people indicators that will nurture hope in their hearts and minds that the trust they bestowed would fruitfully and productively be returned. Only time and continuing efforts bring promises and expectations to full fruition; in the meanwhile, the government must provide hope and keep this anticipation alive.
I heartily welcomed three of the President’s major announcements since he assumed office; the effects of these directives will neither be immediately felt nor seen, but would nevertheless keep people’s hopes for their future alive.
First of these is his repeatedly-made calls for unity, an elusive trait we have only known off and on in our history. Far too many disruptions have intervened in our past, leaving us divided or at least with a sense of being divided. Perhaps, the sense of disunity has been ingrained in us because we are a nation composed of many islands, independently operating from one another before colonization came and even after. We are past that stage and must now banner our unity for everyone to see.
The President’s unity calls reveal his intent to embrace everyone without looking back to what sad developments might have or had happened in the past. To move forward, we badly need this all-embracing approach to signal our desire. Divided, we stand little chance of success in achieving our goals, and may only be eaten up by the vicious world outside. Unity is thus a must for us if we are to achieve our aims; remove this element and we could fall into the abyss of in-fighting, disarray, and confusion.
I was elated, too, by the President’s continuing decision to personally handle the agriculture portfolio. We are an essentially agricultural country whose survival and continuity, for now, may depend on agriculture and its development; self-produced food and food security occupy preferred places in our hierarchy of needs; our people, if hungry, cannot be expected to succeed in their efforts to be productive. The President cannot therefore be wrong in deciding to take a direct hand in handling agriculture.
I listened with rising hopes to the announcement that Vice President Sara Duterte will handle the education portfolio. This decision shows our leadership’s uncompromising interest in our future – on how the nation will prepare itself, particularly, its youth, to meet the challenges of the coming days. To provide for our future, we – a small nation – will need to innovate and use every available resource to attain the needed edge to successfully compete in our increasingly complicated and competitive world.
New and imaginative approaches – such as the use of technology (now at the level of Artificial Intelligence) – do not simply bubble out of blue waters nor fall from clear skies. They do not materialize without starting triggers founded on knowledge, experience, and ideas drawn from the minds of people who want to rise above their lot. These are lessons of history we must take to heart.
Education is a must as it distills from people’s minds the ideas they need and can put to good use: the knowledge and lessons drawn from the past; the awareness of current needs and the remedial actions called for; and the yearning to improve themselves as individuals and as a nation. Without these, people would simply coast along, as had happened in times past, and remain hewers of wood and drawers of water for others. We need now to seriously take an inward look, and refuse to accept the recurrence of past bitter lessons.
A good examplar for us to examine is the development of Israel, a small nation now enjoying military and economic prowess disproportionate to its land size. Israel did not start with advantages stacked up in its favor. Nor did it attain its present technological reach while in the dark age of ignorance.
It painstakingly struggled uphill as one people to fertilize its deserts and to defend itself against those who want to blot it out of existence. It pushed its people’s potential for learning through education, and utilized all these to support the re-structuring of its economy and, thereafter, to advance technologically and militarily to guard against existential threats. This is the approach and the kind of thinking we can use in our own quest for a place in the present world.
To achieve these results under our present circumstances, we need catalysts that would speed up our development. Our best catalytic agent, unless something novel and more effective turns up, is education – the purposive cultivation of our people’s minds and abilities to give them the skills to compete and the will to reach new heights, for themselves and for the nation. With our present leadership showing the way and with the kind of determination it has shown, it is now our turn – as a people – to respond in kind and do what we must, to match our leadership’s efforts and aspirations. We must support and encourage one another and keep our hopes alive. ([email protected])