To write or not to write, that's the question I'd been dealing with after I got off from over two decades of blood, sweat, and tears in the corporate world. It's not as existential a question as Hamlet's "To be or not to be" since I love writing. But, where would I write? The answer: my blog.
That's the first paragraph of my first article "What's In A Name" of my ATABAY blog I launched six weeks ago. Oddly enough, FB has blocked my blog site URL since I tried to share that first article with my family, relatives, and friends. I could not find any reason for the block because my articles' positive content did not violate any FB community standards. As a matter of fact, in line with the recent technology debacle in US Congress due to a whistle-blower's allegation of FB's profits-over-safety misconduct, my ATABAY blog is a good Exhibit A in defending FB against such allegation.
Sad to say, I likened my URL blocking to preventing Bibles in entering into China years ago that resulted instead to smuggling them. A Christian traveler kept a Bible in a handbag as a personal copy. Some hauled Bibles in backpacks or suitcases across the border using multiple-entry visas. One group used a custom-built submarine barge.
DISCERNMENT FOR
I asked myself what's the use of turning out good articles but having no one to read them. I felt so discouraged that I deemed the blogging path as unpromising and was not meant for me. Each time I face up to any crisis, I will always turn to the Bible for my discernment before I make a crucial decision: to press on or not with my blog. The Bible reading for that day presented me
"[H]e has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power." (1 Thes 1:4-5).
What could be clearer than such a powerful message? I rounded off my article with the lyrics of a song:
'It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away.' Dear Reader, now I know what's behind my words that will take your heart away.
Fired up by the message, I pressed on with my blog by doing the crude copy-paste-post for each of my articles on FB (still doing up to now) in sharing with my friends my inspired pieces of writing. Some friends who had wanted to relish the elegance of my nice-looking blog site while reading my articles have made extra efforts by typing my blog site on their gadgets' address bar. With His inspiration as my fuel in my "labor of love," I've kept going on turning out articles up to this day, hitting the keys of my keyboard now for my next ATABAY blog 17th article.
DISCERNMENT FOR
The Manila Times columnist Antonio Contreras wrote:
Our political parties remain works of fiction, devoid of ideology. And our political anchor remains one of hatred and vengeance ... Politics has become akin to a spectator blood sport. People are not happy in merely winning. They want the other side bludgeoned. They want vengeance, which just sets a vicious cycle of hatred and revenge, the country be damned.
During my NSC years, we met at the CDO airport a humorous colleague from Manila Jim Bau who had a bandage over his one eye.
"Jim, is that a sore eye?" someone asked anxiously.
"Are you people here behind the times even in having sore eyes?" Jim replied smartly.
Though always behind the times, Pinoys may find consolation that the present campaign fracas also happened in the US. One example was during a looming presidential election in 2004, as one journalist wrote:
We have come to expect mudslinging and attack ads, especially during the waning days of presidential campaigns. Two and a quarter centuries of such campaigns have produced mean-spirited personal attacks on candidates, from opponents calling James Madison a pygmy to Southern cartoonists depicting Abraham Lincoln as an ape.
But, one striking contrast sets the US and PH apart. In the US: they had a problem; they found a solution. Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship founder, in his column "Campaign of Hate" sensed, at that time, twin elements fueling the hateful election sorties: 1) an attitude of utter hatred behind the attacks, and 2) a fundamental disregard for the truth. On the other hand, in PH: we still keep on arguing today what's our problem.
PH has a mountain of problems, and here's one root: a buried Truth -- the reckoning of the Marcos Martial Law years. Right after the Marcoses were exiled, a Truth Commission should have been formed and investigated the actual events of that period engaging directly and broadly with the affected population by gathering information on their experiences. Officially authorized by the state under review, truth commissions were resorted to in various countries like Guatemala, Mauritius, and East Timor.
Actress celebrity Toni Gonzaga interviewed recently on YouTube Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on historical revisionism. Consequently, a swarm of fierce debates cropped up in the social media – such public knee-jerk reaction merely depicted Philippine history being in flux on the two opposing views on Marcos Martial Law years: either as a "golden age" or a "pyramid of terror."
Only when a new discerning and healing leader starts digging up for the buried truth using the shovel of the Truth Commission will this lingering divisiveness in our society cease to pester us today and the next generation to come.
What are the qualities of a discerning and healing leader? More than that of a traditional leader, a discerning and healing leader is endowed with spiritual power (not temporal because of his/her election), but because of being simply the kind of person he/she is. He/she can influence others (not by political power forcing others to do what he/she wants) but by his/her mere character and examples. Such spiritual power innately resides (not in his/her elected position that can be wrested away), but in his/her person.
One name, among many, flashes through my mind: Mahatma Gandhi. Never held any government office, he launched the non-violence movement and honored as India's "Father of the Nation." He said:
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner said, "We're at the edge of a cliff ... whoever wins [the 2022 election] will determine ... whether our society can heal."
I hope and pray God will guide us in choosing the new discerning and healing leader of our country.
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