ROY: Let’s see how [Larry Gadon] serves the “poor”
who have less in “law.”
ME: Hi Roy! Thank you, for your comment.
It begs the question: Could he?
Excerpt of the Supreme Court ruling on his disbarment:
“The privilege to practice law is bestowed only upon individuals who are
competent intellectually, academically, and equally important, morally.”
Implication: Being disbarred is tantamount to being
deemed devoid of such essential qualities – he is intellectually, academically,
and morally incompetent.
Your comment is so thought-provoking that it has
stirred me up lately to maybe draw on it my next article.
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Hence, the reason why I write about this article. The
above exchange is between reader and collegemate Roy and myself on my previous ATABAY
article The Picture That Mocks The Poor And The Law. The whole shebang
of the issue was candidly spelled out by Philstar Ana Marie Pamintuan in
her column Payback time:
“With 100 million Filipinos, people asked: wala na
bang iba? Isn’t there anyone else?
“Clearly, appreciations of character, like truth, are
relative under Marcos 2.0.
“In other countries, someone disbarred, and over such
offenses, would have been relegated to the dustbin of ignominy.”
In her characteristic gutsy form, “Mareng Winnie”
Monsod was unflinching in calling a spade a spade: “What does Larry Gadon know
about poverty alleviation? For God’s sake!”
But, putting aside the brashness of payback time,
disbarment, and incompetence, let’s give Gadon the benefit of the doubt, er, a “second
chance,” as Roy hinted. Does he possess the “right stuff” to serve the poor
sector of our society through poverty alleviation?
Let me share my personal experience that may shed
light on the essence of the so-called “right stuff” which I wrote in my previous
ATABAY article that I am excerpting below:
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It was a different kind of weekend than I experienced in our Gawad Kalinga work with the poor by our community Couples for Christ (CFC) many years ago.
I told my wife
that particular morning to just stay home because our mission site was known to
be rebel-infested and we were notified by the local authorities to leave the
area before dark.
Our group mostly men, with only a handful of female doctors
in our medical team, rode in a dump truck loaded with our construction
materials and tools paid up by CFC members ourselves through voluntary
financial contributions. We made our way over a few kilometers stretch of a
rugged road leading to the site. When we got there, we were a little bit
surprised because the cluster of dilapidated houses in varying stages of
disrepair looked abandoned. We saw no one around.
All of a sudden, an elderly man appeared and talked to
our mission head. We got to know that our Muslim brethren had gotten inside
their houses when we arrived. They might have been caught napping, figuratively
speaking, when our group appeared all at once. We could be the only people,
more so Christians, they ever faced that would do some repair works in their
houses at no cost.
One by one, people started to come out of their houses
when our medical team set things moving with their stethoscopes. In like
manner, the noise of hammers, saws, and brooms resounded around the neighborhood
from our carpentry, painting, and cleaning teams going all out with their
respective repair jobs. Racing against time before sundown, we got our hands
full all day long immersed in all types of repairs.
After listening with a stethoscope to heartbeats on
the final chest, after hammering the last nail, painting the last coat, and
sealing all the roof leaks, we stacked up our tools, gadgets, and accessories,
and without any closing fanfare for our job well done, we cleared the area just
right before the dreaded nightfall as a precaution for security reason.
What’s it all about?
A heart-stirring question, indeed, that reminds me of this song:
What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it’s wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule?
As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie
I know there’s something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in
I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love, we just exist
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing,
Alfie
When you walk let your heart lead the way
And you’ll find love any day, Alfie.
Mark Twain said, “Kindness is a language which the
deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Though the most underrated agent of human
change, “a single act of kindness,” Amelia Earhart said, “throws out roots in
all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.” Would it still
surprise one to hear somebody, a non-believer of Jesus, from that mission site
who would later wonder, “Who is that Christ?” Printed on with “Couples for
Christ” and its logo, our T-shirts, surely, did catch his eye.
What’s it all about?
My description for it – empathy – the “right stuff.”
“How can a heart understand the pain of another heart and still do nothing?”
One writer asked -- an impassioned question that spelled out the cause-and-effect
relationship between empathy and kindness.
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My son, James, who took everyone by surprise – family, relatives, and friends – a few years ago by suddenly leaving off his promising medical career and joining in the Jesuit priesthood, has kept us posted lately on his month-long mission trip. Through a non-governmental organization, his community provided all sorts of services for the needs of indigenous people: water, livelihood, leadership formation, and education, among many others.
What’s it all about?
St. Ignatius of Loyola SJ, whose life, like St.
Francis, was a quite literal imitation of Christ, wrote the key to the answer:
“So great is the poor in the sight of God that it was especially for them that
Jesus Christ was sent into the world… Friendship with the poor makes us friends
of the eternal King… Let me just say this, whoever loves poverty should be glad
to be poor; glad to be hungry, to be badly clothed, to lie on a hard bed. For
if someone loved poverty but avoids penury, following poverty only from afar,
is that not to be comfortably poor? Surely that is to love the reputation
rather than the reality of poverty; to love poverty in word but not in deed.”
To those partaking in “friendship with the poor,” such
a “friendship” didn’t just touch them at some moment in time out of the blue. It
is a crowning glory of an experience of a spiritual conversion which John Stott
painted profoundly in a word picture as “Opening the door (of one’s personal
life) to Christ.”
Stott says, “This step is the beginning and nothing
else will do instead. You can believe in Christ intellectually and admire Him;
you can say your prayers to Him; you can
push coins at Him under the door; you can be moral, decent, upright, and good;
you can be religious and pious; you can have been baptized and confirmed; you
can be deeply versed in the philosophy of religion; you can be a theological
student and even an ordained minister – and still not have opened the door to
Christ. There is no substitute for this.”
Sometimes, it’s like a wind that blows where it wishes
and you hear the sound of it but do not know where it comes from and where it
is going.
A few days ago, in the wet market, I was hanging
around waiting for my “suki” in getting done deboning a few pieces of milkfish
I paid for. While she was wrapping up the deboned fish, I caught sight of a pile
of fish bones passed up by previous customers. I thought of my cats and dog so,
I asked my suki if I could take them home. All of a sudden, a Badjao kid came
up and asked my suki for the same fish bones, to whom my suki replied: “It’s already
taken.” Before I could say a word, in a fraction of a second, the Badjao took
off.
Later that day, as I was feeding my cats and dog the fried
fish bones, I wrestled with the thought of what that Badjao’s family was eating
for dinner.
Mother Teresa was asked: “How can you keep serving the
poor, the sick, and the dying with such vigor? What’s the secret? How do you do
it?”
“Whenever I meet someone in need,” she said, “it’s Jesus
in his most distressing disguise.”
Here’s a Salary Grade 31 P300K question: Does Gadon possess a bit of such a “right stuff” – friendship with the poor -- to love and serve the last, the lost, and the least in law and life?
Head collage
photos courtesy of Jean & Marsavi-WordPressdotcom, Getty Images,
Shutterstock, The Strait Times, Global Giving, and The Borgen Project
Video clips courtesy of YouTube
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