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any things about the remarkable campaign that made Barack Obama the first black president of the United States have been noted and commented upon, but an aspect that is particularly relevant to the Philippine political situation is the role played by the youth vote.
Obama himself spoke about this at the Youth Ball, one of 10 official balls held on the night of his inauguration. He thanked the legions of young Americans who worked to make sure that he became the 44th president of the United States. He said: “I’ve been looking forward to this ball for quite some time because, when you look at the history of this campaign, what started out as an improbable journey when nobody gave us a chance was carried forward, was inspired by, was energized by young people all across America. “I can’t tell you how many people have come to us and said, ‘I was kind of skeptical, but then my daughter— she wouldn’t budge. She told me I needed to vote for Obama.’ Suddenly I saw my son and he was out volunteering and getting involved like never before.’ And so a new generation inspired a previous generation and that’s how change happens in America. “It doesn’t just happen in the election and campaign. It has happened in service all across America. As this is broadcast all around the world we know that young people everywhere are in the process of imagining something different than what has come before us: Where there is war they imagine peace. Where there is hunger they imagine people being able to feed themselves. Where there is bigotry they imagine togetherness. The future will be in your hands if you are able to sustain the kind of energy and focus you showed on this campaign.” There have been many attempts to reform electoral politics in the Philippines but they have all fizzled out and failed. Various organizations have been formed and various movements have been started; prominent, progressive-thinking people have led these campaigns but they have failed to break the stranglehold of traditional politics on elections in the country. One big reason for this, perhaps, is the failure of these movements and organizations to harness the energy and idealism of the millions of young Filipinos. In the United States, Obama, a former community organizer, saw the potential of the youth, harnessed them in his campaign, and thus made history and became the first black president of the country. Can’t we make a similar thing happen in the Philippines? The old generation is already set in its ways; it will be very hard to change old habits and ways of thinking. The old political dynasties and families will continue to try to keep their political hold on the life of the nation so that they can continue to promote their selfish personal and familial interests. The potential of the youth for change, and particularly for political and social change, has largely been untapped. Henrietta de Villa, chair of the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), recently said the movement expected an increase of two million youth voters added to the estimated nine million who participated in the 2007 elections. She said that with young voters numbering 11 million, they could be a formidable bloc in 2010. About 13 million supposedly voted for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2004 presidential election. “If you have 10 million votes, you already have a base,” De Villa noted. “It would be difficult for your opponents to catch up.” If a candidate gets the majority of the youth vote, he or she can win the presidency, De Villa said. “I’m telling the youth that they can install a president in Malacañang, if they vote responsibly and they vote as a group. In the United States, they were the swing vote. They really made a difference.” But the work of the youth should not be limited to voting. They can conduct a voter education program, and, we hope, they can change the ways of thinking of some old voters. It will be a case of the young teaching and leading the old into new pathways that would improve the politics of the country. Many of them can campaign for progressive candidates who have the welfare of the nation at heart. All of them can vote for candidates who will bring about change in the Philippines. Obama and his legions of young supporters showed that it could be done in America. Can’t we do the same in the Philippines?
Such memories, he said, were the best education, and might one day be the means of our salvation. For as we grow older, we are prone to make mistakes, do wicked things. We sell out. We become jaded and cynical, belittling the fervor and idealism of those younger than ourselves who continue to believe in and work for meaningful change. But in those moments when character is tested, one sacred memory from youth can keep us from going completely bad, one memory of joy can remind us of a time when life was better, when we were better, kinder, braver, more honest and true. Such memories remind us of all we once were and all we could be again. Time of remembrance These nine days since the passing of our beloved President Cory Aquino have been a time of remembrance, a time for recalling the struggle that united us during the Marcos years, the struggle that
brought out the best in so many of us, and made the name “Filipino” synonymous with the word “hero” throughout the world.
strength to journey, like Elijah the prophet, through dark and dangerous times, with spirit unbroken and faith undimmed?
The spontaneous outbursts of affection that flooded the streets with thousands of people this week, have united us once again, not just in love and grief, but more so in gratitude for the woman who awakened the hero within each of us. As we watched her wake on TV, braved the rains and the long hours waiting in line to view her remains, or trudged from Manila Cathedral to Manila Memorial Park in the middle of a typhoon, I would like to believe that something reawakened again in each of us, the desire to live in such a way as to be worthy of Tita Cory’s courage and sacrifice.
Today’s gospel speaks of the source of her power. In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life, the Bread that comes down from heaven. Those who partake of me shall never die.”
What was her secret, this woman who shunned power and thus proved herself most worthy to wield it? From whence came the
Cory partook of the Bread of Life. But what does that mean? On the surface, we may think it has to do with devotion to the Mass, with seeking every opportunity to receive the Body of Christ in the holy communion. And we would be partly right. But to partake of the Bread of Life means not only to consume the Eucharist, but even more it means to live the Eucharist, which is to make of one’s life an offering to God for the sake of the world.... Loving God and others
This is the truth at the very heart of the Christian life – that life is about loving God and others enough to want to persist in integrity, goodness and mercy even when it is most difficult, even when it costs us our lives. There were times when adversity and tragedy brought Cory to her knees, times when she had to stagger alone beneath the burdens of widowhood and later on with the painful birth pangs of a new democracy. In recent years, when events led her to call for Arroyo’s resignation, to oppose charter change, and to support the fight for truth, she had to deal with insults, brickbats and betrayals from some of the very people who had once sought her help and favor. Perhaps one of the unkindest cuts she received was the effort on the part of some people a couple of years ago to revise history by absolving the Marcos regime of its role in his (Ninoy’s) assassination. But she never allowed these to cow or embitter her. Instead, as Paul advises today, she uprooted bitterness and anger from her heart, and strove for kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
As everyone knows, Cory was proved wrong. Last Wednesday (Aug. 5), the streets became her church. Let the memory of Cory and what we were with her at Edsa continue to guide us and challenge us to be worthy of her sacrifice and worthy of the name Filipino. As we partake of the Bread of Life today, let us resolve to live as she did, with integrity, kindness, compassion and courage. May we be bread for one another as Jesus became bread for us. Writes Aguilar: “My President is she who freed me from a Marcos prison in 1986. I know that she alone is not responsible for 1986, for the millions were, as well as the thousands who died in the years before that, including my husband, and the tens of thousands who fought the dictatorship and led the revolution, including me.
it was she who “…There were times when adver- “Yet freed me from prison...” sity and tragedy brought Cory to It was also Cory who, while seeking justice for rallied millions, her knees, times when she had to Ninoy, who gave them hope, restored fundamenstagger alone beneath the bur- who tal freedoms, and who continued to show an dens of widowhood and later on example of engagement To say “yes” to God is hard enough in the best of times. with the painful birth pangs of a even in her declining years. Cory continued not only to speak her yes, but to live it This is why the people whenever she saw the nation new democracy…” threatened by corruption, poverty, or lack of faith and hope.... Moral compass Perhaps more poignant for me today than the image of Cory’s triumph at Edsa is the image of Cory on her deathbed, uniting her sufferings to the sufferings of Jesus, for the sake of the nation to which she had become a moral compass and a spiritual mother. She made of her life a living sacrifice to liberate and heal a broken people. Therein lies her sanctity. Let me tell you something many don’t know. I think at the time of her death, Cory believed herself to be largely forgotten. In one private conversation, she shared with a friend rather matter-of-factly how short people’s memories were and how one mustn’t be upset but just accept that people were like that. She said this without resentment, but with the knowledge that comes from personal experience. In fact, so convinced was she of people’s short memories that when the choice of a venue for the wake came up, the Aquinos said their mother had wanted a small church, because she didn’t think enough people would come to fill a large one.
claimed her as their own, why they held their places in the winding queue outside the Manila Cathedral even in the dark of night under howling rain, to be able to pay their respects. And why, in the nanosecond it took to brush past her casket in the cavernous cathedral, one found that one’s final glimpse of her mortal remains was blurred by tears. Ninoy and Cory were not destined to solve the problem of a people, but to inspire a people to solve their problems. So, to Noynoy if you feel destiny knock on the doors of Times Street, look to the people and ask yourself if you can be the powerful light of truth, of courage, of honor. Whatever your answer, destiny takes over. She is a symbol, a rallying point, a mobilizing factor that may greatly assist in reshaping the subverted Philippine democracy. She will accomplish more in death than in life. President Cory Aquino, maraming salamat po.
I thought -- if I just wished hard enough and was good enough, I'd wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window and freckles across my nose! More than four centuries under western domination does that to you. I have sixteen cousins. In a couple of years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have gone abroad in search of "greener pastures." It's not just an anomaly; it's a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight million Filipinos are scattered around the world. There are those who disapprove of Filipinos who choose to leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction of someone who was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier with each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a land that has perpetually fought for the free-
dom to be itself. Our heroes offered their lives in the struggle against the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans. To pack up and deny that identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice. Or is it? I don't think so, not anymore. True, there is no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what was once the other side of the world is now a twelve-hour plane ride away. But this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim to be purely from where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent, my father is a quarter Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino-a hybrid of sorts resulting from a combination of cultures. Each square mile anywhere in the world is made up of people of different ethnicities, with national identities and individual
ica, and, your musical artists in London's West End.
personalities. Because of this, each square mile is already a microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot that is England is the world, so is my neighbourhood back home. Seen this way, the Filipino Diaspora, or any sort of dispersal of populations, is not as ominous as so many claim. It must be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that is still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years of dictatorship. But we shall make it, given more time. Especially now, when we have thousands of eager young minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills. They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all. A borderless world presents a bigger opportunity, yet one that is not so much abandonment but an extension of identity. Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses who support the UK's National Health Service. We are the quarter-of-a-million seafarers manning most of the world's commercial ships. We are your software engineers in Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your doctors and caregivers in North Amer-
Nationalism isn't bound by time or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still remain essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and cultures. We are, indeed, in a borderless world! Leaving sometimes isn't a matter of choice. It's coming back that is. The Hobbits of the shire travelled all over MiddleEarth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the word. We call people like these balikbayans or the 'returnees' -- those who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good fortune. In a few years, I may take advantage of whatever opportunities come my way. But I will come home. A borderless world doesn't preclude the idea of a home. I'm a Filipino, and I'll always be one. It isn't about just geography; it isn't about boundaries. It's about giving back to the country that shaped me. And that's going to be more important to me than seeing snow outside my windows on a bright Christmas morning.