As most of our countrymen withdraw into their homes or flock to the towns to observe Christianity’s Holy Week, we share with them the hope that this time of silence, reflection and prayer may blossom into individual spiritual growth and bear fruit in a stronger will to contribute to the common good.
Notwithstanding our challenges, we Filipinos have lately been favored with opportunities or—to use theist language—blessings that will mature only if we take care of them.
The future of Muslim Mindanao is in the hands of our senators and congressmen who are duty bound to facilitate the ratification of the peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Meanwhile, the Freedom of Information Act that is expected to ease citizens’ participation in governance by making public transactions transparent, is up for first reading in the lower house. The Senate did well in March when it passed on third reading its version of the bill.
More than five months after supertyphoon Yolanda ripped through the country’s midsection, a realistic reverence for the power of Mother Nature is settling on our collective consciousness.
Cebu passed the disaster preparedness test in January when officials swiftly moved to safer ground residents of vulnerable areas as the weaker typhoon Basyang drew near.
The lessons we learned from the supertyphoon in the areas of joint relief and rehabilitation work and disaster-proofing communities must be integrated into our lifestyle.
Ecological concern needs to sink deep into the minds of those who work on public infrastructure particularly in Cebu City where WT Construction Inc., the Public Works Department and the city government are being evasive in answering who uprooted 79 trees that used to stand on S. Osmeña Road.
We turn our gaze to the Office of the Ombudsman that filed plunder suits against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jose Ejercito and Ramon Revilla Jr.
Holy Week is a time not only to take stock of our lives, acknowledge our failures or pray for the reform of those who may be liable for wreaking havoc on society.
Let us also use this time to replenish our store of virtues, like fortitude that Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and her kind enflesh, industry that our undermanned disaster agencies embody, or prudence that our Supreme Court (SC) justices demonstrated as best as they could in ruling on the Reproductive Health law.
May the Holy Week, to borrow from the text of the SC’s ruling, underscores “the influence of religion in so far as it instills into the mind the purest principles of morality” and spur us into making tangible contributions to society.
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