In all my years in the Philippines and abroad working for Filipinos as well, I found out that many Filipinos have a common denominator – an undying strong hope. Why? Maybe because as Christians, hope is something that God has instilled in us, thus many of us can fully agree with Martin Luther King Jr.: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”.

One of my favorite quotes about hope comes from the Chinese writer and inventor Lin Yutang: “Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence”. Is there no longer any road that leads us to hope for the Philippines or did we just divert our attention and direction to other things, instead of walking in that direction so that this road to hope would appear! Each Filipino/a with good sense would agree with me that this is still possible.

But are we going in the right direction? We have all seen how this invisible road can materialize after natural calamities when we join together to help one another, especially the victims. Yet do we have to wait for another typhoon or a big calamity to make this invisible road appear?

Active citizenship 
Let’s continue our panoramic view and take a look now at our leaders and politics. Do our leaders understand that politics is a personal calling which emerges from the circumstances and speaks through one’s conscience? Believers clearly discern the voice of God entrusting a task to them here. But non-believers also feel called to politics by a social need, by a weaker group that is requesting help, by a violated human right, or by the desire to do something good for their city or their nation.

The response to a political vocation is thus, first of all, an act of fraternity. In fact, one does not become politically active simply in order to resolve a problem; one acts upon public matters and tackles issues that are of concern to others, desiring their good as if it were one’s own. This is what many developed countries would call “Active Citizenship”.

Acting in this way enables politicians to listen attentively to citizens, to get to know their needs and resources. It helps them to understand the history of their city, to value its cultural patrimony and associations. In this way, one is able to discern, little by little, its true vocation and to confidently map out its journey. In reality, the responsibility of this type of “political love” is to create and preserve conditions which enable all other types of love to blossom: the love of young people who want to get married and who need a house and job; the love of those who want to study and who need schools and books; the love of those who have their own business and who need roads and railways, clear and reliable rules….

In fact, Chiara Lubich, regarded as a modern mystic by many and a founder of the biggest ecumenical lay association in the world, described politics to a Congress of European Politicians in Innsbruck, Austria, on November 12, 2001: 
“Politics is the love of all loves, which gathers into the unity of a common design the resources of persons and groups and provides the means for each one to freely fulfill his or her own vocation. Politics also fosters collaboration among all, bringing together the needs with the resources, the questions with the answers, instilling mutual trust among all. Politics can be compared to the stem of a flower which supports and nourishes the renewed budding of petals in the community.

“We all know that today there are citizens for whom the city hardly exists, citizens for whom the institutions find it difficult to come up with answers. There are also those who feel excluded from the social fabric and separated from the political body because of a lack of employment, housing, or adequate health care. Citizens bring these and many other problems daily before whoever governs the city. The answers they receive are decisive to their feeling that they too are full-fledged citizens, to giving them the desire and possibility to participate in social and political life.

“From this point of view, then, the town or municipality is the most important institution because it is closer to the people and comes into direct contact with all types of needs. And it is through his or her relationship with the municipality, in its various expressions, that a citizen develops a sense of gratitude – or resentment – towards the institutions as a whole, including more distant ones, like the federal Government.

“Proceeding now to consider the national dimension of politics, the relationships between the main political currents which alternate in governing our country, we note that living out our political choice as a vocation of love leads us to understand that others, who have made a political choice different from our own, can be motivated by an analogous vocation of love. They too – in their own way – are part of the same design, even when they become our political opponents. Fraternity enables us to recognize their task, to respect it, to help them be faithful to it – also through constructive criticism – while we remain faithful to our own.

“We should live fraternity so well that we reach the point of loving the party of the other as we love our own, knowing that neither party was born by chance, but each was born as the answer to a historical need within the national community. And it is only by meeting all the needs, only by harmonizing them in a common design, that politics can attain its true goal. Fraternity enhances the authentic values of each one and rebuilds the whole political design of a nation.”

Messianic syndrome 
Is this then our way of living politics? Are our leaders living for this cause or only for themselves? We Filipinos have a very bad habit of considering the candidate we voted for and who won a seat in the government as a sort of “messiah or savior” because we put on her/him all the responsibilities for solving our problems without ever thinking as citizens that first of all, we have a role and responsibilities and duties to live.

Our national hero, Jose Rizal once explained: “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves”, and yet how many times we offer ourselves as slaves to our leaders to obtain their favor instead of the favor of the whole community? Filipinos seem to love their country. We can sing well our “Lupang Hinirang” (national anthem), recite even our national oath “Panatang Makabayan” perfectly, make the sign of the cross most reverently every time we pass a church or a graveyard, and yet we’re always ready to close our eyes and evade any rule our country would have us follow.

Love for our country should help us understand the love that others may have for their country which also has its own design of love. Those who respond to their political vocation by beginning to live fraternity enter into a universal dimension which opens them up to all humanity. They are mindful of the universal consequences of their choices. They ask themselves if their decisions, while serving the interests of their nation, are not detrimental to others. In this way, each political act, not only those of a national government, but also the most detailed and specific choices made in the smallest municipality of the most distant province, assumes a universal significance, because the politician who implements it is fully human and completely responsible. Filipino politicians who practice “pakikiisa” (making ourselves one with the others by sharing whatever feelings they may have) have the potential to love the political party of others as they love their own.

But do we Filipinos love our country? 
Are we disciplined in our way of doing things? Like when driving on the road or setting up a business, cleaning up our waste, drinking and gambling, etc.? Abroad, we do things “nicely and clean”, in the sense that we become law-abiding citizens not because we want it, or have changed our habits, but because we’re obliged by the law to do it. In the Philippines, we don’t really know the meaning of law!!! Love for oneself is good if it leads us to love and serve others as we love ourselves… It’s the golden rule that whatever one wants always reflects on what he/she does to and for others. If love for oneself of every Filipino is limited only to himself, then truly hope is dead in every Filipino. Hope is dead in the Philippines.

Whatever has happened to our “Bayanihan” spirit (a sense of helping one another symbolically portrayed in carrying a nipa hut together)? Do we revive it only for “special occasion” like when the big typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng, Santi, Yolanda strike us?

Let’s multiply hope by being its true re-incarnation everywhere we are or whatever we’re doing. Let’s choose our future leaders wisely in the coming elections. Let’s select our politicians more for their honesty and character, rather than for their good looks or promises to the electorate. If we do this, then maybe the children of our children could finally see a better future and truly see this road coming into existence.

Roberto A. Samson