wasting time?

Today, upon reading the Freeman, I came across Bobit Avila's column. It featured an open letter from the 3rd Civil Relations Group of the Armed Forces of the Philippines warning parents to be mindful of where their children are going this summer.

Apparently, the Communist Party of the Philippines is recruiting students and student leaders to join their fight against the AFP, luring them into the "cause" under the false pretenses of the injustices made against the poor and the oppressed in the Philippines.

The letter then cited three student leaders killed recently in Cebu when they got caught in an NPA-AFP crossfire. One of them was Rachelle Palang, a girl I met when TWS hosted the CEGP convention a few years back.

These things, these causes and fights for injustices, are important to a degree. It keeps people on their toes, keeps those in power mindful of an opposing stand to whatever they are planning. But being used (like of those students by the CPP) is entirely another matter. It is very discouraging, and very dangerous.

I know several people who have gone to the slums in provinces for "exposure trips", to the fields to meet farmers and workers who are oppressed. They themselves were affected by what they saw, enough to share it to others like me who were likewise moved.

I've met journalists enraged at the state of the practice of journalism today. I've read newspapers daily for more than a year, and see the corruption, greed, utter incompetence of government officials. I've listened in on a congressman bragging about the fact that he already knows the ropes in Manila, that he pities the new congressmen who are idealistic and fresh, as they will soon give in to the murky waters of politics and the dishonor it gives.

It is hard to stay hopeful for the Philippines with "leaders" like these, or with people who take opportunity of young minds to fight for their own hidden agenda. But my hope remains. Because even if I don't go to the slums, run for election or join rallies, I read the news, I write to newspapers, I share what I know.

I look around and see others who do not have an inkling of what is happening around them. They go about their lives as if children have stopped begging on the streets, as if fishermen have stopped blasting dynamite on corals, as if government officials haven't stopped extorting and squirelling away money from the citizenry who is paying for their crimes.

I feel both sadness and hopelessness when I hear about students getting caught up in the crossfires in the mountains. They went there thinking they could make a difference, when in fact they were just one life among many. So much waste.

We're wasting our time and doing others a disservice if we continue to not be informed.