Re-evaluating our values

       (Conclusion)  

By Emmanuelle

Not to be confused with its numerical successors, the first EDSA revolution will always remain a phenomenon in the perception of the international community. The personal experience, however, had awakened us Filipinos to the surprise that the values we had looked for, or had presumed long-dead and buried, were there smoldering within ourselves all the time – courage, pagkilala sa tama o mali, pagkalinga sa katarungan, pagkakaisa or solidarity.

Since EDSA I of February 1986, social scientists believed that the Filipinos thus remain re-awakened, watchful, restive even.

It is not yet a cauldron boiling over. It is, though, a huge kettle simmering, bubbling in spurts and hot bubbly puffs. Waiting for more stuff to ignite, to heat it up, tipping  its  temperature from puede pa siguro to sobra na talaga. Again.

What happens when the national temperament comes to a boil, is not anymore a guessing game. It happened twice before. There was just enough time to land a  helipcopter and, later, to push off a ferry boat.

And history is ever patiently a bored third-person. It waits, yawning, for another event to document, to add a line or more to its fat compilation of human foibles. But, again, that would be another story to tackle.

We have had a retreat on values we had thought lost but actually not. Let us propose to reconcile our two series then:

We have already said that we suggest a re-evaluation of our values as imbibed in our homes and in schools, but more intensive and extensive this time. More than any sector, the parents and the educators (they who take over the roles of parents in schools), are expected to be involved in this process. Raul Bonoan, S.J. writes that it is theirs indeed to “identify, clarify, articulate and promote those values we need to bind us together and to build our future as a nation.”

This is not idle and empty supposition, a blind proposal without solid substance. Underlying the new Philippine Constitution of 1986, which had been voted on by 76 percent of the electorate, is an understanding of what the Filipino is and should be, enshrining numerous Filipino values. This is also the argument presented by the DECS Task Force for Values Education when it drafted the framework to guide the teaching of values on all levels including college.   

What are these values to build on?  Most important are the values of peace andactive non-violence, and the constitutional principle of civilian supremacy and respect for human rights. Social justice. Economic self-sufficiency through self-reliance. Nationalism and bayanihan. 

Character formation is not bounded by time and place. It is subjective rather than objective. Learning and inculcating values, like eating and digesting, is one continuing process, from home to school to community and back to home. As life flows, the cycle goes.

It is learning transmitted through the senses, much like a baby learning his language. When a child consistently saw or heard or lived with dishonesty,  insincerity, selfishness or   violence as ordinary accepted events in his everyday  life, would you expect this child to grow-up, to mature, to succeed as tomorrow’s citizen or leader  with  honesty, sincerity, selflessness and peace  in  his heart and mind? Kailan puputi ang uwak?

If there were more of them than less, need we fear the aliens from space?

(Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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