Anak, the sea before you today was never this clean.
I write this letter to you at 17, because I constantly dream of the life I promise we will make for you. I live in desperate, hopeless times. Times marked by anxiety, and selfishness, and endless worry. I live in Singapore, so far away from the Philippines that it hurts me dearly. I watch the news, and my heart breaks, because I know we could be so much more. Our country crumbles before our eyes – first because of COVID-19, and then because of the realization that it brings. The realization that our system cannot sustain us. The seas are polluted, full of oil and garbage and dead fish. Our brothers and sisters in the barangays are either dead or starving. The little hope we have crumbles a little bit each day, because the silver lining is increasingly hard to find. Hospitals collapse from over-capacity. The people who show up at their door are those who are not ill, but dying. They are choking with the disease that has destabilized their life. The people who do not show up are locked in their homes, struggling to find food to sustain themselves and their families. The choice is COVID or hunger.
At 11 pm, the President delivers his address. He slurs almost drunkenly, cursing at politicians who try to help and threatening to kill himself because the state is running out of money. The leader of NEDA who controls our economic policy resigns. The DOH conducts tests to report statistics, but does little to actually stop the spread of the virus or protect our frontliners. We have failed the doctors, security guards, grocery personnel, and garbage collectors who risk their lives for us. People who leave their house in a desperate scramble for food are threatened to be shot. Shot. In an age where humanity is our only friend, it seems to be so desperately lacking. Lacking in the people who run our systems, lacking in the people who swore on the bible to protect us. Two months into this virus, and where is the silver lining? Every day, this lining seems to grey more and more. It is so difficult to remain optimistic in times like these. People die, and everyone remains silent. The government fails, and everyone is silent still. (READ: Winston Ragos' mom to Duterte gov’t: Coronavirus is the enemy, not my son)
Each day, the woes of COVID-19 release a behemoth of revelations on all of us, and we realize that the people meant to protect us from the sea of change has allowed us all to drown. We closed our eyes and when we woke up, we were faced by a stagnant economy, a collapsing health care system, a failing education system, abhorrent housing conditions, and increasing military action. We wonder, “Where did we go wrong?”
Perhaps it started with the war on drugs, and the slums as its epicenter. Tokhang. The strongman, militaristic approach that have claimed the lives of teenagers, parents, sole-providers of families. We see this same inclination to violence now, even if external forces are violent enough. Even amid COVID-19, policy-making is framed around the narrative of discipline which always seems to necessitate violence. Shooting the hungry. Punching politicians who question orders. Allowing soldiers, not cleaners, to protect our streets against this disease. (READ: The Duterte Insult List)
Or maybe, the problem is pollution. The pollution that plagues our lands and our seas that we pretend to ignore. An issue brushed aside, because we think it does not affect us. But in reality, it has claimed the homes and livelihoods of farmers and fishers. Now, in times of crisis, these people have no home to seek refuge. No savings for a rainy day.
But it might also be the infrastructure which barely exists. Public schools with insufficient material and resources were allowed to go under the radar for decades. Now, we realize how insufficient funding means that education stops completely for the ones who need it most in times of hardship. The internet that is a national joke has now become a national crisis, turning productivity to zilch. Maybe it is our lack of manpower, as local talents are valued elsewhere, with nurses taking care of foreigners over their own countrymen.
Better still – maybe it is all of it. Maybe it is the system that we have been placated by, that has been allowed to continue for far too long. We might only feel its effects now and it might even seem to stop once another country finds a cure for this disease – but this has been the reality for the most vulnerable of us. The systemic flaws that disrupt our lives for a few months are the same flaws the hinder social mobility, deter economic growth, and perpetuate a cycle of poverty. Because while the trigger is COVID, the root of the problem is governance and implementation.
We are bombarded with remedies that are mere bandages but the system, flaws and all, continues. The poor suffer, politicians prey on them, and no one fights for them. Corruption plagues our lives. People die, people accept it. The system churns still. We, resilient as ever, roll with the punches. Some of us fall and never get up. But life goes on.
This is the Philippines that my family members live in. I have the privilege of living in Singapore, where skies are blue and seas are clear and the system works. But I do not see my privilege as something to be placated by. In fact, I mistake my jealousy for the lives my friends here lead as anger. Rage that this is what the Philippines might be, if only. If only we dare to speak out – but how? If only we dare to make a change – but at what cost? This virus not only threatens the ground under our feet, but it reveals the systemic inadequacies that barely hold up our society.
But still I write this letter to my children because I want to record our lowest times. In spite of everything, I firmly believe in my heart that that silver lining – thin as it may be – is a line still. I believe not only in the Filipino spirit but also in the future of governance. I believe in leaders who dare to do good, like Vico Sotto, Kit Nieto, and Rex Gatchalian, just to name a few. And I promise, I promise for my children that I will come back. I will take the lessons I learn from my years overseas and I promise to possess the drive and courage to challenge the norms of the trapo, of daring to work from the ground up to reach the people who need the most help. (READ: Vico Sotto: I will always just do what I believe is right)
I promise that one day, we will make the system work. We will reintroduce humanity into government processes and we will erase the money-mindedness that seem to corrupt so many. Hospitals will not break. They will manage. Schools will be tools for social leveling and learning. Housing will be made affordable. Infrastructure will be durable. We will protect the poor and we will make sure that one day, they will be able to protect themselves. We will raise our country to the heights it should have been. Yes, we may be stuck in the trenches of decades of mismanagement, debt, and corruption – but we still contain the intelligence, the tenacity, and the drive that drives the Filipino spirit. We, who are full of potential that we will one day reach. This is a promise that my generation must fulfil – for us, for you, and for the future that must sustain.
Anak, for you, we will clean up our country, scrub it free of the dirt that floods our houses, jams our roads, taints our government, and blocks our progress. We will do so well that one day, I will be at the Manila Bay with you and I will point out to the metropolis that surrounds us. I will say, “Anak, the sea before you today was never this clean.” – Rappler.com