LIFE

Am back with a bang! This essay (unedited version) just won as an oratorical piece in ymca's academic olympics. I actually only have a vague idea of what an oration is. but my hands just wrote and wrote and wrote.

L I F E

Have you eaten or killed a priest?

The question sounds gory. But everyday we're actually confronted with news which show non-respect.

Not really just respect for priests whose powers of Divine Right have often been invoked in centuries past. But whose same powers divided the rest of humanity into believers and non-believers. Unfortunately, the non-believers and non-supporters of the status quo had to sacrifice their lives.

Not really just respect for the privileged whose capital has moved the economy to produce ships, computers and phones- technologies which have made our lives more comfortable. Unfortunately, the world has to reach a point of being divided into the haves (or so much haves) to the, literally, have-nots.

The Sumilao farmers walked so many kilometers last year to settle a land dispute. They have returned to Mindanao during the Yuletide season, having been given a promise by the current administration. But they're back, a month after, walking again until as they've said "our feet have reached our own land."

But how serious is this government in being true to its promise of land for the landless? The Comprehensive Agararian aReform Program (CARP) has only accomplished a dismal 56% (!) of its target of redistributing land since its inception to the '90s.

Remember Amper? She's only 14 when she decided to commit suicide because of worry over an impoverished life. Priests even have to debate whether to permit her body to receive the last rite. Because it is church's policy not to admit those who committed suicide.

Sounds like Dagohoy's case. His brother's dead body was denied church service because he was a rebel. But this was during the Spanish occupation of the Philippines! or more than 300 years ago. Amper died last year.

Amper actually went to school before she died. Now that sounds hopeful!

Government has been offering free elementary education - true to its Millenium Development Goad. Unfortunately, only 1 out of 10 Filipino child is able to finish tertiary education. Do you think Amper's life would have been better had she lived?

Have we forgotten to pray that's why these things are happening? Have we forgotten to attend Mass? Have we forgotten the 10 Commandments?

But what if you had a different religion? a different belief? a different way of life? a different perspective?

What does spirituality imply? For one, that in each body a spirit resides. But before one can be spiritual, one has to respect the body where the spirit resides. One has to respect life.

But how do you respect somebody different?

Do you annihilate difference? No! We create venues to express our differences - the rich and the poor, the women and men, the well and the physically-challenged, the administration supporters and the revolutionaries.

We institutionalize these venues which express our dissimilarities. We have the tribe or the family, the church, the government, the court and the laws, organizations, and communities. As one political figure once said, "We have to let a million flowers bloom!" And we build consensus from our differences.

Because in the end, there's really only one basic thing to sustain and be in solidarity with - no matter how different we are from each other. And that is, LIFE!