Character

Everyone agrees that in our stage of the game as a nation, we all need to commit ourselves to revolutionary character building or rebuilding for that matter. We seem to have gotten lost in our comparatively short history. We don't have the Spaniards, Americans, Japanese to blame any longer. We are quietly percolating in desperate straits solely because of our own collective inability to work together as a nation.

Someone or many people will need to spread this message to the Filipino people. We will need to get out of this mess through our hard work and changed lives. It has become almost funny how early on in the election period all these politicians have begun promising plans and divining glorious futures when we know that lasting change will not arise from one more law, one more rule, one more ordinance, one more constitution. Progress will not entail ten more bridges, 1000 miles of roads, 2000 schools and 5000 hospitals. We will need to understand that the changes we seek will probably take generations to achieve. This will take a long time.

I do want to help begin this process. Many times, I have thought about the many sacrifices this commitment needs. William James said that the test of character is not in choosing the path of least resistance but the path of greatest traction. It is because I know life is so short that I want to do so many other things but it is also because of that knowledge that I am determined to try my best to leave this world a better place than how I found it.