Choose to fly unencumbered By Carolina Baro Balmaceda, a Filipino mother
TO THE YOUTH, hope of this land. Study and be better and stronger. Please do not let allow strong hatred to take root in your hearts. Our Nation needs you especially now when we are in dire straits in all aspects of our life together. We need you who are vibrant with life, you who embody a bright future for us all. You can always conquer the dark negativities looming large all around us.
In your youth you are blessed such that with your own fresh contribution, you can heal our forever-ailing land. Please choose to walk the higher ground and lift us all from those years of neglect and abuse carried over to the present when only a few powerful clans and their allies have gained much privilege for themselves. You recall that we fought for the collapse of the Marcos regime with their brand of Martial Law, the tool they used for warped purposes, for selfish ends. But since then, what has changed?
You need only open your eyes so you can close them again in contemplation. Why want to hurt us all with your great outrage targetting the very Institution which is trying its very best to protect and provide for you, to pave a better future for you? Has it not welcomed your ideas and longings, and acted for your welfare? Ask instead: from all those years since the toppling of that repressive regime, what has been done for the great many of us, for your fellow youth in the very poor provinces outside of Metro Manila?
Have the resources been reaching our far-flung areas, distributed so that lives can be actually helped? Ask why the great number of our poor have only turned mendicants begging for any dole outs while they, the rich and secret billionaires in the elite society keep getting richer to even powerfully compete with the ordinary citizens, their businesses sprouting everywhere rounding up and engulfing our meager resources to themselves.
And how about the CPP-NPA-NDF? Unbelievable that you, our dear treasures, are turning blind to their grave atrocities, the activities and the kinds of crimes they devotedly undertake in the provinces, the countrysides. With you seriously aligning yourselves now with their ideology, what are you subjecting us all to?
Our Government has extended its hand to them welcoming them in friendship and forgiveness because that was the will of the people. But even while we were doing that, they went on continually, even to slay some more innocent folks and law-enforcers during the recent Peace Negotiations. They have pushed hard for power-sharing which our Government is not at all inclined to favor and accept, not unless it is now your will… and then you would subject us all to an even bleaker future, how unfortunate that we’d have to derail our national aspirations once again and for the nth time. Playing a role in a dangerous game is not worth giving your precious time to. Fly free so you yourselves can uplift us from the cursed situation we are all in.
Please think, and do not allow the template to forever remain in the hard drive. You can do a lot for our land. (By Carolina Baro Balmaceda, a Filipino mother)
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