Taking Back Democracy
The fact that the board exam for my nursing license (a.k.a the rest of my life) is looming closer is on the back burner yet again. I don’t want to be a nurse forever, but helping people is a beautiful thing and maybe my extremely convoluted plan to end up working for an environmental NGO here or in Chicago will work, so I can juggle nursing AND volunteering… So back to the point, and yes there is a point. At 22, I should know better than to dilly dally with such an event as the board exam, but there’s a good reason behind this distraction.The board exam is three days from now, but I find myself anxious and distraught over an entirely different matter. The recent political killings in my country are too much for me to ignore.
Living in a country where politics go hand-in-hand with skepticism and distrust, I’ve sometimes let my myself go numb with indifference. I don’t deny it – once or twice in my life, I’ve shrugged and thought, “That’s the way it goes here.” Like clockwork though, I would immediately scold myself. How can I be so blase about something so crucial to my beliefs and way of life? I believe in freedom, truth, democracy, free speech, and so on. Politics & governance affect all these.
Politics in my country has always left me yearning for a change. Now, because of what happened in Maguindano, that yearning has morphed into an utmost necessity. It’s been a long time coming, this need for a change. We’ve clamored heartily for it in the past, and even staged revolutions for it, but never in my lifetime has it meant so much for me as it does now.
To hear of such atrocities done stirs a passion in me. I hope that is true with most people, especially young people my age. Political killings have always happened, and most of the time we are helpless to fight it, but now we’ve come to a turning point in which we have this chance to take back our democracy. We live in a world that gives truth to the saying “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” If journalists, bearers of the truth & defenders of free speech, can be so easily eliminated, what hope do we have? Well, we have each other for one thing.
Politics in the Philippines is so immensely frustrating and painful, but we can’t let ourselves forget that we are still a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. We are the movers and shakers, not the politicians. Politicians are in office because we have chosen them not to have power or wealth but to serve the Filipino people. Our government exists because we see fit for it be there. A government cannot exist without a people to govern. That is why, if we stand strong and demand justice, it will not be denied us.
So with everything that has come to pass, we must not falter . In unison, we must rise up and cry for justice for those who have fallen. No more apathy, no more turning a blind eye. It is the very least we can do so that our Filipino brothers & sisters who have died in the pursuit of equality & whilst upholding democracy will not have died in vain.
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