Not so long ago, we were one of the most promising nations in the world.

But a lot of things had

taken their places that conform the way our nation is today. And to generalize that our society has
been out of the line these past few years until now is the easy way out. Noting that every aspect in
this institution is bequeathing a bleak future of decay and despair, we are robbing our youth and
our children of a better tomorrow.

We always put everything into a discourse. Believe it or not, we do, may it be a brief or a diffuse
exchange of ideas. And for the longest time we Filipinos are talking about our dreams and how we
wish to live this dream. But we forgot something along the way, we forget to act in a certain way
that this dream must live, we always settle for less for the sake of abrupt pleasure that slowly
diminishing our being.

If we are to open our eyes, our society, the Philippine society is mired in poverty. But there are
more, huge budget deficits, a ballooning foreign debt, and a fragile economy. Millions have no job
and go to bed hungry each night. Foreign interests increasingly dictate national policies. Lack of
political will and budgetary support make promising laws stagnate. There is lawlessness and war
in our land. Our high literacy rates mean nothing when we can no longer feed and house ourselves
as a nation. At the same time, our land is scourged with toxic tailings and scars from mines; our
soil is blowing away; our forests destroyed; our rivers run dry; lakes and air polluted, and our seas
over-fished. We always articulate in our mind that it is poverty we are facing in this riddle, but no,
it is no one but ourselves and the underlying condition that we have right now.

Aware or not, social problems tend to emerge amid rapid, extensive and uneven deviations from
established social systems. These problems arise in the matrix of social change and they involve
some form of malintegration of society. Industrialization, Urbanization, Mobility, Heterogeneity,
these are the social change that are taking place within the social context.

Citizens, the true subjects of democracy, have no real voice in the affairs of the state. In politics,
we are experiencing voiceless growth. Political dynasties continue to reign supreme in Philippine
politics. On top of it all, the justice system is increasingly becoming corrupted, preventing citizens
from obtaining relief from the harm done to them. The growth of industrialization, mobility and
urbanization hides the massive betrayal of democracy. Because our rotten justice system does not
punish evil, and our goodness is not appreciated and promoted, the good among us are starting to
succumb to the evil around them.

In culture, we are experiencing the growth of moral rootlessness. We are becoming more apathetic
and cynical as a people. Worse, an increasing number among us flow with the tide of corruption
instead of resisting it. Our low quality education does not help the situation. But most of all we
have no clear vision of who are as a people nor do we have an understanding of what our collective
talents are as a nation.

For society as a whole, we are facing the challenge of hopeless growth. We are surrounded with
the same urgent issues that have faced us for more than two decades: poverty, corruption,
lawlessness, conflict, crime, overpopulation, damaged institutions, and others. The promises of
past and present government administrations to address these societal issues now sound empty
amidst the massive growth of these problems. While our society is burdened with the challenge of
hopelessness, we are also facing the stark reality of futureless growth in our relationship with our
ecology, our sources of life, in our almost utter disregard for the integrity of creation. Solid waste,
water and air pollution is increasing to dangerous levels. We are inadequately prepared for the
massive impacts of global climate change that is upon us. Our chemical and poison-based
agriculture continues to destroy the fertility of our soil and undermine our health as consumers.
We continue to over-fish our oceans and destroy our forests and watersheds. Mining practices
continue to be environmentally unsound and socially disruptive. Unfortunately, we are using this
as an excuse for the growing population of businesses that provides us money that we totally forget
what is in store for us once the means we are using are gone for good.

We are also facing the challenge of meaningless growth at the spiritual and individual level.
Filipinos are becoming more and more self-centered and egotistic. They only think of their
immediate personal advantage instead of the common good. They are also becoming more
materialistic. As a result of egotism and materialism, Filipinos increasingly feel empty and
meaningless inside. They try to fill this meaninglessness with material possessions. They do not
realize that gold can never replace principles and values as the basis for true meaning, purpose and
satisfaction in life.

Might as well, we do need to stop and ask ourselves, “Ano nga ba ang gusto kong ipamana sa
mga susunod na henerasyon ng aking lahi?” And when I say the term pamana, it is not of property,
wealth or whatever occurrence that comes along with money. It is all about the values that
encompasses through time, a value that lives. A resonance that will be able to transform society
for the greater good of all the masses, and that is the dream that should live.

All societies have social and political problems. Philippines cannot be apart from it. I have seen it
with my very own eyes, how this problem continuously devouring my country of the amount of
culture and values that was still left. And from those history books that I have read, Philippines
was the opposite of everything I am seeing right now. Such history has been said that Filipinos
now has completely forgotten, for in the society were living at this present time, thinking of those
traditions, culture, values that were once shared by our people, takes no part anymore of the
struggle they face every day.

There is a universal truth that we ignore at our peril. The most powerful governments and
institutions exist only as long as citizens allow their existence. Rizal said it more simply and
directly. “There are no tyrants if there are no slaves.”

Filipinos, if they want, can succeed and rank with the best in the world. Recently Filipinos were
awarded for global excellence in journalism, urban architecture, science education, governance,
business and financial management, environmental protection, solar energy, children’s choir,
globalization analysis and critique, social innovations and the theory and practice of social
movements for a better world.

Man has change through the course of time. They have become the victors of their own faith but
for some, faith does not define them. People, crying out for certainty as they push themselves to
the deepest part of emptiness they wish they could end. Suffering was one of those words that
remain in the continuity of the life of man, of the Filipino people. Who in the process is where the
story of every heroes, benefactors, those men who fought for the freedom that was never became
ours. Redemption comes for a while, and then it’s gone. It has never been constant compare to the
struggle we face every day. But still, as a Filipino, I still want to be here, not to share the suffering
of my countrymen but to help in stopping it.

Bibliography

Adler, Montimer J. and Wolff, Peter. The Development of Political Theory and Government.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 1959.

Faris, Robert E. L. Social Disorganization. New York: Ronald Press Co., 1955.

Jose, Franciso Sionil. Viajero: A Filipino Novel. Solidaridad Publishing House, 1993.

Merton, Robert K. and Robert A. Nisbet, eds. Contemporary Social Problems.2nd ed.: New York:
Hardcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966.
Moyo, Dambisa. How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly-And the Stark Choice
Ahead. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.