AN OPEN LETTER TO THE FILIPINO YOUTH Beloved young countrymen, I am writing you all to get across this message from the heart of a once youth like you. Back in our time, life was harder in a remote town like Coron. There was not much mechanized form of transport to bring us back and forth to school. We literally walked our way to education. The towns electricity shuts down at 10 PM and we have to use a petromax to have a secondary better form of lighting for our homes and continue with our lessons. If the kerosene runs out, we resort to gas lamp called kinki to give us a flame comparable to a candle just for us to continue reading our books and lessons. Because there was no internet, we cannot print pictures of say beautiful spots in the country for our Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies). We merely draw them. Yes, with our own hands we copy from existing books. No, we can never tear a page just to submit pictures for our projects. It was a crime. It still is! We revere them for their intrinsic value of knowledge. Everything was by hand, no calculators to give us instant answers. We learned and mastered computing square roots and algebra, and decimals to fractions. And yes, we managed to make it through high school, then college, then graduate school and finally post graduate school. Indeed the value of perseverance pays off. Jose Rizal once called you the hope of our Fatherland. I used to believe that, too, but I have doubts now. Considering that in your hands will be the reigns of power in the future as you will be running the economy and become the ambassadors of goodwill for our people, the changing times however have brought with it many factors that literally sway you away from the essential to the non-essentials. Even what you value had significantly differed from the core values which this country was founded on. Sadness stems from my heart from the fact that most of you have significant lost interest in learning. That majority of you have lost interest to excel and shine like the Filipino youth of old. Never in my wildest dream that majority you have found a bore in knowledge. Of course, there are two ways to finally learning things, the easy way and the hard one. Im telling you that the words of advise of the the elderly alone is more than enough to make your journey easier. Do not lose hope as you witness the despair in our Fatherland. We have to undergo all these events in order for us to realize our conduct, our behaviour and attitude in the future. We have to endure the sufferings of the present that our social conscience may awaken and the resilient Filipino spirit aspire for something better for the future. I implore that you keep interested in affairs of the state, affairs of the family, affairs of your respective communities. That you should continue to hone your God-given talents and continue treating and looking at education as the great fiscalizer between poverty and ignorance into acclaim and success . Remember how Rizal put it during that dinner in honor of Luna and Resurrection winning back to back in an exposition in Spain in June 25 of 1884, Genius knows no country. Genius sprouts everywhere. Genius is like light, air, the patrimony of everybody. Continue believing in yourself and take pride in the color of your skin that Providence gave you for protection in this region of the planet where the sun shines directly. Take pride of your country that other races and nations spend for just to experience the life that you live in these islands everyday. I am writing you in the hope of reminding you who you were in the past and who are you now. My prayers concerns the best of what you could become in the future - for yourself and for the country. Non omnis moriar! DATU DR. FERNANDO MACOLOR CRUZ
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 06:28:22 +0000
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