Sen. Santiago’s Keynote Address in ANCOM 2013 “Revisited” by eF.R.eN The recent upsurge in plunder cases and other scams involving high-ranking government officials and their cronies has strongly suggested that we “revisit” the keynote address which Sen./Dr. Miriam Defensor-Santiago delivered during ANCOM 2013 in her characteristically delightful, extemporaneous, and witty way. She eloquently enunciated that Freemasonry’s ideals, principles, and values had, through the ages, made men everywhere increasingly better. She moreover commented, “As your Monitor states, Freemasonry is an honorable fraternity; for it tends to make all men so who are strictly obedient to its mild and gentle tenets, teachings and precepts, and that the consistent practice of those tenets, teachings and precepts in daily life would make Filipino government officials and leaders worthy and exemplary public servants.” Next, she casually remarked, “If only our politicians were all Freemasons, there could not have been any graft and corruption nor any plunder case in government, local and national alike. Such Masonic ideals and principles as empathy, sympathy, intelligence of heart, genuine concern and care for others, slowness in judging others, tolerance, decency, probity, moral ascendancy, moral courage, and the like, are relevant to a developing country like ours, which has been described as a ‘damaged culture’ because of endemic corruption…. I therefore exhort politicians seeking elective public offices to practice them in both their private and public lives.” Added Sen./Dr. Santiago: “Generally, what is lacking among our politicians is good character and personal integrity. A great number of our politicians survive on money and celebrity, the false idols of our time.” She stressed further, “Freemasonry is a fraternal society based on certain moral and spiritual doctrines; its chief moral doctrines include Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth, as well as Temperance, Fortitude (Courage), Prudence, and Justice; and its religious doctrines are belief in a Supreme Being and the immortality of man’s soul…. In espousing these doctrines, Freemasonry has evolved into a charitable, benevolent, educational, and religious society, with a purpose to teach, by dint of rituals and symbolisms, the development of good character or the attainment of personal perfection or self-mastery.” Finally, Sen./Dr. Santiago noted that Freemasonry teaches its members to be exemplary citizens by endeavoring most earnestly to reach the highest moral and social standards and by being men of friendship, charitable disposition, and integrity, and that its purpose is to help good men transform themselves into “men to whom others might look for example and inspiration – men who others will say are men of honor, virtue and charitable feelings.”
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 12:22:43 +0000
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