Devolution

People, people who need people,

Are the luckiest people in the world.

-Barbra Streisand (J. Styne, B. Merrill)

“Those who have less in life must have more from the government,” so screams the slogan of a local politician. The words ring true to the ears but were they being translated into actions?

Jose lives in a squatted land with his parents whose only pleasure they can afford is their marital copulation. They are eight in the family and the food on their table is not enough for the hungry stomachs. Jose is one of those boys shooed by the chairman’s aide as the banquet sponsored by the local government progressed in line with the barangay's charter day. The guests with bloated stomachs were the ones ushered by the so-called civil-servants to be fed by government’s money.

Harriet is the governor’s daughter. She needed to clear her closet. She had to give them to the less-fortunate. To make it a win-win situation, the local media must document the event so that her family would really become known as a generous brood. Of course, she does not care for the ill-clad girls who will come to the event. They are just human props for the family’s benefit.

The town is celebrating its patronal feast; there are big stars who will come to grace the occasion. But the areas where the stars could be strategically-seen are exclusive for the VIP. The uninvited ones would opt to be in the places near the steel bars that separate them from the invited people. They might as well be called VUP: very unimportant persons.

When a position is being opened in a government office, the padrino system is still alive and kicking. Who would get the position? Of course the one with a recommendation from the higher echelon…There are heads of offices who will even utter out loud that charity begins at home.

These are realities. We could not close our eyes or turn a deaf ear on the moaning of the poor. Yet, there are qualified reasons why the aforementioned facts happen. But aren’t we capable of transcendence?

Human existence is evolving. The individual must not hamper his own growth of transcending the old self to become a better one. There are those who are still trapped with selfish motivations due to immature self-perceptions. There are those who could not journey to another person since the inner person is yet to be understood. Still, these are facts. We could not compel all people to confront their own monsters and tell them to be a contributor of cosmic positivity since it is impossible.

Yet we could dwell on reason. We understand what is right and not. We could perform dichotomy between fair and unfair. We could grasp equality and we understand the basic values since they were taught in grade school.

But then how could we? Life is full of affective factors which direct our actions and mindset. In real life, there are teachers who manifest twisted values to the point that their ripples are cascaded to the young minds. The young are thinking that what their teachers are doing must be ideal and worth emulating.

There are adults who make the poor and the weak as their prey. They are looking at them as their production design to make their lives more interesting and visually-stimulating...

Might as well make oneself a better person by looking at all human beings as worthy of the attention and affection in the world. Life will be meaningful with that in mind.