Last Monday, September 9, 2013 a war began between the government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). As a Filipino, I wanted to blame the MNLF for the war but as I learned about their reasons why they had to start a war I couldn’t help but blame the government as well. In my blog today, as required I would be mentioning the three core values from this event.
UNITY. First of all, unity among citizens is what a country needs. Obviously, thats what we don’t really have among the Filipinos. We may have unity but you can’t call it a nationwide kind if unity. If I we had unity maybe, just maybe things like these won’t happen and there wouldn’t be any rebels in the country. For me, having no unity has a big factor about everything thats happening in the country. If we had unity, I’m sure that my fellow Filipinos who are Muslims wouldn’t feel the way they do now which is not feeling part of the community. In my opinion, a lot of people think that Muslims are rebels (no offense) but they are wrong! Its just that they are being discriminated since they are kind of different from us but mind you, they too are Filipinos and we all have equal rights. For me, what Martin Luther said which is “We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.” reflects our country so well because as it said, we Filipinos have learned to live our own lives as individuals but we never learned to live as one country with unity among everyone.
PEACE. Freedom, security and harmony. These are what defines peace. If I were to look at what’s happening at this moment, I don’t see any of these. Zamboanga, at the moment isn’t a place that you could say has peace. It is full of war, hatred, grudges between each side which I think causes all of the war. In my opinion, there wouldn’t be such things if peace was within all of us. If all of us would prefer to have peace, we wouldn’t want to start a government of our own. In the point of view of a Filipino Citizen living in Zamboanga, I think that more than all the relief goods they need, peace is the most important among all. To sum things up, there is no peace in Zamboanga.
GOVERNANCE. When it comes to the government, I can see their effort but I just think that it isn’t enough. If you think through the reasons behind this civil war, maybe the government could have done something to at least prevent it from happening. If the government could have handled the MNLFs better, maybe they wouldn’t be hating them now. I feel like they can put their words into action rather than just announcing what they are going to do about this and that. If I was an MNLF, I would be happy and satisfied to see that even if their wish wouldn’t be granted, there’s still effort from the government to put things in order for the sake of everyone. If I were to rate the effort of the government, 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest, I’d give them 7.5 which means pass but can be improved.
Aside from these three, the most important thing an individual should have is faith in the Lord! Thank you for reading! I hoped you learned something and had fun as well! 🙂
The Paradise In Me 