Truth-telling in my country, flooding in my province

By Rev. EUTIQUIO ‘Euly’ B. BELIZAR, JR.
February 21, 2008

“What is Truth?” Pilate once asked Jesus. Never did it occur to him that Truth was right before his very eyes. And right before my eyes, even as my country is glued to the televised truth-telling Senate appearances by Jun Lozada, I am seeing our rivers swelling like they never did before, sweeping away scantily-built huts by their banks, bridges being washed away to the sea or to heaven knows where, roads being swamped by water from several days of rain to a traveler’s knee or to his neck.

La Niña and the effects of global warming are suddenly so real, so true, to our poor folks in Eastern Samar, not simply to some distant environmentalists. And the trouble is, we are so ill-prepared that all we (especially our older folks) could do is exclaim, “We never had flooding this big before! Why now?” Now all these things, too, are part of truth. But hardly do we get any attention, televised or printed (till now).

As “Engr. Lozada” was being grilled intensely on the now-infamous ZTE broadband deal, I received a desperate text message from a teacher in Brgy San Jose national high school (well within our parish). “Father, four of us teachers r trapped with some parnts & studnts in our skul sins lst nte at arnd 11 bicoz our bridgs got washd out by floods frm the ovrflowng strim arnd us” or words to that effect. I frantically sent urgent messages to our mayor, governor, DepEd authorities and simple ordinary citizens who, I know, would do something to help. I did all these while keeping an eye and an ear on the now heightening tension caused by Jun Lozada’s revelations on the extent of corruption in government.

Meanwhile, rescue efforts for Brgy. San Jose’s flood victims were themselves stymied by the floods. Well-meaning rescue groups were blocked by mudslides and impassable dirt roads. The four teachers, with the parents and students, had to wade through flooded waters, prodded by fear and hunger, till they reached safe grounds. Some seventy or more families, I’m told, are trapped in the mountains towards Brgy. San Gabriel. The helicopter rescue we’ve been appealing for from government on their behalf is still never heard from.

But we are not complaining. The reason is mainly because the country is going through a worse case of flooding in our souls and spirits. Claims and counter claims on the truth on the Arroyo government inundate us. The upside is that many unbiased patriots in the country appear to have found a hero whose heroism consists largely on his decision to tell the truth on a failed and cancelled business deal. But what is being uncovered has gone beyond it. One truth seems to have led to another; we seem to be moving from shock to shock, rather than from realizations to solutions, although ultimately we hope they finally await us at the end of the tunnel.

Many compare the situation now in the Philippines to the last days of the Marcos and Estrada regimes in that the uncovering of truth contributed greatly to those regimes’ unraveling. The hidden health, the hidden wealth and the hidden guilt of Marcos before, during and after the snap elections erupted into a revolt of some of his most trusted men (Ramos, Enrile et al) who were themselves rescued by People Power Edsa 1. The 2001 impeachment hearings on the Jose Velarde account uncovered sordid details of plunder that led to the ouster of President Estrada by Edsa 2. In same way the present exposè of the “web of corruption” in the Macapagal-Arroyo regime may or may not trigger its own undoing. But, quite apart from this, what also concerns us is truth. From our historical experiences it seems we have basically reduced truth to the accumulation of facts with cumulative impact on our personal and national consciousness, decisions and actions, as parts become pieced together sometimes without even forming the whole.

And perhaps therein partly lies the reason behind our failure to be set free by truth. We haven’t really reached the whole truth about Marcos, Estrada, Macapagal-Arroyo and even of ourselves. The whole truth certainly includes us there. The sad, unjust and shameful realities of those regimes are, to a great degree, of our own making. We, as a nation, are from whom Marcos, Estrada and GMA came. We have created them, not only by our long-standing tolerance of wrongdoing until it explodes in our faces but also by our spawning the culture of wrongdoing from our very first act of political involvement, that is, from our tainted elections (there is very little denying the fact that we elect those who, in one way or another, can buy us). From this one wrong follow all other wrongs.

Truth will not set us free until we trace it all the way to where it is from – the God of Truth, the God who is Truth. We seem to have taken “objective reality” or its “unveiling” as the sum of truth. But the unveiling of objective reality is hardly truth if it excludes the author of all reality. We need a profound catechesis on truth that sees it in the quality of our relationship with one another as grounded in God who is Truth, who is revealed by Jesus Christ, the Way, the “Truth” and the Life (Jn 14:6), and enlivened by the Spirit of Truth (Jn 15:26).

The truth about the “web of corruption” in our land includes our not being true to this God who, in Jesus Christ, tells us to, like him, “testify to the truth” because anyone “committed to the truth hears my voice” (Jn 18:37). The truth about our fundamental malaise is that we detach truth from the whole of who we are. We are not simply material or economic, political or social animals; we are spiritual and moral beings as well. We are not only for ourselves or only for our families (Filipinos cannot be reminded enough of this); we are first for God and for our fellow Pinoys and human beings too. We are not only the words we speak; we are also the actions we do. We really should have the “whole truth and nothing but”.