Bayanihan Spirit

Recently someone sent me a copy of an article entitled “Doing a Geragos” which talks about the Attorney of Scott Peterson in the trial for the murder of his wife, Laci; Attorney Mark Geragos promised so much and delivered really nothing for his client. ‘Doing a Geragos’, according to that article, means to promise a lot and produce nothing.

When we expatriate Filipinos talk about “pagkakaisa” – oneness or unity – ‘doing a Geragos’ seems to be a usual response: meaning, most of us tend to treat it as a dream that promises a lot but will never happen. This response seems to spring from the assumption that ‘Filipinos have never been united and so will never be’.

The bases of this assumption are the innumerable cases of disunity and in-fighting among our people as borne out by our history to include now the history of expatriate communities all over the world. That is true and undeniable.

But is that sufficient basis to conclude that ‘Filipinos have never been united’, and then proceed to assume that ‘Filipinos will never be united’?

Unity, per se, is not what we are about. There is no human society that has, one hundred percent, operated like the atoms of a magnet; even dictatorships and authoritarian systems---political or religious---need some ‘compliance police’ to effect conformity.

We are a democracy or are governed by majority rule, in the hope that because of that rule the greatest good of the greatest number can be achieved.

So the ‘unity’ we refer to, really is consensus of the majority on common goals and common actions to realize those goals. It means being able to work together for mutual ends among the majority.

With this clarification, have we Filipinos been able to work together?

Of course we have. The very independence declaration we are celebrating [1898], now in its one hundred and twelfth year, showcases that moment in our history [1896] when a great majority of our people were united in fighting against the Spanish oppressors, finally transcending the individual, familistic and tribal uprisings of more than three centuries which were suppressed with the use of other Filipino groups. Our people’s establishment of the first republic in Asia came about because our majority was no longer engaged in fighting amongst themselves but rather fought against a common enemy.

EDSA 1 [1986] was also a showcase, among our majority, of “people power” in overthrowing an oppressive regime.

Therefore it cannot be said that Filipinos have never been able to work together; it cannot be concluded that Filipinos cannot work together.

Our bayanihan spirit belies that. Picture a nipa hut being lifted and moved to another place on horizontal bamboo poles by a group of men. That is the spirit of bayanihan that is our people’s cherished legacy.

Yes, we have been able to work together and yes, we can work together, now and hereafter.

It is a matter of choice.

Unlike animals that live on instinct, we humans have free will or the power of choice.

Take a vulture and a hummingbird. They fly the same grassland area. The vulture finds what it is looking for: decaying carcass; the humming bird finds what it seeks: honeyed flower. They find what they look for. So do we.

The difference is that birds have no choice. Their instincts dictate what they seek. We have the power of choice, even if that might be made more difficult by the momentum of habit and the inertia of history. We can choose what to look for.

Our power of choice is undergirded, according to the Bible, by the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind, not by the spirit of fear.

Precisely, Dr. Jose Rizal advocated enlightenment and education for the liberation of the Filipino because the real battlefield is in the mind and the heart---in the realm of thoughts, ideas, suggestions and emotions. This internal battle continues all the time.

When Dr. Rizal called the youth ‘the fair hope of this land of mine’, he expected new generations to continue that internal battle and improve on the achievements of their forbears.

We are this new generation and our sons and daughters are the newer ones. Whether we like it or not, we are engaged: this internal battle continues inside each of us.

If we do nothing and do not exercise any choice in the matter of what we look for and expect, then we are bound to repeat the negative aspects of our history. Just as grass and brambles overtake untended fields, so will negativity dominate our minds and hearts if we do not keep on ‘transforming ourselves’ through constant ‘renewal’ of our minds.

Our choice is either to let our focus lazily continue on disunity, in-fighting and ego dominance or to consciously, intentionally and resolutely give our attention to our people’s ability to work together and uphold the common good.

With power, love and sound mind, let us choose to seek and expect the latter: for working together in the spirit of bayanihan is a heritage we can profitably pay attention to.

If we seek, then we find, so the Word of God assures us. That, surely, is not ‘doing a Geragos’.