Every year on June 12, we celebrate Independence Day. For Dumaguetenos, it’s a usual sight to see people, led by government officials, amassing at the Quezon Park, where they sing the National Anthem, offer prayers, offer flowers at the foot of the Rizal monument, and have their photos taken.
If you’ve seen it once, you won’t miss anything if you don’t see it the following year. Everything is just like the way it has been for the past several years to a point that it has become so ordinary.
It’s just like this thing which we call Freedom. We were born into a free country (except for those born during the Martial Law years) so we eat, breathe and live as a free people, not mindful that there were people — mostly belonging to our grandfathers’ or great grandfathers’ generation, who gave up their lives for the freedoms we now enjoy.
We like to call ourselves as free men and women, yet many of us do not realize the great responsibility that goes along with it.
We were supposedly taught those things in a subject called Civics or Sibika at Kultura in today’s generation. We were taught, in no particular order, to respect our elders, respect our flag, keep our community clean, care for our environment, and to love our country.
Sadly though, these teachings are confined only to many people’s minds, and not necessarily in their hearts.
In this free country, we see people throwing trash anywhere, people urinating by the roadsides, drivers disregarding traffic rules. It’s not that we don’t have laws.
Rather, these things happen because no one is strong enough to enforce the law.
One of the most blatant examples of these ills is when traffic aides vanish whenever an expensive-looking car parks in a no-parking zone, or intentionally blocks traffic because the driver is waiting for his boss’ child to come out of the school gate.
We marvel at the orderliness of Singapore, or the discipline of the Japanese, or maybe even wish that we were even just halfway closer to what these countries have become. Singapore or Japan, to name but a few, became what it is today because their people used their freedom to decide that country comes first before people.
So yes, we’re free, free to do what we please. But hopefully, we should use our freedom to contribute positively to our country’s welfare. It’s about time we enjoyed our freedoms, while exercising our corresponding responsibilities.
