BLUEPRINT FOR SURVIVAL
Leonardo B. Perez
October 19, 1948
President Elpidio Quirino, speaking before
the convocation sponsored by the U.P. student council yesterday, pointed to United nations
as ‘our very margin of hope’. The President, following the paths of simple
logic, declares that ‘the strength of any world organization for peace lies mainly on
the efforts of the individual units composing it.’
In bold clear language, the President
announced that the first objective must be the maintenance of a government ‘strong in
the support in the trust, in the loyalty of all the people.’ In determined voice,
President Quirino enjoined the citizens of the Republic to ‘make our government
strong to face the menace of our free institutions at home….to meet the eventualities
of a disintegrating world situation which endangers the freedom we have won at so much
sacrifice….’
It is heartening to note that the
President, in affirming his confidence to the United Nations as an organization for world
peace, implicitly recognizes the fact that our ultimate hope for survival lies within
ourselves. ‘We shall not fail the human race’ in the reserves of courage and
intelligence needed, elsewhere by the forces of freedom…’
At the same time, it is a note of good
cheer for the people to receive another assurance from the President himself, that the
government ‘belongs to the people and comprehends everybody… that a political
party or group of political parties… can never run the government as they wish
because the government is not theirs but the people’s.’
To hear the President thus define the
perspective under which our government must be viewed and regarded; to listen to the Chief
Executive as he expounds his plea for national strength, pronouncing it to be the basis of
our survival, is to be reminded of the disparity that exists between man’s desire for
peace and his capacity for peace; disparity that divides beautiful human intentions from
the stern facts of a chaotic reality. For while it is true that the people are told that
‘the government is their handiwork’, in the light of current events, the
government cannot but be considered an instrumentality that has shamelessly become the
shield of corrupt and dishonest officials, a veritable refuge from the seekers of gold and
power, associated in concept with the people, but in practice, an exclusive monopoly of
unscrupulous politicians and their families.
The people’s loss of faith in the
government is not a problem of recent origin. It is gratifying to know that the incident
became the intimate relation between or healthy allegiance to our government and our role
in the peace effort. We fully subscribe to the policy of projecting our national character
into the screen of re-examination with the end in view of discovering the hidden faults,
the crevices through which we may enter the doubts that may dim our vision for peace.
The blueprint for our survival is simple.
But the task of realizing it involves the best in the Filipino mind and heart. |
