Dr. Jose Rizal, HAPPY BIRTHDAY – 6/19/2008
I should wish to report to you again this year more of the same I reported to you in spirit during the previous years. Your enemies – those in authority who had you arrested, jailed, and executed – are still here. They are still much in authority over the minds and hearts of our people. Your enemies are still in authority in control of most of our schools, colleges, and universities. They still basically teach the nation’s youth how to pray - how solve real problems by reaching out to fantasy solutions. It is of course the worst possible training any youth can have for their outreach to emotional growth and intellectual maturity. Worse yet, the nation’s youth are still impressed upon to believe that after birth – there is a better foreign country to go to; like after death – there is a better next world to go to.
Oh yes Sir, we continue to be the same victims of indoctrination, not the masters of education. We are still into the religious way of believing than we should already be into the scientific way of thinking. Indeed, we continue to ignore science to help us develop as a nation of dignified men and self-respecting women, and not as a herd of fanatical bigots who would solve the problems of evil with more evils. Such as, in the end, no matter what – with the power of prayer to a supreme power somewhere out there – such power will always provide for us down here.
Sir, even more painful to admit, millions of Filipinos continue to contribute daily to keeping the Philippines poor and backward. We continue to add on to our already needless population growth. The religious morons of our sick society continue to insist that there is no such thing as overpopulation problem today in the Philippines. They still insist that our society has not surpassed the economic basis for providing Filipinos with adequate food, housing, and schooling. That there is still plenty in the Philippines even for a population of 180 million Filipinos. And so, an average of 3 babies are born every minute of the day or 1.8 million babies born yearly in the Philippines. When they grow up, such babies are also taught in school to refer to the same bible for moral growth and spiritual development. Indeed, the same bible that teaches us to love not this world, neither the things that are in this world; and to take no thought for tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself. In the meantime, life in general in the Philippines can only be characterized as the daily competition to be the criminal rather than be the victim of the criminals.
Sir, again this year, as it was during the previous years, the politicians in government serve our country not by telling the bitter truth, but by telling sweet lies. The sweeter the lies, the sweeter their promotion in government office. Ours continue to be a government of the corrupt, by the corrupt, and for the corrupt.
To think that the worst kind of poverty is the poverty of the mind. Such horrors come from our schools, colleges, and universities. Take a serious look at the millions of our college educated men and women all working not for our country’s growth and development, but employed in foreign countries enjoying the best of wealth. The kind of wealth that comes from science which is all about the courage to change and to improve under a self-correcting enterprise.
Sir, you were certainly a real hero during your century. Today, in our own century, instead of heroes, what we have in our God-fearing country are God-fearing politicians indoctrinated to embrace blind faith, not to make use of the power of knowledge and its diffusion. Our politicians would readily pray to divinity - to remedy the traditional ills of our sick society. Nobody seems to pay any serious attention to remedy our rotten to the core system of education - the root cause of our stagnation as a nation bereft of any sense of direction.
Yours sincerely,
Poch Suzara
High School Dropout Assn of the
Philippines
8 Zipper St, San Lorenzo village
Makati City