"I am sure of this."
"I am sure of this."
On May 13, Filipinos will go to the polls to elect our local and national officials. It is a significant time for all of us because our choices will determine how our country will be run for the next three years and the immediate future. The gospel for this coming Sunday, May 12, the day before the election and which happens to be the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is apropos because in the Gospel Jesus is telling his disciples that He is the shepherd who leads His sheep not to perdition but to eternal life.
In many ways, our local and national leaders take on the mantle and staff of our Lord Jesus Christ as leaders of their own sheep. During the campaign, they make a lot of promises but unfortunately many do not have the intention of keeping them. They make promises to win votes. Demagogues are the opposite of Jesus who offer themselves as saviors but in reality they only want power, wealth and all the perks of high position. These are wolves in sheep’s clothing. But let us take the example of Jesus who promises nothing but eternal life for his faithful.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” And so we have to measure all candidates based on the yardstick that Jesus has shown us—faithful, obedient to the will of the Father, and who promises nothing that he cannot keep.
The Gospel says that Jesus knows every one of us. There is no strand of hair in us that is not accounted for. He knows our weaknesses and our strengths, our fears, and joys, our needs and abundance. In the same manner, a good leader is one who is attuned to the needs of his constituents. He is not one who presents himself to the electorate as a messiah but in reality is detached from the needs of people and their interests and welfare have never been his priority.
The Gospel also tells us that the sheep hears the voice of the Lord. Thus, they are willing to follow him. In like manner, the people of God are always conscious or aware of what God wants for them. Because in the end, the will of the Father is perfect and will be good for his flock. And so as voters, we must also choose the leaders who we know would be faithful to the authority entrusted to them, those who would never allow self-interest and greed to reign over their being while in the performance of their functions; those who do not lead scandalously immoral lives. We must be discerning, wise in voting, never allowing the glitter of money and gold to sway our good judgment. As responsible citizens, we must not allow intimidation and threat to influence our votes because in every election, the future of our and younger generations are always at stake.
The reason why so many societies are so dysfunctional is because people are so blinded and deaf in choosing those who would lead them year after year. Sometimes, we do not learn from the past. Many are more than willing to vote for those who in the past have shown to be corrupt, those who enriched themselves, and are incompetent. Sadly, many of us are more than willing to elect this kind of people over and over again every election time. It is said that “Every country has the government it deserves” and “In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” If we do not get the best of governance, it may be because we do not choose well and wisely. The Gospel shows us how to exercise this sacred freedom to choose the leaders of government. No one is perfect so we cannot expect our leaders to be Christ-like. Yet despite the weakness of human nature, it pays to know the qualities of a good leader as shown by Our Lord Jesus Christ. A selfless, loving leader, one who empathizes with his constituents, intelligent, one who leads by example, one who strictly follows moral standards—these are some essential traits that we have to look in our leaders.
And so, this coming week is a critical one for the future of Filipinos. We know that our democracy and its concomitant freedoms and rights are imperiled by destructive forces, internal and external. But let not these intimidate us because we, by our collective power, have shown in the past that we are capable of choosing our destiny, and choose it well.
Last week, I had the good experience of visiting the province of Batanes. I asked former Budget Secretary Butch Abad, who is my good friend, if I could accompany him and his party mates in their campaign sorties. I was very impressed and encouraged by what I saw. I observed deliberate democracy in action with Abad and the incumbent Governor Marilou Cayco engaging with their voters on the issues. No singing and dancing there; instead I saw intelligent discussion of governance record and the province’s challenges and how they could be overcome.
This weekend, I was given the special grace of spending a day in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of the Philippines in another island, Guimaras. Time and again, in the last 37 years, I have come back to this island to, in solitude, rest, watch, pray, and praise the Lord. It was a short and sweet, but definitely game-changing, visit. Above all, I was able to pray with the the monks for several hours, including midnight vigils, for the country and a good result on Election Day next week. As Thomas Merton wrote in The Seven Storey Mountain, right after he first visited the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, the monastery he eventually joined, it is in these places and during the long nights of prayer and combat with the devil that the fates of nations and the world are decided. I really believe that and I am thankful that we have this Abbey in Guimaras and similar places like the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, the Carmelite Convent in Camaman-an, Cagayan de Oro, and many other places where men and women pray 24/7 for all of us who labor in the outside world
In my experience in Batanes and Guimaras, this I am sure of: there is hope in our islands.