The Country's Biggest Change
Tam
is 3 years ahead of me. I knew him as a talented and smart kid before. He used
to beat me up by assembling robots out of lego. His mom is my godmother while
his dad is a stranger to us. We grew up separately but I hear stories about him.
In order to send him to school continuously and provide him a wealthy life, his
mother went to Saudi Arabia to work. During the times he felt unloved, Tam
would escape from his grandmother’s guidance and befriends with all the sorts
of peers all day and night. He had a myriad of problems that put him into
trouble and in guidance office. Today, he is known as a big-trouble-maker of
town.
The
article gave me a bothering impression of how the intangible yet very valuable
thing about the Philippines looks now. It reminded me this concrete example I
cited above, which I have witnessed for about one and a half decade. The point
of story is classic to many Filipino families out there, whose parents are
brave enough to let their children grow with their absence for many times in
their lives, at their own risk.
The
biggest change in the country covers a wide variety of factors contributing in
it. And now I know that the biggest change is not only the role of the women,
dirty politics, bad models that kids do look up to, influence of media,
complexity of technology, the growing number of Overseas Filipino Workers, but
most significantly, the family, being the smallest unit and mirror of society,
and the main victim of the detrimental effects brought about by these changes.
Let’s break them one by one.
The
role of the women hasn’t drastically changed and I don’t see the bad side
overtaking the good ones unpleasantly. So what if the family’s breadwinner is
the wife? So what if the “househusband” stays at home taking care of the
children and doesn’t act superior because he is not the one earning the money
for living? It’s not crime or immoral, rather, informal and improper. The only
discrepancy as far as I can see is that, a man’s pride is crushing down. Isn’t
it? But if only we start an inquisition painstakingly, we could arrive at a
point and say: Perhaps, it’s not wrong. If I disregard my master status and
swallow down the pride, this could be fine. After all, we just want the
betterment of everyone. What is important here is that somebody is taking good
care of the family.
Economically
speaking, once fidelity is damaged, clients loose their trust and seek other
company that suites their needs better. The same in politics, because we elect
a politician and eventually fail to meet our expectation, they loose our
support. We feel unhappy, uncontented, unsafe and anxious about the performance
of the government. By that, we just focus our lives to family and God. In a
country where the catalyst of progress and the steward of the constitution are
unreliable, it is way too better to trust on the people you surely count on, or
much better, oneself.
Violence,
absence of control in media, complexity of technology and even lying tackled in
the article all direct to the consequential effects the young men and women
might be suffering if they’re not brought up very well. If a child experienced
abuse or all the other form of violence, he has the tendency to do the same
when he grows up. If they’ve seen old people who lie and are not taught that
such action is bad, they would adopt it. If they’re raised in a troublesome
environment where people drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, gamble all day and
night, and utter bad words as their habit, there is a strong possibility that
these kids will imitate them as if those are not malpractices. When it comes to
media and technology, the mechanism flows still the same. Whatever they see,
they think it is applicable in the real world. Truly, the influence is
unstoppable without the presence of adults who must direct these innocent
individuals in turning into responsible citizens.
The
writer pointed out that children become “seasonal orphans” each time their
parents migrate. Generally, these parents work in foreign countries because
opportunities in getting high-paying jobs there are more attainable. She
pointed out more that the family being left is much weakened when the mother is
away. This idea is undeniably true in many cases. The family’s situation is
really at worse the fact that the main source of love they receive from
mother’s cooked breakfast, ironed clothes and reminders to bring our sandwiches
to school, is not present. It is easier for an eldest son to act as the father
than for an eldest sister to act as the mother. The OFW Phenomenon is no longer
new, but it get’s severe.
Let’s
face it. The OFW families change the structure of the ideal family consisting
of father, mother and the children. Some children are more attached to their
aunt, father, or even to their nannies. In spite of the alterations and all the
other contributing factors, these workers outside the country are considered as
heroes for upholding the economy by their remittances. How about the parent’s
main responsibility to provide the family a good life? the values that will be
lost? It takes a village to raise a child, they say. And as the line goes in
the writer’s book,
”Many Filipinos are faced with a cruel choice: Raise your kids in grinding poverty or offer them a bright future by leaving them for a job abroad.”My question now is, is the wealth we provide for our own family worth the days we failed to spend time in raising them? Think of it!
This was a portion of the exam where we were asked to write our thoughts about the given article.
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