Filipinos at heart: Divorce, jeepneys, WPS, America

By Reni Valenzuela

Go deeper like a poet even once in a while, for in the depth of things are the best answer to every question.

Please don’t call jeepneys the “jeepneys” that are presently plying or playing in the streets of Metro Manila. Awkward. These four-wheel calves are neither jeep nor jeepneys, but mini buses that the government wants to see running on our roads to “replicate” and replace the real jeepneys.

Fine. Commendable. Go ahead with your transport modernization programs and develop bigger, modernized jeepneys, but do it with the looks and features of jeepneys still intact and readily noticeable in them – instead of developing a screwed up mindset among our people for everyone to call something (by a name) for what it is not. Incongruous. When has buses become jeepneys and vice versa?

Retire corruption and inanity, and the old, retirable jeepneys, but never retire our beautiful heritage and our brave, artful, flavorful, artistic, romantic, humble, amiable, down-to-earth, adventurous, original identity as Filipinos. There is more to the issue of modernization than “modernization.” The Filipino jeepney partly epitomizes our soul as a nation. It is symbolic of many things unique and wonderful about being a Filipino since our heroism in liberating ourselves from foreign dominations.

There was already a Filipino jeepney long before the first jeepney

existed in the country during the 20th century wars.

Alas, some soulless creatures today are just too eager out and out to go by the global standards so much so that they are too willing to adapt to “globalization” and anything associated with it by dumping their Filipino soul – and as if “providing Filipinos with a system that is safe, reliable, convenient, and environmentally sustainable” is possible only after selling their souls and/or buying the souls of other nations. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”  – Mark 8:36

Modernize, but calibrate and conform to patriotism, humanism and heroism – or lose in the battle to achieve meaningful, genuine, steady, immortal, ageless progress for Filipinos – or, worse, be lost in the gush and jungle of “modernization” and the sticky heavy mud of “globalization” or gumbo.

Why indeed dump our jeepneys? Why phase out their attributes, markers and Filipino fingerprints only to give our nation a face and spirit that are not its own? Stop governing our country in ways that will make naturally smiling faces frown. However old my mother is now (100 years old, turning 101 in February), I love her just the same. And I will never allow her to be brought and “cared for” in the Home for The Aged just like how Americans do to their elderly “loved” ones. Sob.

Haven’t we yet realized that what attracts foreign tourists to the Philippines more than anything else is the happy, smiling, caring, charming, kayumanggi faces of Filipinos (intrinsically), and their hospitable nature even amidst sufferings – as abused, used, beleaguered people? Trace it if you must in our jeepneys, and you will.

Now back to problematic marriages: Only God is perfect. Acceptance and selflessness are the keys (in general) toward enduring, lasting marriages as God Almighty purposes it – not divorce, not eros love, not the ways of the Prodigal Son.

Genuine love, freedom and happiness are found only in submitting to the will and plans of God in, for and through your life.  Life is much bigger than your tiny, little, selfish world. Be happy, but by doing so, don’t cause misery to many others.

Whether you know it or not, there is a God who loves and cares for you, and who has the answer to all of your problems  And whether you like it or not, He is a part of your life and every bit of you being.

Huwag naman po ninyong idamay ang hindi mabilang na mga “problemado” na mag-aasawang Pilipino (at mga anak nila) na maaari pang magpatuloy na kumpleto at buo, magmahalan at lumago sa espiritu at puso bilang pamilya – sa kabila ng mga natural na kahinaan ng laman at gusot ng buhay, ngunit mauuwi sa ganap na pagkawasak – nang dahil sa diborsyo (o demonyo) o dahil sa kakaunting bilang ng mga wala na talagang lunas kundi ang maghiwalay. Ngunit ang ating kasalukuyan at umiiral na “legal separation law” ay may tugon para sa kanila.

Take a look at a few (among many others) of the weird, silly laws in the country that we most love to imitate:  In Delaware, whispering in a church is illegal. In Florida, you can be punished for wearing masks and hoods that cover the face in public. In Georgia, you are forbidden to use a knife and fork when eating fried chicken. In Tennessee, there is a law that prohibits the sharing of Netflix passwords to others. In California, they needed to debate and legislate a law that guarantees its citizens to freely access sunlight and hang their clothes outdoors to dry their laundry.

From “In God We Trust” aphorism during Abraham Lincoln’s time of civil war, chaos and economic woes, the dictum has long evolved to be “In Gold We Trust” since “progress” crept in, nonchalantly, pathetically. Mark 8:36, Luke 12:15, Ecclesiastes 5:10. No wonder, the people in the progressive world, not just in the US, are becoming more and more atheistic.

Solve all the abuses, exploitations, and sufferings in our country – but retain our soul as a people and nation. Never ever bargain it with mammon and “discretion.” Listen to the voice of reason and poverty. Have a heart for our jeepneys and the Filipino couples, and the elderly, and then do the same for all the rest of us, Filipinos at heart.

Fall in love with yourself.

renivalenzuelaletters@yahoo.com