Since grade school, citizens of the Philippines are pounded with instructions on keeping the values of prudence, thrift, efficiency, honesty and candor. Prime over them is resourcefulness, upon which the instinct of success and survival pivots. These values are fundamentally the imperatives of proficiency and good sense of responsibility, and to which the sound governance follows. But what happens if the keeper of the resources of the needy members of the society will turn out to be the very institution that will deprive of the constituents the resources simply entrusted to them for distribution to the latter expectedly with no delay? This situation is not simply appalling but demoralizing.
While local and foreign non-government emergency and relief organizations as well as charitable foundations eke out the resources that they feel obliged to share with the survivors of calamities to help them get through the requirements of survival immediately following the happening of the disaster, the very institution reposed with the greatest responsibility of providing what these NGOs and foundations are not even required to provide, is itself remiss and erring.
Only in the Philippines can one find the meaning of emergency and quick response so distorted to cover-up the inefficiency of the agency whose primary mandate under the law creating it is to provide the basic requirements of survival to victims or categorically the survivors of calamities. Hungry and grappling for food, no matter how inferior in quality it is, as well as for water, the survivors could only hope for miracle to happen in the absence of any sure help from the national government which is in receipt of billions of pesos worth of donations from truly helpful NGOs.
While these NGOs are in accord to cross borders just to help the vulnerable survivors stand with dignity once more the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development could just simply justify a so-called blunder. Continued deprivation of the help that the victims should have received long time ago from the donors through the DSWD supposedly immediately and without delay versus a sheer excuse for the agency’s fault in not being able to give the food and water to the helpless victims, which is more heart-rending and deserving of sympathy. Read this inquirer.net news? “Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman confirmed Tuesday the findings of a Commission on Audit (COA) report stating that 7,527 Family Food Packs with an approximate cost of P2,784,900.00 meant for survivors of super typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) were lost to spoilage “due to improper handling. The COA report on “Yolanda” relief operations, which was posted on its website, revealed that 19,172 canned goods, 81 packs of noodles, and 21 sacks of rice went to waste.
Apart from spoiled food items, COA noted that bottled water procured in Manila worth P69,296,400.00.” As rejoinder, DSWD agency chief explained, in an interview with Radyo Inquirer 990 AM that the “food packs got wet because the goods were not covered while in transit from Cebu City to Tacloban City and the bottled water were not distributed in Tacloban City ‘due to lack of transport facilities’.” Do these justifications deserve a quick comprehension of the public, save the victims for the while as they are too emotionally battered to favour the alibi of the agency? The possibility of further doubts is inevitable knowing how corruption lurks in the bureaucracy, with the DSWD among the most criticized agencies of the government in the administration Pres. Noynoy Aquino. This is also not dissuading from the issue of alleged possible PDAF scam still crawling the crevices of the stinking bureaucracy.
But the truth remains, the DSWD due to its failure to perform its task with diligence and foresight, has and is depriving the hungry and ailing victims of what they should have received or should be receiving now from donors and patrons. Thanks to the Commission on Audit because the truth finally came out and there is no justification that can gainsay their prior denials. What was once dismissed as unsubstantiated rumors is now borne out by hard and true facts from no other better authority to quote but COA.
If there is smoke, there is fire. No secret will forever be kept in silence because somehow the stench of irregularity and inefficiency will come out. If paparazzi photos find no bearing in the balancing scale the paper trails that reached the auditing firm of the government confirms these all. Hopefully, with this the DSWD will find a better way not to let these shortcomings happen and give truthful meaning to emergency and quick response, lest it loses what remains of its credibility as graft and corruption-free agency of the government.
Deal with him always
I MEAN, deal with Christ always. In every situation, whether it be considered good or bad, favorable to us or not, let’s never forget that we have to deal with Christ. To be sure, he is always around, ever solicitous of our needs. He is a living and loving God, not just a historical figure nor a mere figment of our imagination. He is actually intervening in our life to lead us back to him and to show us how to understand and react to all the events and situations of our life. This is a truth, an underlying aspect of reality that we need to capture quickly and continually. We need to correspond to it accordingly. This obviously requires a working faith on our part, for without it we would just be guided by our senses and our human estimations that, no matter how brilliant, cannot cope with the all the mysteries of our life.
To be sure, this faith in the abiding presence and intervention of God in our life is not a gratuitous, baseless affirmation. That there is God can readily be attested to by the very things we see around and the things that we have inside ourselves. They all point to the existence of God who is the very foundation of the existence of everything and everyone else. Nothing can exist without him. And he is no inert God, indifferent to us and to the world. We are the work of his hands, a project of his love, and we just cannot be created for nothing other than to be with God. If we just would give a little more time to look more closely into this truth of faith, we can conclude that our entire life and existence is bound always with God who, besides creating us, came to us as man, Jesus Christ, to re-create us after we messed up his original plan for us through our sin.
We need to be guided by our faith, by the truth about God being our Creator and Father who loves us and actually directs us every step of the way. We may still commit errors in discerning his will and ways for us, but as long as we put our faith and trust in him, we would surely by plodding the path that he invisibly traces for us. That is why there is always hope even in the most ugly and tragic situation we may put ourselves in. On our part, the ideal situation is for us to act out our faith, and to develop the proper attitude and practice of living our whole life with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.
We have to learn to look, find and love Christ in every situation of our life. We need to realize more deeply and abidingly that we can always find Christ in everything and in everyone.
That’s because Christ is the God who became man, who identifies himself with each one of us in all our possible situations, and who shows us the way of how to understand, react and behave in all these situations. He is “the way, the truth and the life.” Putting it bluntly, we need to deal with Christ in every situation we find ourselves in. We have to look for him in everything and in everyone. We have to find him there. We have to deal with him there. This is what is proper in our life. We should never think that there are certain things and moments in our life where Christ is irrelevant or has nothing to say. Dealing with Christ always does not make us a stranger in the world, helpless in worldly ways. Remember that he himself told us to be shrewd like serpents even as we should also be innocent as doves.
We have to overcome our ignorance, resistance and awkwardness in carrying out this truly fundamental duty of ours to deal with Christ always. We actually have been given all the means for us to realize this ideal. Christ has left us with his living word, his sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist that contains his very body and blood. He has established his Church, endowing it with all the structure and power so that his presence and redemptive work with us is perpetuated till the end of time. We have to understand that unless we deal with Christ in everything and in everyone, we would be facing life improperly, inadequately and dangerously. We would just be on our own, a rather funny anomaly.