“JESUS said to them, ‘I tell you that anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel, will receive much more in this present age. He will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and persecutions as well; and in the age to come, he will receive eternal life.’” (Mk 10,29-30)

This is how Christ is proposing to us the best deal that we can ever have, one that gives us not only temporal benefits but also the one that truly matters, our eternal joy and fulfillment. Yes, there will be sufferings and persecutions as Christ himself warned us, but we know that he will also take care of that. “In the world,” he said, “you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33)

We should learn how to give our all to Christ, so Christ can fully take possession of us, which is the ideal condition for our life. We have to allow Christ to fully be in us, since we are meant to be “another Christ,” sharers of the divine life and nature of God himself.
This is the example of Christ himself, who in the words of St. Paul said that “in our relationships with one another, we ought to have the same mindset as Christ: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness…” (Phil 2,5-7)

We certainly have to make some drastic adjustments in our understanding of what true love is, the very essence of God which is meant also for us, since God wants us to be his image and likeness. It will always involve self-giving, a certain losing in order to win, a certain giving up to gain something more important.

Christ taught about this kind of love in those parables that compared the Kingdom of God with the treasure hidden in the field, or with the merchant looking for fine pearls. (cfr. Mt 13,44-45) A certain giving up is always involved when we have to find what is best for us. And we should not be contented with what is good enough in the context of the good being the enemy of the best.

Christ wants us to lose in human terms so that we can win in the end in divine terms which is what really matters. This is made clear, for example, when Christ articulated the beatitudes that would somehow put us in the losing end in order to have the victory of being truly blessed. (cfr. Mt 5,3-12)

This is reiterated when he talked about the willingness to lose an eye, an arm, a foot, if these would cause us to sin. Better to lose them and enter heaven rather than to have them and get to hell. (cfr. Mt 5,29-31)

In another instance Christ clearly told us that for us to be his disciples, we should be willing to ‘hate’ our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even our own life. We should be willing to carry our cross. (cfr. Lk 14,26-27)

To be able to live by this divine logic, we of course would need first of all the grace of God. We have to ask for it with humility. And then we need to do our part, exerting the due effort to acquire the appropriate attitude and corresponding virtues. We should have the attitude of willingly giving up everything else just to be with God.

Politics had been too influential in our setup that career positions had been placed at its mercy. The condition is revolting if we look at the career service as a pool of competent men and women who are had been educated, trained to perform the required tasks in the bureaucracy. We know too well that that the bureaucracy is the biggest organization than runs the administrative function of government. People are only aware from academic discussions that government is comprised of three branches, namely: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. Nothing is ever mentioned about the larger organization of government workers named “bureaucracy”. It seems important to underscore the great role that the bureaucracy plays in running government. With the best and select workers in its ranks, there is no doubt that the bureaucracy can deliver the best quality of public service to its clientele.

But “negative bureaucratic behavior”, also known as, “graft and corruption” had created an ugly image of the bureaucracy. Indeed, some shenanigans in government who have access to public funds would tinker with taxpayers’ money for their own personal aggrandizement. Many have accumulated riches from juicy deals and contracts that offer a lot of perks under the table. We hear many scandals and anomalies in government projects and the public seems to have gotten numbed about such irregularities for them to lodge complaints that often lead to nowhere.

But one bitter reality is that workers in the bureaucracy, especially the rank and file employees, are mostly underpaid for the tasks they perform vis-à-vis their expertise and competence, many workers in the bureaucracy try to delve into other gainful activities just in order to live decently and make both ends meet. The reality in government work is that even with husband and wife working as civil servants, the combined income from government employment is barely enough to support the cost of a decent living of the family. It may be the reason why many workers would go out of their way to earn a little more to augment the family income.

In this year’s celebration of the Philippine Civil Service, it is apt for all civil servants to give meaning to the theme, “Itaguyod ang Kasarinlan ng Career Service”. This year’s celebration aims to uplift the identity and stature of the career service as a distinct institution. We ought to uphold the integrity of the career service by shielding it from the bad influence and intervention of dirty politics.

We know how politicians had bastardized the career service by forcing into the career service incompetents whose only qualification is enjoying the grace and blessings of politicians. It is high time for those at the helm of the bureaucratic hierarchy in the various agencies to crumple into the garbage bin political endorsements that ruin the morale and deprive the qualified and competent who has the necessary merit and fitness for career positions from obtaining the right positions. Appointments made in accommodation of politicians’ intervention will always result to payback time once the appointee assumes the office by way of political eligibility.
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