How responsibility of the Filipino youth can refine the Philippines.
When people know their goals and are wholly dedicated in pursuing it with the intention of helping others, they create a web of continuous development that can build the Philippines into something it should have been a long time ago.
In a study conducted by Prim Paypon, the founder of a philanthropic, volunteer-based organization named The Dream Project PH, he interviewed a total of 614 Filipino teenagers coming from different socioeconomic classes and asked them if they have a dream in life. Much to his dismay, he found that 7 out of 10 members of the sample replied that they have no dream, that they haven’t discovered and understood their responsibility yet.
Additionally, he found that the reasons for this worrisome phenomenon are discouraging words from other people, lack of self-esteem, lack of passion, lack of opportunity, and lastly, poverty.
In a severely problematic nation such as the Philippines where its sovereignty is receiving the silent treatment, its compliance to human rights thrown out of the window and its bright future constantly threatened by the presence (and upcoming presence) of untrustworthy officials, unmotivated citizens will undoubtedly prolong and amplify such problems by creating a new breed of apathetic and unwillful people who have no intention or ambition to contribute something to the country.
Responsibility is what drives a person to crave a productive life. It gives someone a sense of duty that allows them to explore themselves as well as their limits. With this, they can incorporate it to fulfill a goal that has the intention of giving out a common benefit.
Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, provides an excellent summary to this when he wisely said that when we leave out responsibility; we concurrently leave out the meaning of life. Peterson added:
“Pick something up and carry it. Make it heavy enough so that you can think ‘useless as I am, at least I can move that from there to there”.
What this implies is that a well-understood responsibility can give any man’s life, even if that life is full of foolishness, something to live for. Responsibility is what makes fools holy.
However, when people have nothing to live for, then they are essentially stuck in limbo. In the context of the Philippines, when Filipinos, most especially the youth, fail to discover their responsibility as a human and as a citizen of the Philippines, they will utterly fall into a sinkhole of boredom, emptiness and most especially the feeling of uselessness and regret for wasting the abundant, precious time they were given. These emotions all provoke a chronic, internal pain that lead people into craving temporary, low-class pleasures such as illegal drugs and alcohol.
The effects of lackluster responsibility are evident in Metro Manila’s ghettos where alcohol binging and covert drug operations usually take place which then produce unsafe environments that leave children vulnerable and exposed to a world they’re not supposed to see.
Responsibility is what gives the people the desire to prevent environments like these from forming. When people know their goals and are wholly dedicated in pursuing it with the intention of helping others, they create a web of continuous development that can build the Philippines into something it should have been a long time ago. Ambitious doctors create better medicine and technology for the ill. Ambitious architects and engineers create better infrastructure. Ambitious politicians resist corruption.
Nothing can be done when we don’t even know what to do. However, how can we know what to do?
The Philippines’ poor are undoubtedly constantly faced with obstacles in the form of their surrounding social structures that preclude them from discovering their ambition and their responsibility. The first thing that can be accomplished is that the government should heavily invest in upgrading public educational facilities as well as adding more. This will ensure that students will always receive quality education and within this, they can discover their own dreams.
After all, school is meant to be a place where dreams are formed. Perhaps the reason why various subjects such as mathematics, science and Filipino are taught is to act as a trigger for students who are interested in either of those fields. For instance, a student who likes science more than the other subjects may take up a career related to science in the future. The same can be said for those who find more appeal in literary and linguistic subjects such as English and Filipino.
School is a place where the youth is nurtured and matured in preparation for the further enhancement of the Philippines and judging from the current state of a lot of public schools in the Philippines, it seems that the Department of Education (DepEd) doesn’t take this to heart.
Another solution is to give the discussion of social issues and current events more emphasis in the curriculum. One can argue that this has already been remedied by the Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) subject however it is better if other subjects such as English and Filipino incorporate the topic of social issues into their lessons. Perhaps classroom debates should be more frequent.
Lastly, co-curricular and extracurricular clubs should be given more attention as these can serve as good mediums for boosting one’s passion and interest. For instance, math clubs have a tendency of joining inter-school math competition and this makes members indulge themselves more in the field of math. Similarly, a debate club trains members in filling themselves with as much information as possible in a process known as matter-loading and the information gathered here ranges from a variety of fields such as political systems and economics. Consequently, debaters tend to be more informed and are equipped with the ability to quickly find solutions and alternatives to an issue.
The Philippines is a problematic country that demands plenty of solutions and to resolve this, people must be fully equipped with a responsibility that aims to serve themselves, their loved ones and the society. Responsibility is something that the government needs to invest on now for responsibility is the foundation of the Philippines’ potential uprising.
If a society has people who do not know their responsibilities and are apathetic to the issues that surround it, then the society has no reason to co-exist with its ignorant constituents.
