Lakas ng loob makipag-isa

PREJUDICE is negative thoughts and feelings; prejudice is negative emotions; prejudice is negative energy.

Negative thoughts or feelings for one another remain alive for years, even if we thought we have forgotten about them.

Certain triggers send them spontaneously to the surface as in Muslim Mindanao, SPCPD and MOA-AD. But energy can be transformed. So, there is hope. Emotion is thought with like or dislike attached to it, as already said earlier.

Every word is a thought; it is also energy. That is why, according to Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist who has experimented with labels and water crystals, words impact clearly and palpably on water crystals.

For example, he said, the label “beautiful” is pasted on a glass of water and the water crystals come out beautiful; the label “ugly” is pasted on another glass with water coming from the same source and the water crystal turns out just that, ugly.

Another label was “Mother Teresa” and the water crystal appeared awesomely pleasant; its counterpart was labeled “Hitler” and the result was hideous.

Dr. Emoto concludes that if words can do this to water, imagine what these can to do humans. We are up to 60 percent water.

This, as a matter of fact, is what we humans have been doing to each other. We do not only label things, we also label people, we label one another.

What we feel inside comes out as thoughts and words. The textbooks we use in social studies and in the social sciences reveal how we feel about ourselves and about each other.

The laws we have, the very Constitution we all vow to uphold reflect our mass consciousness.

Kung ano ang nasa loob, yon din nasa labas (what is inside appears outside).

Government has never officially looked inside itself to see and admit where it has not only failed but where it has actively contributed in the first place to the very creation of the Bangsamoro and Lumad problem.

Labelling is rejection. Called Moro pirata during the Spanish colonial regime, non-Christians and uncivilized during the days of American colonization, national cultural minorities in the days of the republic, now we call them rebels, secessionists, yes, we have thoughtlessly used the word “secessionists” even when they have accepted life within the republic.

We charge them with wanting to take our lands which we have legally taken from them in the first place (the government said these were public lands) even when they say they will respect vested rights.

We react to the MOA-AD as if it was a wakwak or aswang (witch) and sought the Supreme Court to issue a TRO on the signing.

We say we want to solve the Bangsamoro problem but we refuse to make changes in the Constitution that had legitimized their marginalization when it could have solved the Bangsamoro problem, improve their life and that of the whole nation, too, because we can rest assured that we have released ourselves from the colonial chains which we have inherited from history.

We need to put a stop to this vicious cycle of rejection and counter-rejection..

Our best choice for the future is mutual acceptance. We really cannot throw each other out of Mindanao and the country.

We say the problem is poverty and government neglect, so we answer with half-hearted development.

Entertaining victims of the vicious cycle of rejection with palliatives is in itself a form of rejection, gilingawlingaw lang (entertained) as they say in Bisaya.

At this point in time when the cycle of cause and effect has become vicious and never-ending the problem has become a chicken and egg situation, we cannot tell anymore which came first: the egg or the chicken or vice versa.

Admission especially public admission by leaders is

an act of acceptance, an act of sorrow that one’s behavior and action has caused hurt on the other.

Constitutional change will redefine relationships of communities anchored on consent of the governed.

Acceptance is decolonization, is liberating, is upholding the highest principles of democracy.

It is political maturity. It is a political strength. Are these strange words to us? No, these are an integral part of our culture, nakaugat sa ating kultura…nasa ating kalooban… sa bawat isa… sa bawat komunidad… nagkalayo ang ating mga loob… may kalinaw kapag nagkalapit ang loob (rooted in our culture...it is part of our inner selves… in each of us… in each of our communities…when the union of our inner selves are severed… there is peace when the inner selves are united).

Loob (inner self) is a vital ingredient in social relationships among us Filipinos whether in harmony or in conflict. Where there is harmony we say nagkaisang loob (union of inner selves); where there is conflict, nagkasira ang loob (severance of inner selves).

In between, a step before harmony we say nagkalapit ang loob (coming together of inner selves); prior to conflict when the element of distancing sets in, we say nagkalayo ang loob (distancing between inner selves). This goes for individuals as well as for groups.

When relationship between two people is in harmony, we say nagkaisa ang kanilang loob (there is union between their inner selves).

Sometimes we also say para silang magkapatid (they are like siblings).

They are sensitive to each other’s feelings; they feel for each other; they identify with each other’s interests; there is plenty of give and take.

We have two individuals, who accepted each other’s distinctness, accepted each other’s dignity, who were sensitive to each other’s sensibilities. We have a union of two selves.

Expand this into communities and we have a union of two identities: two families joined by intermarriage or a baptism.

Where the two families represent barangays, we have an alliance of two barangays.

Among nation-states the union is sealed with diplomatic relations, exchange of ambassadors, treaties of friendship and commerce, and so on.

Among corporations we speak of partnerships or joint ventures.

Notice that as the relation expands beyond the individual it also acquires impersonal features, like formal written contracts with clearly defined terms not necessarily attached to feelings.

In the Philippines, this formal written contract can only be a new Constitution, the ultimate response. And final solution.

It means meron tayong lakas ng loob na tanggapin na nasaktan natin ang isa’t isa at handa tayong makipag-isa (we have the strength of the will to accept that we have hurt one another and we are ready to come to a union).

The seal of a new relationship is a sandugo, a new Constitution for a new Philippines.