Peace Is Where The Feeling Is Mutual!

In the above image, September is “National Peace Consciousness Month” according to the Civil Relations Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Implied: “Peace is the lack of civil strife.”

The slogan is workable: “Tayo ang pagbabago, tayo ang kapayapaan.” “We are the change, we are the peace.”

I say: It’s more than people, people!

If you ask me, a warrior writer who is first of all the son of an unrich farmer:

Peace is the absence of social conflict amid the presence of social growth. Peace is the State guaranteeing that everyone meets the basic necessities. I say, in peace, prosperity is achievable and achieved by families according to their abilities.

More. I say peace is multi-dimensional, not simply people-oriented. As a people, we must be:

1.     At Peace with Environment.

2.     At Peace with Technology.

3.     At Peace with Education.

4.     At Peace with National Development.

5.     At Peace with Neighbors.

 

1.     At Peace with Environment

Because we cannot exist without food; because Agriculture is the indispensable source of food; and because Environment is the only place where Agriculture can occur – we must respect the Environment. We must neither cause nor allow pollution to occur, nor degradation of the natural resources.

2.     At Peace with Technology

Because we cannot produce Food without Technology, we must be careful that our use of Technology is economic and beneficial to all.

3.     At Peace with Education

Ultimately, Education enables us to make a good life. Education enables us to go up the ladder of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – yet, we must allow and even help others do the same.

4.     At Peace with National Development

The attainment of positive family lives must lead to the attainment of positive village lives and on to the development of a positive national life. Instead of Gross National Product (GNP), we must measure the total material things that our country has produced and commercialized with the Gross National Prosperity (GNP) index.

5.     At Peace with Neighbors

Our neighbors are those in the houses next door, others within the village, within the town, within the province, within the region, within the country, and outside the country. At peace with our neighbors means we behave as Christians at all times and all circumstances. There can be no peace without feeling right about it. The feeling must be mutual!

That is why on this September, my birth month, I am making a perpetual vow, whatever length of life I have left now that I am almost 81, to continue to write for the emancipation of the Filipino farming families from poverty – however you define poverty.

And the longer we impose the Covid-19 lockdown on society, the longer we will deepen the uneconomic situation that we have. The longer the lockdown, the more of the poor families we make.

Under the leadership of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, the Department of Agriculture is running for farming families the anti-poverty program. With poverty, there can be no peace.

Ultimately, “Peace is loving your neighbor as you love yourself.”@517