BY ROMMEL YNION
TO protect us from the unknown, nature has endowed us with fear which has been either our friend or foe, depending on how we have “used” it especially in time of crisis which defines our character.
Today, we are in such a crisis in which, slowly but surely, we reveal the stuff that we are made of for all the world to grasp. The entirety of it all, its substance demystified, its form unraveled.
We call it character. The sum total of what we are. Or, how we have emerged from the dungeons of our past, surviving the cycles and trends, evolving through glacial stages, and perhaps, maturing in spite of the land mines that marred our journey.
Through it all, fear accompanied us, alerting us to danger, keeping us on our toes, paving our roads and serving as our compass. To inspire us. To guide us. To avert needless mistakes, as much as possible.
That’s the good thing about fear.
But sometimes it’s not all good. For if left unchecked, fear has also proven to be the monkey wrench that paralyzed action designed to enable us to achieve our goals not only for ourselves but also for our country.
And this is how fear becomes a roadblock, disrupting our growth, draining our energy, and driving us into a state of paralysis in which everything is just like a movie in suspended animation after we had pushed the “pause button” on our DVD players.
This is the kind of fear that Franklin Roosevelt urged us all to fear. For it is the kind of fear that just fossilizes us in one corner, that obliterates our road to progress, and that dashes all our hopes for success.
If only we can hop onto a time machine and whirl back into The Great Depression that, in a bygone era, struck the world, we will meet that kind of fear again which inspired the most memorable words in Roosevelt’s inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
And, in this imaginary voyage , we can suddenly find ourselves familiar with it because that is exactly how we, Filipinos, feel today. The fear of the unknown. The fear of poverty. The fear of death and destruction.
All these fears, debilitating in nature, have created a socio-political malaise through which we now view the events raging in our country: the disintegration of our democratic institutions, the harassment of media critical of the Aquino administration, and the social unrest erupting all over the archipelago.
Terrified, we just watch from afar, unable to move into the eye of the storm, witnessing how highway robbers masquerading as politicians dismantle the system of checks and balances in our government as enshrined in our Constitution, mocking the citizens crying for justice, and trivializing the media as an anarchist out to sow mayhem against Malacañang.
Alas, we have become a nation of “statues” paralyzed by fear. If we must soldier on, let us, at least, muster courage enough to animate statues and mobilize them into war against the evils of society that have dehumanized us, subordinating even our basic necessities to the greed of vultures in high places.
What are we waiting for? Time is petering out. The world as we know it now teetering on the brink of the abyss. The more we let fear control us, the more we feel control slipping out of our grasp.
Skulduggery cannot be our guide. Failure is absolutely not an option.
Franklin Roosevelt, understanding the paralyzing effect of fear on his fellow Americans at the height of The Great Depression, urged them to face their fears and overcome them by setting goals that could lead them out of the rut and onto the road to employment, economic growth and prosperity.
We, Filipinos, can do the same.
Instead of allowing fear to paralyze us, let us tame it and turn it into fire that will illumine the minds of those among us who still cannot discern the existence of evil in our damaged culture, emboldening them to fight for truth, justice and peace.
That, I fear, is the only thing that common sense dictates./PN
