Still Learning, Still Hoping

powerpens (41)in #journalism • 6 years ago (edited)

We cannot change the past. We can only move forward along the arrow of time. If we learn from the lessons of the past, we may be able to improve our present condition, and probably pave a better future for our children.

📷 @powerpens 🌏 Carabao Island, Romblon, Philippines.

The most important thing I have learned is that freedom is fragile. A nation could lose it at the hands of dictators. The ideals and values we hold dearly could crumble. Yet no amount of fake news, whitewashing, and revisionism can alter the truth. Today, we live in a cliche where history repeats itself but someday we will learn. When that happens we will escape this eternal time loop.

"The Filipino is worth fighting for" and the blood of our martyrs will nourish the soul of our nation.

Someday we will learn. Someday we will look back to this fateful day forgiving the misgivings of our generation yet never forgetting the lessons of history. Someday we will connect the dots and realize: #neveragain

We can never be more hopeful that our nation will see the dawn. We will #neverforget what our heroes fought for. Our freedom comes at a steep prize. It was paid by blood of those who are gone before us. Jose Rizal wrote, "I die without seeing the dawn's light shining on my country... You, who will see it, welcome it for me... don't forget those who fell during nighttime."

We have yet to see the dawn and the night seems to be so dark these days but then again our hope is strong.

We may be in one of the dark periods of history again but as Martin Luther King quotes "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice". A similar statement was printed in the book “Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry”:

"We cannot understand the moral Universe. The arc is a long one, and our eyes reach but a little way; we cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; but we can divine it by conscience, and we surely know that it bends toward justice. Justice will not fail, though wickedness appears strong, and has on its side the armies and thrones of power, the riches and the glory of the world, and though poor men crouch down in despair. Justice will not fail and perish out from the world of men, nor will what is really wrong and contrary to God’s real law of justice continually endure."

First published on
https://x.rappler.com/x/powerpens on September 21st, the anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.