In a country where there is no more of rule of law, what use are lawyers?
In a nation where indecency is the norm, what for do we have teachers?
In an atmosphere where public confidence in our health system is undermined for the sake of political gain, what use are our doctors, nurses and other health professionals? In a tax regime where professionals are indeed given an option to have a flat 8% income tax but their purchasing power drastically reduced by oppressive inflation, why do we have to strive to remain true to our oaths as professionals when we cannot have the economic decency to be one?
People ask me why I support Atty. Pilo Hilbay for Senator when he has no machinery, no money to wage a campaign. My friends ask me why I campaign for Otso Diretso when but two of them have the statistical chance to win according to the surveys.
But Pilo Hilbay, 1999 bar topnotcher, youngest solicitor general under the 1987 constitution, is an exemplar of what one could achieve when one has dreams of being a professional. The entire slate holds values which creates an atmosphere where professionals could be truly be professionals – whether they are lawyers, or law enforcers, or teachers, or engineers, or any other professional.
Will the Otso Diretso help create an atmosphere where a batang Carbon with a dream could be a professional and improve his family’s luck in life, so that there will be a Pilo in each Filipino family?
Will the Otso Diretso push for policies which will create an environment conducive to professional growth, practice, and decency?
Will the Otso Diretso work to repeal the oppressive TRAIN Law?
Will the Otso Diretso craft policies with due regard to scientific data and professional expertise?
Will the Otso Diretso push for reforms of our education system so that it produces not only professionals respected all over the world, as it is now, but active citizens who will vote professionally, putting into power only those who could truly represent as us Filipinos?
Will the Otso Diretso hold to account our law enforcers who do not respect human rights, and bring back professionalism to our police forces?
Will the Otso Diretso push for laws to bring progress to the countryside, more equitable redistribution of wealth in our urban centers, protection of our lumads in their ancestral lands, and respect for the Muslim minority in their homeland so that finally our Armed Forces do not have to fight internal wars and they could focus on forming a formidable and professional force to dvfeter the Chinese threat to the west?
In short, will the Otso Diretso bring back this country to our true identity, to who we were as Filipinos?