(This is a rerun of what I penned nine years ago when my penny was in riyal. It is a reminder for us to fear God who is not limited to distance and time. He is powerful and so is all scripture like this one in 2 Peter 3:8: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”)
Our lady Ombudsman is a positive thinker. She says: “The spirit of good governance and integrity will triumph over the forces that sow social inequities and economic disparities. Earnest cooperation and collective effort will allow the nation to attain its development objectives. These undertakings work toward ending the cycle of impunity and poverty, and cultivate a culture of integrity and excellence.”
The future of the Philippines looks bright, and I do not thank the Ombudsman for what she says. I thank her for she does what she believes in. And, so, should I come back to the Philippines?
(To my Social Work teacher, your good lines of questioning, particularly in the context of what I posted in my self-intro where I said I will be back in the Philippines for good – under prayer though – deserve my honest answers. Honest but they may not be considered by many as good responses.)
It has something to do with my whole grasp of my current condition as I value my relationship first with God, then with my wife, with my son who is in his formative years (four years old), etc. I know that my desire for a relationship strongly shapes many of my values, but it is a gut-check time for a husband/father/Filipino citizen. I have begun to believe that more positive things will come into my life, and I should start planning how I can express my thank-yous and adieus to tough, convoluted things on my way out.
I need my wife to help me recap each night or midnight what God’s will for my family and people is. We do that from a distance of five hours, a continent away from each other… we do that infrequently.
If I am based in the Philippines, I can contribute more to Social Work initiatives of individuals and institutions while working as a development communicator, PR practitioner, and writer/editor.
I utilize my very own method and approach to providing care for and helping children (training, development, GMRC, and all); in fact, my wife’s approach differs from mine at times. But she is better than me, simply because she almost always applies it to my son. As I always cry to God, “How can he honor his father if his father is in Saudi Arabia?” If I were asked to describe the bio-psychosocial aspect of my help to my son, I would need a lawyer!
What about facing others’ contention (God forbid) concerning my son’s right to develop all aspects of his being – mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional – because he does not have a father who stays personally beside him? Do I give my best attention and care to him as a typical Filipino father does and is expected by a society that has a child-centered culture? If my son demonstrates sweetness to his mother, does he know I appreciate it? Have I treated him with enough story-telling sessions that have a therapeutic value?
So why would I intend – again, under prayer – to join my family, explore possibilities, and work again in the Philippines? To radically develop my relationship with my family. This is also because of Wharf’s principle of “our children, our culture” (Howse, Y. & Stalwick, H 1990). All it takes is for me and my wife to be ready for my return.
Is there a safe way/process to go about working with your clients – or, as we would like to call them – partners in social work? Yes, there definitely is. A social worker exhausts all peaceful means and ensures the safety of their clients above anything else (venues for proper dialogue, negotiations, etc.); but, when all peaceful means are already exhausted… it is up to the free will of both the client and the worker to choose which path to pursue legally, or otherwise. This, to me, is the very essence of critical social work: It has a strong commitment to structural change but does not discount free will.
A special shout-out to my friend
Interestingly, a colleague, old friend, and new Tutubi.ph reader asked me to rerun what I wrote two weeks ago in this column to commemorate the National Hero’s martyrdom on December 30, 1896. Here it goes, my friend:
One so wrongly trusts the eagle that they can ride on its wings and fly over Luneta (when that happens, he would have promised in front of Rizal’s monument that he will help the youth so that they become hope of the nation).
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
