We cannot go on living each day of our lives blaming the government for every problem and difficulty. While the government has a great responsibility in and for many of the national maladies and social problems besetting the country, we, the people must also accept our own shares of neglect, excess, and ineptitude.
The poverty, for instance, that afflicts over 60% of the 108 million Filipinos cannot just be blamed on corruption among our public officials. The roots of poverty emanate from the peoples' own lack of foresight, lack of hard work, and lack of proper perspective in life. Why do homeless, jobless, and clueless Filipinos families keep on giving birth to five to ten children that they cannot properly care for and educate? When there are problems on public health, education, and unemployment, we cannot just point fingers at the government for lack of access to affordable medical and school facilities. These people who produce a lot of children aren’t even paying taxes. What right do they have to expect public service from a government that keeps on borrowing money to fund public health and education?
The pollution, the garbage and dirt in our environment, aren't these caused by people who throw away their waste anywhere and everywhere? Why blame the government alone, if we have stinking nooks and crannies in cities that are overcrowded when people just spit, urinate, and defecate without any respect for the environment and for other people? The people, not just the factories and other establishments, are poisoning our rivers, seas, and other bodies of water. Thus, why blame the government for the floods when canals and esteros are clogged with plastics and other forms of solid and liquid garbage and waste? The people have to accept responsibility for such social problems too.
And why shift the responsibilities of the home, the Church, and the other institutions to the government alone? For drug addiction and for all other forms of fixation on alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, why blame the government if parents cannot discipline and control their own children? If children steal and rob tourists or sell their bodies for sex and other aberrations, is it the fault of government alone? Can families not accept their own share of such social cancers? How about the schools and the churches, what have they done to help bring about a peaceful community, and a just and harmonious social order?
Many people are lazy, oblivious of their own responsibility and irresponsibility. Half-clad men drink liquor in the street corners even in the morning. They should be arrested and send to the Spratlys. They do not exert effort to find gainful employment. Many of them just rely on remittances from wives who work as maids abroad. Many parents allow their children to roam around the streets, begging for money or selling all kinds of wares, flowers, cigarettes, or even their bodies to pedophiles and sex perverts. These parents should be jailed or be sent to mental institutions. The problem in this country is too much freedom and to little sense of responsibility.
It is high time for us, Filipinos to take responsibility for our own lives. We should stop shifting to the government many of the basic things we need to do ourselves. If we cannot manage our own lives, and our own families, why blame the government for our miseries?