This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 30, 2006.
As I was walking home one Thursday night, I suddenly saw a man coming towards me as if he was running for his life. The people a few meters ahead on the sidewalk were screaming; “Snatcher! Snatcher!” Moments later, the man whisked by, leaving me bewildered as he turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
Ordinarily, I would have treated the whole thing with indifference and would have forgotten the entire incident by the time I reached the next block. But as I walked farther, I chanced upon the unfortunate victim. Her expression was difficult to describe. She seemed flustered yet relatively calm. She didn’t go into hysterics, which is the natural reaction of any who had just been forcibly deprived of a prized possession like a cell phone. What she said distressed me. “Ingon ko na harangi ang snatcher, pero wala gyud (I was pleading for someone to block the snatcher, but nobody did),” she said bitterly.
At that moment, I felt as if those words were directed at me. A mixture of shame, guilt and confusion swept over me.
At first I felt indignant or, should I say, defensive. “What was I supposed to do?” I told myself. “ What could I have done? This massive human mass was hurtling toward me like a comet! I could have been seriously injured!”
Yet after several blocks of repeating these statements trying to justify my inaction, I realized that perhaps the unfortunate woman had a point. How hard was it really to do something? Would it really have endangered my life if I had prevented the man from getting away with his crime? Was the situation really hopeless?
In the end, I had to admit that it wasn’t the truth. I was running a hundred scenarios in my head where I bravely stopped a crime as it was being committed and I became the heroic stranger being thanked by a grateful woman who was again reunited with her possession.
We’ve all had moments like this, moments when we were given the chance to rise above ourselves and to do more than what is usually expected of us. And how do we respond? Often, it is with indifference, a sense of hopelessness or resignation. And we rationalize this attitude by saying we are powerless to do anything of any significance.
But history has repeatedly demonstrated that when people answer that call, mountains are moved, walls inexplicably crumble and then most amazing things happen. The first Edsa is a breathtaking example of this. Defeat and death would have been the certain fate of the 300 or so soldiers who barricaded themselves in Camp Crame on those fateful February days had the Filipino masses left unheeded that pleas of Jaime Cardinal Sin to protect them. Everybody hated the Marcos regime and everything it represented. But what was truly monumental was that after years of living in fear and acceptance of our unfortunate fate, we decided to finally stand up and stare the dictatorship in the face, regardless of the fact that tanks were barreling toward us and death seemed imminent, at least for a few terrifying hours. And when Marcos blinked, we deservedly regained the freedoms forcibly taken away from us.
The truth right now is as stark as it gets: We let things pass us by. We let our politicians get away with paying lip service to public service even as they line their pockets with public funds. We let corruption flourish by acquiescing to those who ask for bribes and extra favors in exchange for their services. We let our President get away with her “lapse in judgment” and, worse, we are letting her get away again with slowly chipping away at the foundations of our Republic.
I am constantly bothered by the fact that I seem to have developed a thought for ignoring unpleasant situations, crippled by the though of possible humiliation, failure or loss of face. When all has been said and done, I end up wishing I had risked everything to make a difference in someone else’s life. It pains me to admit that there were many things I could have changed or where I could have done this instead of that.
Many people have no regrets no matter how badly they screw up. I’m not one of them. So I think I should start helping set things right. Frankly, I have no idea how I can do my part, though I have mastered the art of maximizing the benefits I enjoy as a citizen. I have to learn to act like a citizen— and that is the necessary first step.
Oprah Winfrey was right when said, ” Each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint—and the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.”
That Thursday evening, I could have looked at the snatching episode with indifference and just forgotten the whole thing quickly. But somehow I ended up feeling worse than the victim herself.
