It’s a story of a day care worker who felt that she was being discriminated by her higher ups. The situation has been difficult for her since some of the parents in the day care center where she was working had been uncooperative. In fact, there are parents who transferred their children to another school because they were told a charitable foreigner was supporting the pupils in that center. As a result, the day care teacher found herself in a bind and had not been in a good situation. She wanted to ask help from the punong barangay but the latter suggested that it now depends on her immediate supervisor. The day care teacher went to see the city mayor.
Vice President Sara Duterte was the city mayor at that time. I doubt if she will ever recall, knowing that she has helped so many, if not thousands. But her decision was firm. She said that the day care teacher should not be fired. Instead, she should be transferred to another center that needs a teacher. Such was the Solomonic wisdom of the Vice President, who saw a struggling human person in the day care teacher. She had no other recourse, her fate depended on people on top of the hierarchy. But Mayor Sara helped the woman. The Vice President was steadfast in her principle of putting people first in those times when the government should be there for them.
Indeed, the above is one case of many, but it is exemplary. It is for this reason that there is something not right with those who judge things because they believe that they are seated on a moral high chair. The definition of living is rooted in wanting to be a little different from others. This is what radical freedom means. But your convictions need to be aligned with those who are in the margins. To think that one’s moral position is supreme compared to others is not a strength. You cannot confuse that condescending attitude with moral courage. Moral courage is about being for those who are powerless. The moral position should always be choosing to side with the least among us.
The problem of some people is that they exclude others simply because they do not think like them. A person is metaphysically whole, but he or she is often judged on the basis of color, race, gender or status in human society. Some people think of other human beings as their inferior. Indeed, those in high society think that they have a monopoly not only of the truth but of morality as well. This can be observed in the way the powerful, including prominent celebrities and personalities in high culture and the elites in society, treat others. The ordinary man with a blue-collar job is given very low regard. In the example above, one realizes the right approach in treating a fellow human being.
The problem is cultural. We define culture in terms of high and low. Intellectuals think highly of themselves, as if they have a theory for everything. In this way, intellectualism is on the wrong side. It’s is nothing but the illusion of grandeur, thinking that one has a special place in the universe and so, should be treated differently than others. For instance, indigenous culture and the philosophy of nature associated with it became subservient to rationality. Indigenous culture has remained attached to nature because nature is simple. Simplicity defined things for traditional wisdom. Yet, people prefer the superficiality of material culture.
Changing the world will not only require reforming institutions. We also have to alter the course of how people see things. As moral subjects, we evaluate human action and make ethical judgments. In the end, everything becomes a question of values. Human freedom does not have one precise meaning nor a singular definition. Love, as transcendence, is beyond measure. We normalize a moral wrong when we are no longer critical of the demeaning ways of entitled personalities. Repressive power is no longer the main threat to the dignity of men and women. Rather, the problem has metamorphosed into a more virulent form – the prejudice against other human beings.
