| VOICES FROM THE 69TH STREET | By Joseph Sylvester Evidente Pampliega |

I am still alive. I think that’s the first thing that I needed to say to start my first column for 2012.  It strikes a better tone than saying I have risen from the grave of missing deadlines, piled-up or messed-up schedules and losing track of current issues that led me to be indifferent or complacent these past weeks.  I wanted to write but it was impossible. The last weeks of 2011 have been quite a rollercoaster.  I won’t rant yet; I want to kick-off with much positivity as possible.  After all, we can all just hope for the best this year.  Who knows the Mayans might just be right foretelling that on Dec.  21, 2012 the of the end of the world starts-off with an opening salvo of just about any possible natural or man-made disaster.  After that, we don’t know anymore.

It is important to note that today, we have stepped into 2012 still alive.  We can thank God for that; we can thank ourselves for making sure – in body, mind and spirit – that we are still here.  Looking back through the years, it was not easy, but there are more good things to come.  For a person who believes that life is difficult.  One of our common prayers in Hiligaynon, “Hail, Holy Queen,” captures this picture of life: “nagabakhu kag nagapanangis kami sa sining dutang luha-an.”

Think about that.  Just think of the most difficult, most painful experience you’ve had in life so far and make it five times more painful.  In some sense, in context to that prayer, “dutang luha-an” is much, much more than that.  Now, how can we just say, good things can come to us?

I am actually writing this column in front of my second year high school English class.  Looking at them, their eyes seem to “see” the world yet so positive.  Do they consider life difficult, too?  If not, just so a “possibility” that I can be difficult?  Or painful?  That it is full of suffering?  That the life they are going to live is actually a life in “dutang luha-an”?  Their life experiences may have been so secure still, so protected by the presence of one or both their parents, and their family, who are always there.  Their environment, like their friends or classmates in school, has shown them a picture of the world that is fun-filled, that everything is happy, is possible.  They have not experienced “pagbakhu” or “pagtangis.”  How will it be for them when they live life as adults, in the world of the future; in a world far more difficult than ours today?

2011 is in the realm of history now.  Many things have happened.  I will not enumerate events from January to December like the year-ender reports we have read on print or have watched in broadcast media.  Good things and bad things did happen. Human values were evoked, if not provoked, to respond to the call of the times.

Year 2011 has been a blessed year to see these things.  Beyond this “dutang luha-an” we have seen how humanity, its zeitgeist, after the constant experience of “pagbakhu” and “pagtangis,” surface every time it is needed, how the goodness of humanity outshines darkness every time it tries to take possession of our lives.

This year, there will still be “pagbakhu” and “pagtangis” as the world tries to provide the good life for a growing population from and in a finite world.  More stories of human goodness and greatness will be told.  That’s for sure.  We will still survive 2012 because of this fundamental truth, next to the truth that life is difficult.  Humanity is born to do great things.

Jean Paul Sartre, an existential philosopher said, “Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world (This “dutang luha-an”) he is responsible for everything he does (to do great things, good things, and most of all, to see that the future continues on --- alive).”  This is the hope we should have in our minds and hearts of the goodness of humanity at all times --- even when things are difficult. Happy New Year!*