kariton heroism

A lowly "kariton" or literally a wooden pushcart could actually be an effective tool to reach the slums and educate the underserved Filipino youth. And that force which makes the kariton continue to roll is Efren Peñaflorida's passion to teach and help.

I've read in the papers about two days ago that Peñaflorida's international acclaim is an indictment of the government's failure to provide education to the poor. I find the article's claim as something very agreeable, if some politician would help the needy they have to have the media for the public to know, it's as if to brag and shout 'look here! i'm helping the poor!i'm helping the poor!'. Now almost everybody wants a piece of Efren Peñaflorida and most of them are politicians, they still believe in the power of transferability of fame/popularity as one columnist said. If you are close to someone with a very honorable reputation and people see you with them, people would believe that you are somehow as good as them. Like some former mayor joining a famous boxer's welcome parade or a president giving an award to a famous boxer. The funny thing about it is that sometimes the concept of transferability doesn't work as recent surveys showed that the president's popularity went down.

So much about politicking these days. Let's go back to the kariton hero, I would also like to believe that there is still hope. Efren Peñaflorida is the Manny Pacquiao of educators, his fight is against poverty and moral deterioration. He absolutely deserves the CNN Hero award, for someone who probably thinks that these awards are just secondary to what he's after. This is one good reason to be proud of being a Filipino, that we could still have high ideals and that we still have the ability to actualize them. One thing is probably clear for someone like Efren, it's the fact that he didn't need the government to help the needy children in the slums. Helping other people doesn't have to be that grand, we could help even without the financial wealth, we have ourselves and our kariton- our time, talents, and treasure. Let me end this with something from Efren himself: “When people regard me as a hero, I always tell them that they should look inside them too because I believe that there’s a hero inside every one of us and all we have to is just to open our eyes wide and feel what’s going on, then let our hearts be willing to accommodate the needy, the desperate and the hopeless simply by extending our hand to them, and there you will unfold the hero that is in you.”

The challenge is, are we ready to push our own kariton?

image taken from this site

GNH

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) defines Gross National Product or GNP as "a measure of the country's output of final goods and services for an accounting period in terms of its market or purchaser's value. When valued at constant base year pesos, GNP at constant base year prices provides an overall index of the physical volume of goods and services produced by the economy over the period."

In simpler terms, GNP is a measure of how good a country's economic performance is in terms of income and production or output. In the case of the Philippines, our GNP in 2008 was T 8,250, 249 Php , what does this value tell us? Clearly GNP is only limited to the country's final output and income, it does not show how income is distributed and how it affects every individual's well-being or quality of life. It is not a reliable indicator of true progress, even economists recognize this fact. It is not an assurance that people are actually better off in a certain country if it attained a high GNP value.

Recognizing this fact and that GNP should be channeled towards happiness, the 4th King of Bhutan (in 1972) came up with the concept of Gross National Happiness or GNH making him the author of the exact phrase. Traditional indicators tend to focus on the material sense of a country's economy valued in monetary terms since this is perhaps the most objective way of measuring performance. GNH, though quite subjective and even an ideal concept, focuses on what the traditional indicators failed to measure; this includes culture, psychological well-being, education, good governance, etc.

If we apply this concept to the Philippines, would our GNH be positive? We'll probably have a positive value as recent surveys show that we're one of the happiest people on earth. It's quite clear to us that money can't buy happiness. Even in the midst of material poverty, we can still be happy. I guess we don't have much choice but to be happy. In a culture where the word "government" is almost synonymous to corruption, inefficiency, and rottenness, happiness can still be seen in fiestas and gimmicks, in the very simplicity of celebrating life. Isn't real poverty all about being unwanted? That you may have all your material wants but still lack the feeling of being liked or even loved. We all have to deal with life's great "trade-offs". One economic principle puts it, "the cost of something is what you give up to get it."

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